Review of Austin, Texas


Don't believe the hype
Star Rating - 3/11/2022
I lived there for 22 years and left a year and a half ago. The people that live there have ruined it. Austin is no longer weird AT ALL. The weirdness has been replaced by hipsters and transplants who think that Austin is the greatest place on the planet and their attitudes enforce that. Meaning they all think they are special for living there. They are also very self centered.-I have heard this from people who used to live there and from people just visiting as well. Good luck making friends or finding a significant other there. Not only are people very picky socially about who they hang out with. If you live on the opposite side of town it's too much trouble to fight traffic to get across town.-Which I totally get because traffic is so bad. However, I don't get how clicky people are there in regards to who they associate with. I really wish things were different there. I love the beauty of Central Texas and everything there is to do there. I fought the good fight for a very long time thinking I could push past Austin's problems. I should have left decades sooner. I do not see Austin's problems getting any better either. The Austin marketing machine keeps the mindless (generally speaking) people there thinking it's the greatest place ever. The city continues to get companies to move there without improving the already horrible infrastructure to support all the people that will move there to get those jobs. If anyone reading this is considering moving there. Do your research and make sure if you watch videos online (for example) for more info about Austin/Central Texas that they don't gloss over the negative or positive of living in central Texas. With that being said. I concentrated on the bad. Here's some good. Lots of good places to eat and a variety of cultural food. Circuit of the Americas, College football. Major league soccer, Professional Hockey SXSW, ACL, tons of parks and outdoor things to do. Lots of live music and festivals. More bars than you can count. Not that far from other major cities. Places to fish, hunt and hike. Good luck!
steve | El Paso, TX
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3 Replies


Austin is the only place in Texas I’d live. I find people friendly, and there’s so much to do, beautiful. Most cities are busy, so traffic is something I expect in a city. I drive, so I don’t take public transit. If you are a native, and people start moving in from other places, this is a typical complaint.
CJ | Cupertino, CA | Report Abuse

I agree with your comments but would add that while there is a lot do to outdoors, you’d have to love extreme heat or tolerate it well to enjoy it. The heat can start as early as spring and last well into fall. I love the outdoors but find myself holed up in the house way more than I like. It doesn’t cool down that much either when the sun goes down.
Jeannie | Round Rock, TX | Report Abuse

Lex comments a lot about San Francisco. But he completely misunderstands it. As do most people who stay there fir a few years and make their judgments. If you simply look at the policies and initiatives and ideas that have come out of San Francisco and New York that have spread around the world over the last 250 years, clearly there is something beyond temporal that is happening. Compare that to cities like Chicago and Austin etc. who only occasionally make positive contributions. Whenever a place like Austin becomes popular people like Lex and Elon go there. Then everyone else, the followers, go there. The hot cool place thats young and happening. But those new people are the kind that follow trends. They follow the loud music. Then after a few years, they impose their own ideas and values in that place. They complain about the loud music, pass laws that change the place into what they think is better but simply conforms to the standards of the place they came from before they moved. San Francisco and New York has and always has had a rough edge. Just because it doesn’t kiss your ass doesn’t mean it’s lost its cool. It means it still has it. It has always had outsiders complain about it. And has welcomed those who persevere their freedom. It is only later in hindsight that the pushback is seen by all as what was as necessary to maintain it’s innovative nature again and again what is essential to the maintenance of freedoms and new ideas. Austins’ welcoming nature may seem good to newcomers and Lex but it will in the end be it’s downfall because it can not fight those who come for the loud music only to make everyone turn the music down when they get old or tired. If Austin is to endure like San Francisco endures. it must push back. Like Sf and NY does. It must continuously not listen to those who say it was once soft, it has changed, its greatness will past. Because it must know it wasn’t , it hasn’t and it won’t. Only then, when it can fight its critics, not simply welcome only its fanboys, will it be a great city.
Tom | Placerville, CA | Report Abuse
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