
Austin Is Building a Mini Silicon Valley - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-08/austin-is-building-a-mini-silicon-valley-with-some-of-the-same-problems
======
ericabiz
I lived in the Valley for 10 years, and have now lived in Austin for 7.

While certainly Austin has its problems (traffic, heat in the summer, and
allergies would be my top 3) I find Austin is handling high growth far better
than California did.

We do have older, homeowner NIMBYs here, including my local neighborhood
association. The difference between here and California is that the NIMBYs
don't have as much power here. They fought an apartment complex in my
neighborhood and lost--now hundreds of new people are able to live closer in
to downtown.

The current fight over zoning is allowing "granny flats", or back yard
buildings. It does look like the NIMBYs are going to lose on that one as well.

There are also a lot of older houses being torn down, developers splitting the
lot, and building 2 houses on the lot. These older houses aren't historic;
they're 1950's-1960's suburban sprawl. I did not see California allowing these
types of development as easily in the 10 years I lived there.

Overall, Austin has a compelling mix of factors that keep people moving here.
The weather is great 9 months out of the year, and if you're in tech, it's not
uncommon to work from somewhere else in the summer, or take some time off.

You're actually able to raise a family here without insane waits or crazy
prices for daycare.

The community overall is more laid-back than SF because you don't feel the
need to work 90 hours a week just to be able to afford a 1BR apartment.

Plus, we have breakfast tacos. :)

I've traveled through most of the US at this point, and lived in several
different areas, and still think Austin has one of the best communities of
people I've ever seen...which is why I continue to live here and advocate for
smart tech folks to move here.

~~~
chaostheory
You're right about everything but the weather. It's only good for about 2
months of the year. 10 months out of the year it's either too hot or too cold.
Air conditioning is a must. If you love Bay Area weather, you might want to
stay in the west coast instead. Portland seems to be a good alternative.

~~~
gshulegaard
As someone who moved to Portland from the Bay Area ~2 years ago the weather is
significantly more variable. It gets colder, has a longer (and wetter) winter,
and has fewer overall sunny days. I love Portland and I don't doubt that it is
a smaller variation from the Bay compared to Austin, but I just didn't want
people to get the impression that Portland has Bay Area weather.

~~~
rconti
Are you in SF or Daly City or something? Most of the bay area has vastly more
sunny days than Portland (??). Hell, even SF proper should have more sun than
portland.

Actually, from google, Portland has 144 sunny days vs 205 national average vs
259 in San Francisco. And only 257 in San Jose (?).

~~~
alehul
I think those descriptions are meant to be about Portland rather than SF
(where the commenter moved to a couple years ago). Would be perfectly accurate
in that case. :)

~~~
gshulegaard
This.

------
josephjrobison
Austin is great, lived there for 4 years, and I think it's healthy to have
alternatives to Silicon Valley - both geographically and taxation-wise.

My observation is that while there are plenty of startups - helped by Joshua
Baer's Capital Factory and Techstars - it seems that most of the big tech
companies are more taking advantage of the state's business-friendly tax laws
and cheaper labor force than anything.

A lot of companies - Apple, Oracle, etc - are more using it as a customer
service and sales team base than for engineering, R&D, etc.

Of course there will be plenty of counter-examples (HomeAway, Dell,
BazaarVoice, RetailMeNot, Indeed), but that's just a macro observation to keep
in mind.

~~~
itronitron
I lived in Austin for the past two years and was quite disappointed by the
people, the city, and the schools. Glad to be out of there and I have no
interest in moving back despite it being my hometown.

Number one complaint, the city has feeble public offerings (no zoo, no
aquarium, no subway or light rail, small museums).

Number two complaint, the schools are overrated (and Texas math is one grade
year behind most other states).

Number three complaint, I encountered a lot of people with a remarkable lack
of integrity. Sorry to say that as it was the most surprising and
disappointing.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
Do you have anything to back up your claim about math?

I see here:
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/02/08/geog...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/02/08/geographic-
disparity-states-best-and-worst-schools/1079181001/) \-- that Texas ranks
pretty low in math. But it's hard to say what that really means.

I've been under the impression that Texas's k-12 education is much better than
California's and on par with New York and Illinois.

Texas has something crazy like 1/5th of all k-12 students in the country. That
number has shot up faster than any other state, so I think it's reasonable if
they're having some "growing pains" so to speak.

~~~
moorhosj
==I've been under the impression that Texas's k-12 education is much better
than California's and on par with New York and Illinois.==

Your own source disagrees:

9\. New York

16\. Illinois

35\. California

40\. Texas

==Texas has something crazy like 1/5th of all k-12 students in the country.==

It's more like 1/10th. Texas has 5.4 million in public k-12 [1] and there are
50.7 million in the US public k-12 [2].

==That number has shot up faster than any other state, so I think it's
reasonable if they're having some "growing pains" so to speak.==

A good way to get past those growing pains would be to invest in education.
Again, from your source on Texas "Public school spending: $8,485 per pupil
(4th lowest)".

[1]
[https://tea.texas.gov/Reports_and_Data/School_Performance/Ac...](https://tea.texas.gov/Reports_and_Data/School_Performance/Accountability_Research/Enrollment_Trends/?LangType=1033)

[2]
[https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372)

------
Ocerge
I'm largely biased since I grew up within 60 miles of Austin, but I never got
the hype. It's hot as hell, has the worst traffic I've ever seen, is
geographically lame (you don't get to claim the hill country, and no, barton
springs doesn't count either), and super weak public transportation. The only
thing Austin has on just about any other city in the US is world-class BBQ and
a fleet of Richard Linklater wannabes.

~~~
theli0nheart
> _has the worst traffic I 've ever seen_

I really can't understand this common trope of "Austin traffic is bad" (much
less the worst you've ever seen, wow!). If you've lived anywhere like LA or
NYC, that's bad traffic. Traffic during rush hour is expected. I've never seen
a midnight traffic jam in Austin in my 6 years of living here. That was a
daily occurrence in LA.

> _is geographically lame (you don 't get to claim the hill country, and no,
> barton springs doesn't count either)_

Why does the Hill Country not count as amazing geography? It's gorgeous, by
any definition.

> _It 's hot as hell_

As for the heat, I grew up in Miami. Austin has nothing on Miami summers. Even
NYC, for that matter, is less comfortable in the summer than Austin is.

~~~
adrianmonk
Austin traffic isn't the worst there is on an absolute scale. But it's
frustrating because it's so much worse than it should be for a city of this
size.

The people in charge of it seem to be kind of checked out and ineffectual.
They don't always even try to solve problems, and when they do, they do stuff
that doesn't seem to be thought out very well.

A well-known example is I-35. It is a huge pain point and has been for
decades. A few years back, they started talking about doing something to solve
that, and rather than trying to improve I-35 itself, the idea of building a
parallel toll road really far outside of town was pitched as the solution. The
toll road (SH 130) was built, but surprise, nobody wants to drive on a road in
the middle of nowhere. The toll road was used so little it went through
bankruptcy, but more importantly, all this didn't help fix I-35.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
Will be interesting to see if Austin takes the typical Texas laissez faire
attitude toward parking and lets developers build whatever they want and let
the negative spillovers of traffic get worse and worse, or if they go the Los
Angeles route and require absurd amounts of parking to artificially inflate
the price of land as much as possible.

~~~
timerol
They've already gone "the Los Angeles route". Austin requires a parking spot
per 275 sq ft of office space[1]. Given that most parking lots or garages take
300-350 sq ft per space, that's a bigger garage than the office. They did
eliminate parking requirements in the Central Business District, though[2].

[1]
[http://www.gatewayplanning.com/uploads/COA_Airport_Blvd/back...](http://www.gatewayplanning.com/uploads/COA_Airport_Blvd/background%20information/zoning/park_require.doc)
[2] [https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2019/02/2019-could-
be-...](https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2019/02/2019-could-be-the-year-
to-end-city-parking-minimums/)

------
diehardmusical
The actual title of this article is "Austin Is Building a Mini Silicon Valley,
_With Some of the Same Problems_ ", and indeed, when this post was first
submitted to HN, the post had the same title. It appears as though an HN mod
removed the "With Some of the Same Problems" part from the post submission.
Why? The entire point of the article (and discussion in this post) is talking
about the common downfalls of both areas.

------
pickle-wizard
I moved to Austin in 2008 when I was working at IBM. I was working at the IBM
site in Dallas at the time, and my team was moved to Austin. I nearly didn't
go. I knew I didn't want to stay at IBM forever and figured it would be harder
to get a tech job in Austin since it is a smaller city.

Well I was wrong. I left IBM in 2012 and have had no problems finding jobs
since them. In fact I was laid off at the end of last year. I wasn't even
really looking as I wanted to take some timeoff, when a recruiter called me
for my current position.

Overall I like Austin. It is more expensive that other Texas cities, but not
ridiculously so. The winters are a bit warmer than Dallas so I like that, and
the summers are about the same. Lots of stuff to do in the cites. Lots of
smaller bands play here and you can get into those shows for not much. However
we are also big enough to draw some of the larger acts to.

We have a minor league Hockey, Basketball, and Baseball team. Which is nice
because the tickets are still affordable. UT College football is a bit of a
religion here, if you like football.

A couple of the things I don't like. Our public transportation is terrible.
The population is growing faster than the infrastructure can handle. Any new
roads that get built or expanded are toll roads, because the state refuses to
raise taxes so it doesn't have money to pay for them. Lastly people in this
town drink a lot, and I mean a lot. It is pretty much a sport. DUI is a big
problem here. Thankfully Uber and Lyft came back after the city ran them off.

~~~
save_ferris
> Thankfully Uber and Lyft came back after the city ran them off.

Uber and Lyft voluntarily left after refusing to comply with new background
check policies that the city passed, and the citizens confirmed. They spent
$7M (a record on a local election in TX, btw) on a failed referendum campaign
that the citizens of Austin voted on, and then they acted like children and
left. In the meantime, new companies sprang up to fill the void.

~~~
stuntkite
The companies and facebook groups that sprang up were an interesting
experiment. Also your comment leaves out that they came back.

Why the city can't figure out public transport is still pretty baffling
though.

~~~
abawany
Lyft/Uber came back after the state legislature passed a law that nullified
Austin's background check requirement. The same thing happened with Austin's
plastic bag ban, btw - some say the state legislature exists just to punch
Austin government.

I use the bus service (Capital Metro) occasionally and I have to defend them a
bit: they try and they keep getting better. They have 1 rail service that runs
from the NW parts of town to downtown, and it runs full during commute times,
taking a few hundred drivers off the road in the process. They created
dedicated commuter buses for remote neighborhoods (e.g. the 980 and 985
service) to enable office workers and students avoid the traffic; these also
are quite full every day and help keep traffic saner - the park-and-ride that
I use is full of hundreds of cars daily. In addition, the Metro Rapid service
and the Every 15 initiatives have looked like improvements to me for the few
occasions that I used them.

I haven't tried the public transportation in Dallas or Houston so I can't say
they are better but Austin Capital Metro I think has tried to do a reasonable
job.

~~~
stuntkite
I haven’t tried Houston, but it looks ok for such a sprawled Texas city. DFW’s
is a joke. That area lives and dies by the very Texan belief that you should
get where you are going in your own truck by yourself while sipping a beer and
also the poor are poor because they are lazy.

------
throwaway-1283
I've considered moving to Austin (like so many others). I think my biggest
concerns are 1) lack of good public transit 2) scorching humid heat ~5 months
of the year 3) not a major airline hub.

I honestly wish Vegas became the tech dream that the Zappos founder had tried
to build like 10 years ago. I would move there in a second.

~~~
jdhn
The fact that neither Vegas or Reno have become major tech hubs is confusing
to me. Both are closer to the Valley (Reno is a 4 hour drive away), they're in
the same time zone, and Nevada is super business friendly. That being said,
Texas does have a lot more people than Nevada, which could definitely be part
of the draw.

~~~
chrisco255
Folks on the east coast are often hesitant to move to the west coast because
of distance from family. I think the west coast already has plenty of tech
hubs so who do they draw talent from? Who wants to leave the Valley for Reno?
Outside of gambling and tourism what major anchors are there?

Austin became a tech hub over decades due to anchors like UT, National
Instruments, Dell, Intel, IBM, etc.

~~~
throwaway-1283
I think there's more appetite now because the housing crisis in CA has really
reached a tipping point (IMO). There's plenty of inflow into cities like Vegas
from CA. Housing prices have rebounded but still relatively speaking cheap.

------
ng12
I wonder if there's a way to start from scratch. Build a planned city with a
focus on having a dense urban environment and lots of public transportation.
It must be more cost-efficient than trying to keep adding to existing cities
that don't really want the growth.

~~~
floatrock
The world is littered with examples of this, mostly showcases of what urban
planning of the time didn't understand. So much so it's a recurring theme on
99 PI:

[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/bijlmer-city-
future-p...](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/bijlmer-city-future-
part-1/) \-- ended up as slums outside of Amsterdam

[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/soul-
city](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/soul-city) \-- a city for and by
blacks

[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/fordlandia/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/fordlandia/)
\-- ford's company town to build tires

There's also Brasilia that was supposed to be full of monumental grand plazas,
but they learned people don't want to walk 3/4 of mile through a grass field
outside their apartment tower just to get to the local market bodega.

Today I think Google is making one outside of Toronto, and I heard of someone
doing something around Boulder. Economic Opportunity Zones (ie regional tax
breaks for development) are kinda in this realm.

Personally I'm waiting for Elon's planned city where he will MVP all his
social and organizational concepts before blasting off for mars.

~~~
outworlder
> There's also Brasilia that was supposed to be full of monumental grand
> plazas, but they learned people don't want to walk 3/4 of mile through a
> grass field outside their apartment tower just to get to the local market
> bodega.

As if people ever walk there :) It's only walkable if you are going from one
apartment complex to another.

But the major problem is that there isn't much room for expansion. There is
_space_ , but it would mess up the planning. So they push people to
'satellite' cities.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
I've read it has 4 to 5 times the number of pedestrian accidents per capita
compared to other large cities in Brazil.

I've been there once, I can confirm that it's not pedestrian-friendly.

------
ndonnellan
Odd reference to Juul: 4 dozen new employees juxtaposed with Apple's possible
15,000.

> "Apple’s presence in Austin is the biggest after its headquarters in
> Cupertino, California, and the company said it would invest $1 billion in
> Austin to build an office park capable of holding 15,000 additional
> employees, roughly double the current workforce there. Juul Labs Inc., the
> San Francisco-based maker of a popular e-cigarette, said it will open an
> office in Austin for some four-dozen employees to start."

~~~
driverdan
Especially since Juul is not a tech company.

~~~
someguy1010
They are somewhat a hardware company. The design of their e cig is the best
I've ever seen

------
hsnewman
I've lived in Austin for 42 years. I've seen alot of change, but the traffic
has stayed the same. They wait until the traffic becomes unbearable, and then
add a solution, and it's back to just plain bad. The drivers are very rude. As
for the weather, you can have it. I'm done with 3/4 year being overly hot. I
hate having to run AC all the time. I hate having to water the lawn. The look
and feel of Austin has been lost. In the old days buildings couldn't be higher
than the capital, and they had to allow for views to the capital. Now
buildings overwhelm the capital in size, and block the view. It's all about
money. The downtown is becoming vastly overbuilt, with 50+ story condo's. I
used to work for the city. I know the infrastructure is just not there for
that. There is exactly 1 grocery store downtown: Wholefoods. There is exactly
1 fire department station downtown. It simply can't handle the high rise
condos. The burbs are ok, if you don't mind a hour each way to work, which is
what I do daily. Forget mass transit in Austin, its a joke. We put our house
up on the market TODAY (really!), and plan on retiring to Portland and living
a livable lifestyle walking, biking and using mass transit. No more AC, just
have to use the heater once and a while. Oh, and it's much prettier. I like
the last sentence: “The cool people are going off to live somewhere else.”

~~~
ikeyany
Not to be the bearer of bad news, but Portland's roads are already overwhelmed
with traffic, its mass trasit past capacity, and its former "cool" residents
have already left for less popular destinations.

Also, they get hot in the summer at times—think 90s...so you'll end up getting
a box air conditioner unit at the very least.

------
fastball
All other things aside, as long as we have less NIMBYism than SF I think we
might be all right.

~~~
adventured
It's certainly an entirely different cost universe at present. A quick price
scan through realtor.com for Austin TX listings, shows that you can buy
housing in Austin for $500k-$700k that would cost more like $3m-$5m in SF.

Given the nature of real-estate in Texas in general, and the way that Austin
has an enormous amount of room to free-sprawl (ala other TX cities), I'm very
skeptical Austin can ever end up with a comparable housing situation to SF or
Seattle.

As a plus, in the next 20 years Austin will be connected via high-speed rail
to Dallas, San Antonio and Houston (HSR triangle). You can still do
infrastructure in Texas cost-effectively.

~~~
rossdavidh
I bought my house for 130k 15 years ago. It is probably worth about double
that now. People who can afford a 100k house used to be able to get a home in
Austin, even 10 years ago, and in a few pockets of the city even 5 years ago.

What SF considers affordable, is way overpriced.

~~~
dkarl
Double? I would guess triple or quadruple.

------
vicarrion
With even fewer viable public transportation options!

~~~
tamalesfan
I believe the last time anyone outside of Austin heard anything about
transportation in Austin -- public or otherwise -- it was that they had banned
Uber for some reason. What's the latest on that?

~~~
borramakot
It wasn't literally a ban, but it was at least a serious impediment to their
operating in the way they want to operate. The TX legislature overturned
Austin's regulations with superseding, much more Uber/Lyft friendly
regulations, and they are back now.

------
alexhutcheson
Lots of people here complaining about the traffic, but is there any major
metro in the US where people don't complain about the rush-hour traffic? Off
the top of my head, the people that I know in/from Boston, NYC, DC, Atlanta,
Miami, Chicago, Nashville, Dallas, Austin, Houston, Denver, Seattle, Portland,
SF, and LA _all_ complain about rush-hour traffic, and many will insist that
their city is "the worst" on some specific dimension.

My impression is that if you're living in a desirable metro area, your drive
to work will be on congested roads, and there's no real way to avoid this.
Your choice of location _within_ a metro area (e.g. living close to work, on
the same side of the city as your office) matters more than your choice
between different metros. Some metro areas make these choices more
desirable/affordable than others.

~~~
jtmcmc
you can not drive in many of those metro areas

------
philosophygeek
I left the Bay Area almost 5 years ago now to start a company that I spun out
of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Everyone - investors, my friends & family,
our founders, even me - thought we would move to San Francisco within a year.

Four years later, Descartes Laba is almost 100 people strong, $38M investes,
and thriving in the Land of Enchantment.

The reality is that if you have a strong mission, a viable company, and a
great place to live, you can build a company. Sure, we can't hire anyone from
Silicon Valley, but that's ok. Our recruiting team looks in all of the places
FANG isn't looking - and we've found some incredible talent.

I hope that it's not just major cities that see this Renaissance of tech, but
cities across America and the world. This is how we transform society with
technology - by bringing a wider audience into the conversation.

------
dokem
Yes, please come ruin this fine city with hypersensitivity, elitism, and
'disruption'.

~~~
grandridge
afraid it might be too late :(

------
rory096
From another Bloomberg column this week:

> I lived in Austin, Texas, in the mid-1980s when it was a comfortable town
> with a population under 300,000. During that same time, however, a college
> student named Michael Dell was building computers in his dorm room at the
> University of Texas. The success of Dell Computers — which now has its
> headquarters in nearby Round Rock, Texas — utterly changed the character of
> Austin. Austin’s population today is around 1 million, big tech companies
> are everywhere, traffic is unbearable, and entire neighborhoods have been
> razed to make way for high-rise office buildings. People who live in Austin
> bemoan what’s happened to their city.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-06/jaffra...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-06/jaffray-
woodriff-thinks-charlottesville-can-be-friendly-tech-hub)

~~~
hsnewman
The character of Austin was already changing when Dell arrived. TI, IBM,
Motorola and others were already there making Austin a tech hotbed. They named
183 "Research Blvd" long before Dell arrived.

------
ld00d
Texas may not have income tax, but property tax is very high, and property
values are pretty high by Texas standards.

~~~
tamalesfan
The SALT deduction cap removes an important incentive for perusing (using
mortgage leverage) high value residential properties. Now we just need to cap
mortgage interest deduction to a much lower level.

It's going to be a lot less appealing for high income people to pile into a
few coastal areas when they can no longer deduct away most of their Federal
tax liabilities by borrowing a $700K house.

------
davidw
Reminded of this article, today:

[http://marketurbanism.com/2017/01/27/the-disconnect-
between-...](http://marketurbanism.com/2017/01/27/the-disconnect-between-
liberal-aspirations-and-liberal-housing-policy-is-killing-coastal-u-s-cities/)

------
dmode
I have been tracking Austin's hype as a tech hub for over a decade. And I have
to admit that is waay overrated. For example, Austin startups only raised
$1.5bn VC funding in 2018 [1] Compare this to the $45bn [2] raised by SF Bay
Area companies and you get why Austin is all hype. The only true next SV in US
are NYC, Seattle, and Boston. Everything else is a PR piece from that city or
state government.

[1] [https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2019/01/10/austin-
co...](https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2019/01/10/austin-companies-
hauled-in-1-5b-in-funding-in-2018.html)

[2]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-08/ventur...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-08/venture-
capital-still-flowing-to-silicon-valley-and-bay-area)

~~~
EpicEng
Why is VC funding your only metric? I work in Austin and we don't take much VC
funding. You know why? We're _profitable_. Yes, a tech startup that actually
makes money. We don't feel the need to grow at some arbitrary and ridiculous
rate in order to please VC's looking for an exit. I have the added bonus that
my cost of living I less than half of what it would be in SV, but I don't make
half as much.

Certainly there are more meaningful metrics to consider. Like... number of
tech jobs.

~~~
dmode
It is just a proxy for other tech metrics. If VC funding is that high, number
of software engineering jobs will be as high. And you can also conclude that
public company presence will be equally high. I just did a quick LinkedIn job
search and filtered by location. My rudimentary math suggest that there are
over 12,000 "software engineer" jobs open in Bay Area, compared to ~2500 in
Austin. Keep in mind, the Bay Area number is actually underreported as Google,
Facebook, and many others just use a representative job posting

------
balabaster
It's funny, I read this as "Austin is building a Mini in Silicon Valley." It
had me thinking "But Austin hasn't operated since I was a kid..."

Go figure one word missing changes the whole context of the sentence.

------
travelton
As a Texas native, living in Austin for over 5 years now, here's my take on
the complaints I'm seeing in this thread.

Traffic: It's a common complaint, but I find it's really not as bad as
everyone says. Though, the key to beating traffic is to reside as close to
work as possible, and avoid 35 at all costs. Alternatively, live off MoPac or
183. I worked for a few years in downtown Austin, and lived up near Apple's
campus. Getting to work was not bad at all (~20 min, given no accidents). My
advice, stay North West to give yourself the option of traveling 183 or MoPac.
Worst case, hit MoPac's Express Lane and you'll fly past the traffic. Outside
of rush hour, the roadways are generally clear.

Heat: Being a native, I actually enjoy hot summers, and hate winter. All of
the waterways between Austin and San Antonio are fantastic. My typical summer
weekend is spent on the river with a beer in hand. If you want to beat the
heat, you have to get near the water. Go-tos: Lake Travis, Canyon Lake, the
Guadalupe River, Barton Springs, etc. Summer nights are warm, so camping is
do-able without all the cold gear.

Housing: It's not "cheap" to live in Austin, but far more affordable than the
Bay Area. Typical apartment rent per square foot hovers around $1.00-$1.50
(1br, $1,200/mo is typical). Typical home rentals closer to $1.00. To buy a
home, you'll be hard pressed to find anything decent under $250k. There's a
ton of new developments in the far suburbs, where prices are more reasonable.

Tech Scene: There are plenty of meetups, conferences, and coworking spaces to
enjoy. Most of my neighbors are in the tech industry. Nearly every Silicon
Valley company has a presence in Austin. The job market is very hot.

Public Transportation: I do miss this, having lived in SF for a few years. I
live right near the Metro Rail line, and I've used it once. It takes forever
to get downtown. I'd rather pay for a ride share and get there in 1/2 the
time. As much as everyone complains about the lack of public transit, Texas is
huge so having a car allows you to visit all of the towns between and around
the major cities. We have Lyft/Uber, which is available even in far out areas
like Cedar Park/Georgetown/Round Rock, and between Austin and San Antonio.
Considering the cost of living, and your take home pay, you can easily afford
a car.

Air Travel: There was a mention of Austin not being a hub, however, there are
many direct flights from Austin to great destinations (including international
destinations). I've never had a problem here.

Geography: This is lacking. You won't find beautiful mountains or redwood
forests here. We have lakes and rolling hills.

Allergies: It's manageable. Daily allergy pill and you'll survive.

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MrPike
I got very excited reading this title... until i reached 'silicon valley'. Was
hoping for a revival of the classic Austin Mini.

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rhacker
San Antonio is pretty much like an hour away. The small retirement towns
between them are now over-fucking-run by mommy vans. Crazy traffic. I was
seriously considering putting down a rental in that area until I got there. I
thought tailgating was pretty much a western thing, but Texas is no different
it seems. Why is everyone in this damn country in a rush? How can we get back.

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seisvelas
>The small retirement towns between them are now over-fucking-run by mommy
vans.

I don't understand this. Are you upset that communities of retirees are being
displaced by...moms? Not criticizing at all, just no idea what this sentence
means or why "mommy-vans" are bad.

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abawany
Not the OP but I wonder if they meant that the small retirement towns
(presumably Buda, San Marcos, Kyle, etc.) are now mostly single family
commuters and thus much more expensive and crowded than before.

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Apocryphon
So where’s the next Austin for tech?

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intopieces
I'm thinking Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill. Lots of good universities there. I've
never been but I have heard good things.

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magicnubs
Three good universities within <30 minutes drive of each other, each in a city
of a different size and feel at each anchor point, with a business/job center
smack dab in the middle in Research Triangle Park, which has plenty of room to
grow. And still a great COL at the moment. I'd agree that we could/will be the
next Austin (but I live here so of course my perspective is biased) as long as
we don't self-sabotage, which is a real possibility. For example: Duke
University just effectively killed the planned Light-Rail between Durham and
Chapel Hill for some reason.

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geggam
Austin is still in Texas and no matter how hard you polish it's still there.

Some talent will want to move there but where is the ocean and where is the
lake tahoe / skiing?

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dbg31415
Just in time for SXSW...

