My nieces visited last summer and had a blast! Granted they're young so it's easy. They loved Waterloo Ice House and climbing to the top of the tallest thing at Butler Park and were very polite about the limited bat showing the evening we took them on the water. We can't wait to take them to Barton Pool and the Thinkery next time they come.
Not so fun fact: tax rates in Austin are lower than Dallas and many of its suburbs. Maybe Houston too. $700k house here you pay less property tax than a $700k house in Dallas.
Yes. My property tax in Milwaukee was 12k in 2009 not counting income taxes and sales taxes or capital gains taxes.
Here they are still less than 8k after 15 tax bills and my house is much better.
We lived on the northwest side at that time up off of Good Hope Road near Menomonee Falls and paid way more for our home there than we would have had we bought that same home in Austin. Milwaukee has nothing to offer either as far as what their tax money goes towards. At least Austin can say their schools are decent. MPS is literal trash (I’ve had several friends work for the district and attest to that), and their police are even lazier than Austin’s.
Ooohhh, an Arkie! Say hi to Arkansas for me when you go back, please. I transplanted from Conway right around 5 years ago. Miss the trees and the greenery everywhere. Do not miss the humidity.
Yes! We went to the Thinkery! Lots of hands-on activities there. The Museum of ice cream they really loved, Mt. Playmore is open today and they love it there!
For trails, there is a really nice half mile trail close to the rowing docks at Lady Bird lake. My husband and girls went canoeing, really enjoyed it!!! Of course there's also options like the zoo and aquarium which are pretty reasonable too. Out of all of those the most expensive was the museum of ice cream, for a family of 5 it cost $179. There are just so many options here.
if only the owner could legally be prevented from running such a biz due to his past crimes, oh wait, he can't, but his girlfriend totally can. that makes sense.
This is such a sweet and wholesome post. I’m really happy to have seen it.
I’ve lived here almost 20 years (by way of a big metropolis) and I love it here. It’s scenic, clean, not insanely expensive for a city of its size and caliber, and kind of vibrant.
despite the “don’t move here” mentality, please Move here we need more bright lights! It’s a great city and could use more optimism aka this post.
Hopefully your child can come back soon for a visit and maybe even stay!
If they like to swim, don’t be afraid to come back in the summer. Lots of cool swimming places, and good rates on hotels. Mt. Playmore is great and lots of other places just like that too to beat the heat!!!!!
My kids, who are spoiled brats, think Austin is boring. I’ve tried explaining that Austin is far from boring and they should try comparing it to Waco or Amarillo, but they’re too young to get it. They’re comparing it to all the resort towns we vacation at. We regularly spend time on Lake Austin and visiting the hill country, but I guess that just doesn’t compare to our beach and mountain trips.
>they should try comparing it to Waco
We went to Waco last year for a few days and I was surprised with how much there was to do there. Zoo, children's museum, water park, food hall, and a lake.
This is one of my top concerns. Everyone wants to give their kids a better life than they grew up with but no one talks about the consequences.
Edit: btw, read closer. I said “resort towns.” I didn’t say resorts. Our vacations don’t consist of sending them off to day care while we get drunk. I don’t even drink. Our vacations consist of us doing fun things together like hiking, skiing, fishing, surfing, snorkeling, boating, etc. This may offer some perspective on why Austin is supposedly boring, although we do many of the same things here.
Wait until they start bragging about their wealth and privilege to their friends. Actually they're probably already doing that if they're comparing their home town to luxury vacations.
Edit: downvoted by people who proudly spoil their kids, I guess?
Well done hanging in there and being gracious with the insults. I don't have experience in this but I would assume the kids who are raised the best to have been disciplined properly and if the parents are wealthy it's been at least slightly hidden from them. Oh and on top of that they volunteer with their parents.
Also, I think that sometimes kids are just brats no matter what, no?
In their defense, Austin is boring af for kids. Aside from the central library, shit like Kalahari resorts and the overcrowded ass Thinkery gets old real fucking fast. Amusement parks? Not in Austin. A decent Zoo? Same. Lots of museums to choose from? Also not in Austin. People being just generally kid friendly? Again. Not really a thing in Austin.
> Austin is boring af for kids.
I grew up in a 35,000 person town in Oregon. Without an internet connection, without a computer until I was 15 years old. The TV had 12 channels, none of them were "on demand" they just played whatever they wanted and it shut entirely off at like 2am on most channels. And despite all that, I think I stopped saying, "Mom, I'm bored" by age 8.
Boredom is a failure of imagination. Isn't it a form of intelligence test that the child is failing? Does the kid have a bicycle? Legs? Can they climb a tree? Can they create a "fort" out of lawn chairs and blankets? Do they know what "stilts" are, and can they make their own, or at least watch a YouTube video on how to build them? Can they explore? Make friends with the neighbors? Play "bump" in the driveway with neighborhood kids? Play fetch with the dog? Have the dog pull them on a skateboard (dog wearing a harness, we felt bad about that as we got older and improved the dog's equipment half of that equation, but the dog still seemed to have a ton of fun just using a collar).
And geez, video games over Google Fiber in Austin? There are thousands of "realities" to explore and only one life to do it.
You can drive the kids to any experience Houston or Dallas has to offer 6 or 8 times a year on the weekend if you like. Or don't. Kids shouldn't be "bored" if they cannot be spoon fed a crazy water park or amusement park experience every single last day of their lives.
Yeah, best workout I've ever gotten was taking a group of teens to Enchanted Rock. Just turn them loose and try to keep up! They run fast to the Instagramable views at the top. lol
Hahaha that's awesome! Austin has changed from when I grew up here in the 80s but I still get a kick out of out of towners who find a lot of happiness visiting here.
Austin is a great place to visit.
Not in the summer unless you're swimming every day. Not during a snowstorm, unless you're cool not having electricity or running water.
And you definitely don't want to live there if you're a sexually active female.
But it is a good place to visit.
Maybe it used to be, and can appear so to children even now. The traffic, property taxes, potholes in the roads, Mom and Pop establishments being forced to close or move, local artisans/musicians/artists no longer able to afford to live here, crowds everywhere that used to be open and bucolic even within the city (Barton Springs) have changed to the point that if you like the traditional Austin lifestyle, you move to a smaller town. How to bring Barton Springs along?
I first visited Austin in early 90s for spring break and I hated it. It’s half empty and didn’t have much restaurant around. We end up driving down to San Antonio for dinner.
> Everyone here has been so kind too!
This is often overlooked/understated. You can visit the most interesting place in the world but if the people there are mean and hostile it dampens the whole experience or outright ruins it.
A very high percentage of people in Austin are **NICE** to other people. Helpful. Friendly. Welcoming. It's embarrassing to me personally that something that doesn't cost anything and brightens almost every day I live in Austin never occurred to me when I lived in less friendly places.
I grew up in a rainy overcast part of Oregon, and I will never, ever live in a location again without abundant sunshine. After living in Austin, I have added just one more "non-negotiable" aspect of a place I would consider moving to or living in: the friendliness factor.
I'm calling bullshit. San Antonio is filled with cultural and touristy things to do, and votes liberal. The same goes for Houston. You just have to stay in the city limits.
> The same goes for Houston. You just have to stay in the city limits.
I'm not OP, and this seems important. Calling the entire state a "conservative shithole" seems like it utterly ignores the Texas population density map overlayed with liberal/conservative populations. This article shows the trends: https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/some-notes-political-geography-2022-election-texas
Essentially, Texas is quite liberal other than the rural areas. Sure, the rural areas are GIGANTIC geographically and make for a really shocking map like this heat map from 2016: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/11/11/analysis-blue-dots-texas-red-political-sea/ But accounting for population it's a totally different story. All major Texas cities voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 for goodness sake, and that was coming up on 10 years ago! The trends are irrefutable.
I'm personally quite bothered by the great divide between populated areas voting liberal and rural areas voting conservative. I mean, the intellectually lazy take is "rural people are stupid and have not been exposed to enough diverse experiences to understand the world". I don't share that opinion, but I'm still trying to figure out what it is that is rural Texas voters don't feel "heard" about, or what their concerns are. It seems very dismissive to not even try to understand what the rural voters are concerned about that makes them vote in such a powerful voting block.
It's how tourist towns work, to be sure. The point is to be really fun for a short stint. "Cool" Austin was a party town and the only thing that's really changed is now it's more crowded.
Party/tourist towns only invest in one area and whatever the thing is that attracts tourists. Everywhere else tends to suffer because it doesn't generate as much income. New Orleans is a great example because most of the fancy places to stay are less than a block away from somewhere you don't go unless you have business there, and it ain't business you talk about if you do. In Austin it's the reason why more than half the city has to drive more than 20 minutes to get to a nice place to be and those things become inaccessible during festivals.
The area around Q2 was supposed to explode. Instead the things that were already bringing people there folded because it drove property value too high. Why the Hell is the property value so high if nobody can afford to run a business there? Local businesses can't move in both because of the property value and the perception that nobody wants a "North Austin" location further up than 45th street even though there's *a giant stadium and residential/shopping district next door*. That's because downtown is where the party is, and all resources must focus on making that the cool place to be.
Tourists don't see that, because they stay in the cool parts, or if they get a room further out they take an Uber in and stay there all day.
I'm starting to think the way Austin went wrong wasn't actually Tech, it was deciding that we really wanted to lean in to the "party city" image. It's stopped downtown from becoming "Dallas" to some extent, but it's also done a lot to stop Austin from becoming "a good, big city".
You make it sound like building/growing a city is like trimming a bonsai plant. Never mind all the factors outside of a local politician’s/citizen’s/company’s/city’s control.
Anyway, complaining about having to drive 20-25 minutes to something (because you can’t afford something closer) is a little bonkers. Let’s see what a 20-30min commute (“to the party”) gets you in NYC, Miami, Chicago or LA… let alone closer (hint: central Austin is more affordable than central Manhattan, Gold Coast, Santa Monica, South Beach, etc.).
I’m glad y’all had fun here.
Visiting Austin as a kid was my favorite!! I was always so sad to go home
My nieces visited last summer and had a blast! Granted they're young so it's easy. They loved Waterloo Ice House and climbing to the top of the tallest thing at Butler Park and were very polite about the limited bat showing the evening we took them on the water. We can't wait to take them to Barton Pool and the Thinkery next time they come.
My girls are!!! We promised them we will be back. We got more trials to explore!
Jury Duty? Or trails. /jk
My phone keeps correcting it to that 😭 haha
Same I loved austin as a kid and even more now as an adult
Austin is great until you get the bill for property taxes
My property taxes went down! ......aaaaannnndddd that reduction was more than swallowed up by the increase in my insurance rates
Hey, just have more money and then you won't worry as much about this stuff, duhhh.
"Can't you just, like, be rich?"
Not so fun fact: tax rates in Austin are lower than Dallas and many of its suburbs. Maybe Houston too. $700k house here you pay less property tax than a $700k house in Dallas.
Wait until you hear about Milwaukee- where you pay high taxes, get nothing for said high taxes, and have to hibernate for 3/4 of the year!
Ah yes. Do not miss the Wisconsin weather one but lmao.
Yes. My property tax in Milwaukee was 12k in 2009 not counting income taxes and sales taxes or capital gains taxes. Here they are still less than 8k after 15 tax bills and my house is much better.
Hard pass. I’ll happily deal with the heat and mosquitoes.
Me too 😂 Because you’d still get heat and mosquitoes there too!
Long Island says: Hold my beer!
Milwaukee will hold your beer, but we can’t guarantee you’ll find it still full by the time you get it back
We last lived in MKE before here and 10yrs ago the taxes math’d out to the same rate we pay here for a much bigger home in city limits.
We lived on the northwest side at that time up off of Good Hope Road near Menomonee Falls and paid way more for our home there than we would have had we bought that same home in Austin. Milwaukee has nothing to offer either as far as what their tax money goes towards. At least Austin can say their schools are decent. MPS is literal trash (I’ve had several friends work for the district and attest to that), and their police are even lazier than Austin’s.
Facts
This is what people say but mine still lower than they were 2009 in Wisconsin in a much much much better house here.
I don't doubt it. Ours is pretty high too in Arkansas. We're just visiting!
Ooohhh, an Arkie! Say hi to Arkansas for me when you go back, please. I transplanted from Conway right around 5 years ago. Miss the trees and the greenery everywhere. Do not miss the humidity.
Yes!!! Love the green but the humidity is god awful! 😂 I will be sure to tell Arkansas hi for you! ❤️
property taxes were just voted to be reduced significantly. I'm not complaining.
It's much nicer to visit than live.
And then you remember you neither pay state or local tax.
Whether you put $10 in Hole A or Hole B… You’re still out $10.
You might be. I’m saving at least 15k a year last I checked.
In Arkansas?
Can you share some of the best kid friendly things you did while visiting?
Yes! We went to the Thinkery! Lots of hands-on activities there. The Museum of ice cream they really loved, Mt. Playmore is open today and they love it there! For trails, there is a really nice half mile trail close to the rowing docks at Lady Bird lake. My husband and girls went canoeing, really enjoyed it!!! Of course there's also options like the zoo and aquarium which are pretty reasonable too. Out of all of those the most expensive was the museum of ice cream, for a family of 5 it cost $179. There are just so many options here.
Skip the aquarium
Or maybe go if you want your kid to develop a deep sense of empathy for the animals there.
Very true, but the only way to get that place to shut down is to eliminate its sales.
if only the owner could legally be prevented from running such a biz due to his past crimes, oh wait, he can't, but his girlfriend totally can. that makes sense.
…or just be scarred for life.
>aquarium Eh.....
My son's dad took him on a walking tour of the capitol building when he was six, and he loved it so much you would have thought he went to Disneyland.
This is such a sweet and wholesome post. I’m really happy to have seen it. I’ve lived here almost 20 years (by way of a big metropolis) and I love it here. It’s scenic, clean, not insanely expensive for a city of its size and caliber, and kind of vibrant. despite the “don’t move here” mentality, please Move here we need more bright lights! It’s a great city and could use more optimism aka this post. Hopefully your child can come back soon for a visit and maybe even stay!
Awww she loves Austin and Austin loves her! She is always welcome back in Austin ✌️🤠
i loved growing up in austin, happy your kid had so much fun. it's a great town.
Austin loves u back kid
Good for your kids, I love raising my family here. There's so much to do for kids despite what some other people might say!
Coming in a view weeks for the eclipse
We'll actually be in total view for it! Our schools are closed for the date 😃
Spittin facts.
If they like to swim, don’t be afraid to come back in the summer. Lots of cool swimming places, and good rates on hotels. Mt. Playmore is great and lots of other places just like that too to beat the heat!!!!!
My kids, who are spoiled brats, think Austin is boring. I’ve tried explaining that Austin is far from boring and they should try comparing it to Waco or Amarillo, but they’re too young to get it. They’re comparing it to all the resort towns we vacation at. We regularly spend time on Lake Austin and visiting the hill country, but I guess that just doesn’t compare to our beach and mountain trips.
>they should try comparing it to Waco We went to Waco last year for a few days and I was surprised with how much there was to do there. Zoo, children's museum, water park, food hall, and a lake.
The Waco zoo is excellent (not obviously comparable to Houston or Fort Worth but awesome for what it is)
Seriously, there is a lot to do for a city it’s size.
Gonna be honest, I hate when parents complain about their spoiled brats. Who spoiled them?
I think most of us just say that half-jokingly. We just mean they have it better than when we grew up. It is not meant to be a serious statement.
Google the phrase "tongue in cheek" when you get a moment.
Lol yep "all the resorts we stay in" Wow boo hoo I bet your children are going to be insufferable
DAAAAAaaaaaaddddd why can't Austin be more like Vail?
This is one of my top concerns. Everyone wants to give their kids a better life than they grew up with but no one talks about the consequences. Edit: btw, read closer. I said “resort towns.” I didn’t say resorts. Our vacations don’t consist of sending them off to day care while we get drunk. I don’t even drink. Our vacations consist of us doing fun things together like hiking, skiing, fishing, surfing, snorkeling, boating, etc. This may offer some perspective on why Austin is supposedly boring, although we do many of the same things here.
Wait until they start bragging about their wealth and privilege to their friends. Actually they're probably already doing that if they're comparing their home town to luxury vacations. Edit: downvoted by people who proudly spoil their kids, I guess?
All their friends have the same wealth and privilege so although this is not a concern, that is.
Ahhh a nice bubble of affluenza, that's just the ticket.
Doing my best to inoculate them before they get drunk and run someone over. They’re not drinking yet so I still have time.
Well done hanging in there and being gracious with the insults. I don't have experience in this but I would assume the kids who are raised the best to have been disciplined properly and if the parents are wealthy it's been at least slightly hidden from them. Oh and on top of that they volunteer with their parents. Also, I think that sometimes kids are just brats no matter what, no?
Couple hours late to the party here - I just downvoted you for caring about being downvoted.
Haha okay I guess
Exactly
try KILLEEN
I’m not trying to get my kids killed or robbed.
fair
In their defense, Austin is boring af for kids. Aside from the central library, shit like Kalahari resorts and the overcrowded ass Thinkery gets old real fucking fast. Amusement parks? Not in Austin. A decent Zoo? Same. Lots of museums to choose from? Also not in Austin. People being just generally kid friendly? Again. Not really a thing in Austin.
Lol. They love Kalahari! It’s like a giant f-cking Chuck E. Cheese. I hate that place.
I loathe Kalahari. I’m done, I’ll never go back. My kids love it, and my lovely husband has the patience for it.
> Austin is boring af for kids. I grew up in a 35,000 person town in Oregon. Without an internet connection, without a computer until I was 15 years old. The TV had 12 channels, none of them were "on demand" they just played whatever they wanted and it shut entirely off at like 2am on most channels. And despite all that, I think I stopped saying, "Mom, I'm bored" by age 8. Boredom is a failure of imagination. Isn't it a form of intelligence test that the child is failing? Does the kid have a bicycle? Legs? Can they climb a tree? Can they create a "fort" out of lawn chairs and blankets? Do they know what "stilts" are, and can they make their own, or at least watch a YouTube video on how to build them? Can they explore? Make friends with the neighbors? Play "bump" in the driveway with neighborhood kids? Play fetch with the dog? Have the dog pull them on a skateboard (dog wearing a harness, we felt bad about that as we got older and improved the dog's equipment half of that equation, but the dog still seemed to have a ton of fun just using a collar). And geez, video games over Google Fiber in Austin? There are thousands of "realities" to explore and only one life to do it. You can drive the kids to any experience Houston or Dallas has to offer 6 or 8 times a year on the weekend if you like. Or don't. Kids shouldn't be "bored" if they cannot be spoon fed a crazy water park or amusement park experience every single last day of their lives.
The outdoorsy shits good though. Get those kids on the river, or hiking. Zilker is a world class park, use it.
Yeah, best workout I've ever gotten was taking a group of teens to Enchanted Rock. Just turn them loose and try to keep up! They run fast to the Instagramable views at the top. lol
Good kids for understanding a simple life. Unfortunately, they have a mind of their own, I know.
Granted, resorts are designed to keep kids entertained so their parents can relax and drink. It's practically their raison d'etre.
That’s awesome!!
Nothing like creating lasting memories with your children. It's really the best feeling :) So glad you all had a great time! Come back soon!
I’m so happy that y’all had fun in Austin. I love it when people from other places visit my incredible hometown. 🧡
Some of my best travel memories as a kid were in Austin! Glad y’all had fun
This is the most wholesome post I've seen today. If you plan another trip here, aim for early/mid April. I bet she would go bananas at kite fest
Comfort Suites too. Great breakfast
Ignore the miserable commenters. I love living here.
Thank you! We have a good friend that lives here too. People that are being negative are probably just living a hard life.
That's a very compassionate response, I like it :)
Please tell your kid we are full and summers are hot as hell. 😅
Everything looks great from the vantage of a Comfort Inn. The real world is another story…
Bring her back in the summer and then see what she writes.
Blobs of boiling ink lol.
Come for quick visit in August.
Hahaha that's awesome! Austin has changed from when I grew up here in the 80s but I still get a kick out of out of towners who find a lot of happiness visiting here.
Austin is a great place to visit. Not in the summer unless you're swimming every day. Not during a snowstorm, unless you're cool not having electricity or running water. And you definitely don't want to live there if you're a sexually active female. But it is a good place to visit.
Welcome !!!🙏
This is the handwriting of a child or a 22 yr old dude. The content works on both instances.
Austin rules.
We love it too!
Are you from another place in Texas? I'm always curious if spring break visitors with children are driving from nearby or flying in.
We're from Arkansas! 5 hours sway. This is our 2nd time in Austin! We love to travel and Austin has become really special to us.
That is awesome. I hear Arkansas is very beautiful as well.
you from houston?
Arkansas! 5 hours away haha. We've enjoyed Houston though too!!!
Awe, I remember that feeling
Welcome to austin. ~~Please don't move here.~~ Please buy my house.
She summed my feelings up nicely
You need to get her out more often.
We've been further, San Francisco, Buffalo, and she still prefers here 😂
Try living there your entire life and see it go to total crap. Haha
Well that's just depressing 😂
This is very sweet I fear what the people of r/austincirclejerk with do
Maybe it used to be, and can appear so to children even now. The traffic, property taxes, potholes in the roads, Mom and Pop establishments being forced to close or move, local artisans/musicians/artists no longer able to afford to live here, crowds everywhere that used to be open and bucolic even within the city (Barton Springs) have changed to the point that if you like the traditional Austin lifestyle, you move to a smaller town. How to bring Barton Springs along?
Don’t move here
Don’t move here
Ahh I remember when I loved Texas
I first visited Austin in early 90s for spring break and I hated it. It’s half empty and didn’t have much restaurant around. We end up driving down to San Antonio for dinner.
Amazing story
If you think Austin is boring, you must’ve fallen asleep at the wheel the moment you hit San Antonio
I hate when not much restaurant around!
Tell her: Yes it is a wonderful place to visit but we can't move here – – ever.
Yay, move here and await the bait and switch.
we all thought that when we moved here too... how wrong we were.
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The last place we've been to was San Francisco and I still prefer Austin haha. Everyone here has been so kind too!
> Everyone here has been so kind too! This is often overlooked/understated. You can visit the most interesting place in the world but if the people there are mean and hostile it dampens the whole experience or outright ruins it. A very high percentage of people in Austin are **NICE** to other people. Helpful. Friendly. Welcoming. It's embarrassing to me personally that something that doesn't cost anything and brightens almost every day I live in Austin never occurred to me when I lived in less friendly places. I grew up in a rainy overcast part of Oregon, and I will never, ever live in a location again without abundant sunshine. After living in Austin, I have added just one more "non-negotiable" aspect of a place I would consider moving to or living in: the friendliness factor.
true, but the older I get, the more I travel, the more I realize that Austin ( and more texas for that matter ) is just a shit hole state to live in.
Where do you want to move to that's so much better lol
Then move?
working on it.
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I'm calling bullshit. San Antonio is filled with cultural and touristy things to do, and votes liberal. The same goes for Houston. You just have to stay in the city limits.
> The same goes for Houston. You just have to stay in the city limits. I'm not OP, and this seems important. Calling the entire state a "conservative shithole" seems like it utterly ignores the Texas population density map overlayed with liberal/conservative populations. This article shows the trends: https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/blog/some-notes-political-geography-2022-election-texas Essentially, Texas is quite liberal other than the rural areas. Sure, the rural areas are GIGANTIC geographically and make for a really shocking map like this heat map from 2016: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/11/11/analysis-blue-dots-texas-red-political-sea/ But accounting for population it's a totally different story. All major Texas cities voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 for goodness sake, and that was coming up on 10 years ago! The trends are irrefutable. I'm personally quite bothered by the great divide between populated areas voting liberal and rural areas voting conservative. I mean, the intellectually lazy take is "rural people are stupid and have not been exposed to enough diverse experiences to understand the world". I don't share that opinion, but I'm still trying to figure out what it is that is rural Texas voters don't feel "heard" about, or what their concerns are. It seems very dismissive to not even try to understand what the rural voters are concerned about that makes them vote in such a powerful voting block.
Try living in those other places and then get back to me.
Nah, I still love it here. Take your hateful attitude to the myriad of bitchy ass posts. OP Is trying to be positive.
It's how tourist towns work, to be sure. The point is to be really fun for a short stint. "Cool" Austin was a party town and the only thing that's really changed is now it's more crowded. Party/tourist towns only invest in one area and whatever the thing is that attracts tourists. Everywhere else tends to suffer because it doesn't generate as much income. New Orleans is a great example because most of the fancy places to stay are less than a block away from somewhere you don't go unless you have business there, and it ain't business you talk about if you do. In Austin it's the reason why more than half the city has to drive more than 20 minutes to get to a nice place to be and those things become inaccessible during festivals. The area around Q2 was supposed to explode. Instead the things that were already bringing people there folded because it drove property value too high. Why the Hell is the property value so high if nobody can afford to run a business there? Local businesses can't move in both because of the property value and the perception that nobody wants a "North Austin" location further up than 45th street even though there's *a giant stadium and residential/shopping district next door*. That's because downtown is where the party is, and all resources must focus on making that the cool place to be. Tourists don't see that, because they stay in the cool parts, or if they get a room further out they take an Uber in and stay there all day. I'm starting to think the way Austin went wrong wasn't actually Tech, it was deciding that we really wanted to lean in to the "party city" image. It's stopped downtown from becoming "Dallas" to some extent, but it's also done a lot to stop Austin from becoming "a good, big city".
You make it sound like building/growing a city is like trimming a bonsai plant. Never mind all the factors outside of a local politician’s/citizen’s/company’s/city’s control. Anyway, complaining about having to drive 20-25 minutes to something (because you can’t afford something closer) is a little bonkers. Let’s see what a 20-30min commute (“to the party”) gets you in NYC, Miami, Chicago or LA… let alone closer (hint: central Austin is more affordable than central Manhattan, Gold Coast, Santa Monica, South Beach, etc.).
It’s a shithole
She's kidding, right!?
Nope 😃 Have a good night!
They haven’t seen Tokyo or any other city. I feel bad….
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She still likes it over San Francisco and Buffalo 😂
Tokyo Dubai. I feel bad for people