You hit the nail on the head! We are born and raised in Central Texas and the population has gone whacko! The traffic here is obscene.....wrecks nearly everyday on I35 between Waco and Austin. Crime has also exploded with murders in our town where we NEVER had murders that I ever heard of til after 2000. We never locked our doors. Now we don't feel safe going to WalMart! So so sad. And you're right about the small stores. It's a sad thing that we are losing so many of them. Wish we could turn back time to where things were slower and more down home. Good job reporting.
Thanks so much for the feedback! It is SOOOO frustrating to see such large quantities of accidents. We have ideal driving conditions literally 90% of the time and I see flipped cars and multiple car pile ups with dry roads and sunny skies. I don’t know about the crime though. I personally still feel safe pretty much anywhere in Austin. I also spent half of my childhood in South America, so maybe my threshold is higher. 😂
@cindydavis8880 That's why I moved away from Austin. The population in the 1960s was around 150,000. Now it's around a MILLION. Many nice cities that had a population of 120-150,000 in the 1960s - STILL have that same population. When a city like this grows the way it has, it is NEVER a good thing. Not to mention the GREED with real estate, and corrupt city officials forcing downtown homeowners away so they can build skyscraper condos and generate more revenue.
I'm a transplant, a Texan but not an Austinite. Came here in 2011 for work and remain for same. Texas is great but Austin, well it used to be interesting but now it's just full of chain stores and too many people and it's not "Texasy" enough for me, I have never fit in here and I'd leave but I can't find the job opportunities anywhere else. It still has massive potential and there's things I like here (like great Vietnamese food), but it's definitely getting worse. The utterly corrupt city and county level politics has a lot to do with it. Let me put it this way, I have been in more water and power outages in the past 5 years of my life than the 25 years before that.
Thanks for sharing your point of view. I think a lot of people share this sentiment. There’s a lot of potential here and room for growth, but some things need to be adjusted in order for it to be done correctly. Thank you so much for watching and commenting !
I use to Live in Columbus Ohio and I felt Austin was probably very similar to my hometown. In 2016 I made the decision to either move to Austin Texas or Irvine California. Super glad that I made the decision to both move to Irvine and purchase my first home in Irvine California over Austin especially since I did it pre-covid and now post covid it just seems like dodging a bullet. Finances aren't everything but paying a mortgage on a home that's depreciating in conjunction with a higher property tax sounds very rough and something that I do not want to sign up for. Very sad to see Austin isn't transitioning well here. The 3 largest Capital Cities are Phoenix ,AZ Austin TX and Columbus OH.
@sdmit2000 That won't happen now. I lived there from 2010-2012. I remember hearing on the radio "150 people are moving to Austin every week." I can't imagine what that number is now. When Austin was still cool the population there was 150,000. Now it's a MILLION people in Austin.
I'm a teacher in Fort Worth and we have had a lot of teachers from the Austin area move here. Our median home value is half of what Austin's is and we pay our teachers more. (A teacher with 30 years experience in Austin maxes out at about $68k which isn't nearly enough to live there) When property taxes double for people and almost none of it goes into the education system, your "best places to live" ranking is going to drop. Also, Austin is a blue city in a red state which means everybody is going to have to deal with at least some political issues they don't like.
I moved from Texas to Natchez, Mississippi, and we also have Homestead Exemptions. I believe that you’ll discover that homestead exemptions are quite common to other states although I haven’t researched. Homestead exemptions also exist in Baton Rouge, LA.
One thing against Austin is that it lacks infrastructure to be a big city…like Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio. That’s why the traffic is so bad now.
True. But if you do some research and see what happened to the California school system after they enacted Proposition 13 in 1979, you may think differently. California went from top 5 schools to among the very worst for academic performance and gang membership for Jr. High kids. Nothing of value is cheap, including a better society.
Hello, what is a homestead exemption? I really need to get my property tax down because i'm paying nearly 10k for a 30 year old build that only cost 200k 8 years ago.
The more time I spend online, or just anywhere really, the more I think of rankings as being subjective. I like living nearby Austin, and that's good enough for me!
Hey GhettoDaddy! 🖖🏻 Sounds like you’re agreeing with us on the fact that studies subjective. Would appreciate you pointing out what you thought I said that was ridiculous. I think we can all learn from your perspective. Thanks GhettoDaddy!
You don't have to go "poo-poo"ing all over Austin. The Homeless are doing a fine job of that already. Also, #1 in live music ?! New Orleans, New York, Chicago and Memphis would like to speak on that. It's great if you need a good job while living in a closet for half your paycheck a month. I've lived here for 15 years.
The reason that Austin is "not top 10" by some esoteric metric is that Austin has a large population of people from...not from Austin. Case in point is the example of people who buy a condo next to the Broken Spoke or downtown and then say unintelligent things like "there should be a noise ordinance". One could create an entire channel based around these NPC's. The real draw of Austin is cool Austin people. The topography, music scene, Barton Springs, et al. are why I and most Real Austin people moved here many years ago. The ancient Romans had a poignant piece of wisdom that applies to this situation: When in Rome, do as the Romans.
I REMEMBER BUYING AND OWNING IN AUSTIN BACK IN 2010. YOU COULD GET A REALLY NICE NEWER HOME IN LEANDER AND LIBERTYHILL TX. YOU COULG GET AN AWESOME HOME FOR $110K. NOW THE ONLY DEALS I LOOK AT ARE VACANT LAND. I DONT AGREE WITH YOUR REASONS WHY AUSTIN IS NOT A TOP CITY. IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CRIME. AUSTIN WAS SAFE BACK IN 2010 WHEN I WAS THERE. NOW THAT ALL THE REALTORS SOUNDED THE BIG DRUM ON MOVING TO AUSTIN ALL THE TRASHY AND CRIME RIDDEN PEOPLE MOVED INTO AUSTIN. I NOW HAVE MOVED TO JOSHUA TREE CA AND LOVE IT. LOW CRIME. ONLY 7500 PEOPLE LIVE IN JOSHUA TREE. PAID $215K FOR A 2008 3 BEDROOM 1600 SF HOME WITH A SOLAR ROOF. MY TAXES ARE $3K A YEAR INSTEAD OF $6500 IN AUSTIN. AND NO AUSTIN WILL NEVER BE A COPY OF CALIFORNIA. NOT BY A LONG SHOT.
The fact that Austin is #1 in Texas, but #40 in the US, is very telling. The biggest problem with Austin is that it's located in Texas. Given our state government's stance on... literally everything, it's no surprise people don't want to live here anymore.
When everyone's stance on everything is different than yours then clearly everyone else is the problem. Texan's made Austin #1. People who've ruined their cities with bad policies move to and over run Austin. Austin becomes more like the cities they ruined and drops to #40. Imagine that. Now, imagine if you left.
Texas was its own independent country for almost 10 years after the Texas war for independence from Mexico….its why the Alamo is still a huge site in San Antonio. So just saying Texas was once its own independent country and it could happen again!
Hey David, I was comparing Austin to San Antonio and was basically saying that if someone prefers to live in SA and likes visiting Austin, it's not far. It depends which parts of town you're going to or coming from, but its about a 90 min drive with light traffic up to about 2 hours with traffic.
Yeah, we live in Austin but go to San Antonio every other weekend. If there’s no traffic, we can get to San Antonio from slaughter and 35 in about an hour. If there’s traffic it can take two hours.
I’m so glad we dropped out on the list. Austin has too many people. Everybody needs to start moving to San Antonio instead because San Antonio is a very beautiful city !!!! And they have better restaurants than we have.
I used to live there for one year it's not super friendly. It's not fantastic at all. It's expensive for no reason and it's like a small town. There's nothing to do the watering downtown. Smells like piss.
Sounds like you had a really limited experience. There's a ton going all over town at all times. Both Central Markets, (north and south) have live music pretty much every weekend. Cafe Mozart (on the lake) also has live music on weekends. There's The Domain on the north side of town with tons of shopping, bars, restaurants, even the Whole Foods over there is an experience. We have so many things to do outdoors, Lady Bird Lake, Lake Travis, Mount Bonnell ,so much hiking. There are also several large social dancing communities. There's even really welcoming communities for gamers. When we have SXSW there are so many events, some are free and open to the public. Not sure why you didn't the chance to go out and explore, but what a bummer.
@@AustinTX…these aren’t unique features you can’t find in MANY cities all over the country without paying California prices I came from California and I know small towns that offer similar, and often times more, with better weather and access to much more Austin isn’t u iq ur in any sense- you listed features you can find in cities over the country
@@AustinTXOpen Studio Tour every November with hundreds of artists to visit for three weekends. Great photos at Big Medium online, see what art you want to see. Our range and quality grows every year. Map online free. Join for one year and a big print catalog, $60 for being part of something we're fighting to keep, supports local makers. Helping keep what we can of the eclectic "Keep Austin Weird" spirit. Great memento, I still look at past ones sometimes. Plus physical map. To see a wide range at once, we always have a show somewhere with one small piece from a few hundred people. Get an IRL feel for where you'll go. Often there are several together at a group of studios, a store, gallery or someone's living room with a couple of their friends there too. So it's not like you go to 568 separate places! 🌻
