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It’s a lot worse than Boulder.
Austin....so over it
- Thread starter Brons2
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Yes, but then you live in a cultural, job, and activity wasteland.The winter is what it is, but you can live near a city in SD and not be isolated. City life without all the things mentioned in the opening post:
-overpopulation
-high cost of living
-homelessness
-definitely no tech bros
Don't have any experience with Austin now but when I lived there 20 years ago wasn't any different than other cities. Most people I worked with commuted a distance and didn't go to Austin except work. I lived in Lakeway by Lake Travis.. another guy Wichita Falls.. Liberty something (that's an expensive area!).
JHZR2
Staff member
Because a lot of it is armchair quarterbacking and politically motivated. Plus how dare we blame anything on one portion of the population, or give the demographics, unless it’s certain groups that the woke folks are allowed to blame?
There has always been crime, and always will be. Panhandling and drugs have become pervasive everywhere. Cities make access easier. Less enforcement makes it more likely that bad folks will do bad things - take the carjackings and crime in SE DC as an example.
I know folks that live and work there. I grew up just a few miles away. Lots of folks won’t go anymore. Lots of folks will. It used to be if you weren’t looking for trouble or doing stupid things, you could stay away and it wasn’t an issue. The randomness of much of the crime is what most folks I talk to are more fearful of, not the fact that there is (lots of) crime itself…
JHZR2
Staff member
I’ve been to Austin a few times over the last 15-ish years. Always had good and bad attributes. It has drawn certain crowds, and I don’t mean gangs or racial groups. More the kind that cares more about keeping it weird than anything else. And the dividends of that intention are paid.
Plenty of folks love the city. Plenty more like to visit and leave. I have very little interest in going for tourism or work tbh.
Plenty of folks love the city. Plenty more like to visit and leave. I have very little interest in going for tourism or work tbh.
Now, NYC is shipping them out to points unknown. We all might get a taste of this disaster, whether we want it or not.
JHZR2
Staff member
I think most of the country is anyway. Panhandlers are pervasive. I travel all over the country and they’re everywhere.
Austin was great 45 years ago when my best friend went to UT and Austin was Texan. Now Austin is Californian and horrible. No surprise.
I see it as a symptom of a larger economic disease
Some of us were born and raised, I didn't get a say in the matterJust imagine how bad the rest of the cities are!
TBH I don't really get why so many people like to live in most large cities at all? I've read a few article/studies that find cities in the 50-100k size tend to have the best quality of life, with short commutes, nearly all big city services, a sense of community, usually cheaper housing relative to income, fewer "big city" problems.
I could up and leave my life here, and move to where things are cheaper
...and get paid less to match
The COL/Pay relationship isn't as linear as it should be IMO, on the way up or down
And get threatening side eye because the second I open my mouth I'm gonna hear a thousand reasons why where I'm from is what's wrong with this country
When you get a large concentration of Californians, you can get some odd behavior
Apparently they like scooping a bagel out?
We put an end to that real quick
Until I break this stalemate, I'm gonna go ride my Motorcycle (in the rain) thru Bedford-Stuy alone
I’ve never been to Austin, but I went to San Antonio about 10 years ago and was shocked by the homeless problem then.
We went to Times Square in 2017 or so and I felt totally safe, and had a good time, which shocked me, as I prefer to be alone in the middle of no where. I fell in love with upstate NY and ME on that trip.
I wish we could see reality and not press coverage trying to stir up problems. I would be less likely to go to Austin and more likely to go back to Times Square based on this thread.
Still never going back to Chicago. That is near my family home and I know that place is not good to visit anymore at all.
We went to Times Square in 2017 or so and I felt totally safe, and had a good time, which shocked me, as I prefer to be alone in the middle of no where. I fell in love with upstate NY and ME on that trip.
I wish we could see reality and not press coverage trying to stir up problems. I would be less likely to go to Austin and more likely to go back to Times Square based on this thread.
Still never going back to Chicago. That is near my family home and I know that place is not good to visit anymore at all.
Dripping Springs is rapidly becoming part of the Austin Metroplex just like Leander, Round Rock, and Buda have already become. So is Liberty Hill. Housing/land prices, cost of living, property tax, traffic, and crime have followed suit. Austin proper has become landlocked and property values have risen to the point where middle/working class people can no longer afford to live in the city. I can only afford to live in Austin because I purchased my house in the 1980s, paid it off, and get a senior citizen property tax exemption. Moving here now would not be possible on a working man's or retirement income. Even closer-in suburbs like Cedar Park and Pflugerville are rapidly becoming unaffordable.
My brother transferred to Austin in 2012 and bought their house in Wimberley. I was considering transferring there also but after doing some research, I decided not to. I feel Austin has all the same problems as the Portland metro area has, too many people moving here, terrible infrastructure, including not enough freeways, high property taxes, soft on crime city hall, etc.
I don’t visit Austin that often, the homeless are a turn off. Don’t know how it was years ago but it is not worse than SF IMO.
I probably have mentioned this before: the only way you have little to no crime is some sort of dictatorship and tyranny.
Severely harsh punishment and banning lots of things can make everyone behaves the same way. Chewing gums on the road? Ban! Talking trash and trolling, sparking hateful debates on the internet forums? Jail time. Not supporting your elderly parents after they gave you their inheritance and send you to college? Reduced credit score and no air / high speed rail travel for you. Not paying off your medical bills because you cut corner and didn't buy insurance? We are taking your houses.
The only way you will get a 'everyone being nice to each other' society is to have a dictator in charge. Some dictators are good (Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Chiang Ching Kuo of Taiwan) but you can't guarantee anything without a system. The son who inherited the throne may not be so good and the next one can turn the country into trash.
You want your freedom you need to accept the trash that comes along with irresponsibility, and learn to mitigate the inevitable damage and limit the blast radius.
True. But if the consequences are severe enough then most will not risk the crime. With DNA capability there should be no question in having a death penalty, provided the DNA results are conclusive when confirmed by two independent labs. Not sure what those odds of error would be but at billions to one for a single lab I think the odds are small enough to accept the results. Appeals should be limited in number and in time allowed, 2 appeals and 24 months maximum per appeal. The time of execution decades after conviction should be no more. Will it solve the problems? No. Will it greatly reduce the problems? Almost assuredly yes.
Philly could do some real simple stuff to make a better first impression, like blasting and painting the overpasses over I-95, and sweeping up a decade's worth of de-icing sand on its surface streets.
My GPS directed me off the beaten path, it was like National Lampoon's Vacation... Roll 'em up!
Working at a restaurant was something of an an entry level job by default when no non-restaurant jobs were available. Now that people can choose what they want to do, it turns out, many of them didn't want to sling hash. It's a structural problem, particularly if you can't make your own sandwiches.
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