California man blasts Texas 'dystopia' in Op-Ed after moving to Austin | Hacker News Reader

California man blasts Texas 'dystopia' in Op-Ed after moving to Austin

sfgate.com

18 pointsilamont20 comments

Growing up in Texas "Are you ready to have your son judged based on his suitability for a future career in football?" hit a little too close to home.

My district built the most expensive high school football stadium to one up the town south of us that previously held the title, but we were using half sheets in class because they couldn't afford paper.

However, there's a lot of different school districts and you can surely find what you want. Not sure if growing up in the Bay area would've necessarily been a better experience.

Hot summers. Well, yes. It's Texas. I saw 113F one time.

High cost of pool maintenance & landscaping. Most people scoop their own leaves out & add chemicals. Also, xeriscaping is a thing so you don't have a $500 water bill.

Rude people, bad drivers. Got to give him the bad drivers part. But I rarely met anyone rude. He should have tried being friendly & waving first. "How y'all doing today?" works almost every time.

I'm a lifelong Texan, though I spent the first 19 years of my life in a smaller city of about 40,000, which had a lot of small town culture.

When I spent a couple of months in Ohio in the late 90s, I had many tell me they found my friendliness odd.

I dunno, I think there is "road texans" and then "Texans" from my experience in the state.

Driving you'd think everyone is about ready to fight you. Then you stop at a truck stop and everyone is super nice, chatty, and helpful. I had minor car trouble - casually mentioned it to the cashier at a gas station, and with folks overhearing ended up having half a dozen good 'ole boys getting me fixed up and on the road again.

It's weird, but I suppose not uncommon. I originally am from MN, and drivers there kind of mimic the general personality too imo. The "Minnesota Nice" and general passive aggressiveness merged into one hellish of a driving experience. But, get out of the car and people generally are quite helpful and pleasant as well.

The only place I've spent any appreciable time in where I can say the drivers were downright pleasant was Kentucky. I lived there about a year, and even to the day I left I could never quite understand people actually getting over to let me merge on the freeway, stopping voluntarily off busy roads to let me turn left, not blocking the left lane unless to pass, etc. Yet I'd say the general day to day in-person interactions I had there were probably less friendly than Texas overall.

tldr; weird Sunday rant about driving styles and state personalities :)

Boston. Mass-holes. Moving there from California, I didn’t get the roundabout thing for the longest time.

It didnt help that my first exposure to Boston was during the ‘Big Dig’ years.

That's a totally fair and accurate assessment.

Either this guy's level of self-awareness is so low that it could strike oil, OR, he's written a shitpost that might just save Texas.

>Alder found the locals to be rude, lacking in integrity and terrible drivers.

I'd probably be rude too if people like the author kept moving to your city, driving up housing costs, increasing traffic, and changing the culture. Also, there are no drivers worse than California transplants, so this guy is hitting new levels of having no self-awareness.

Having driven in both Houston and Dallas, Austin traffic is worse. The freeways just aren't designed for today's demand.

My experience driving in Austin in the 10s was that they are bad drivers. A mix of overly passive, overly aggressive and oblivious. I'm not a transplant - just had to go there on business.

You ever been to Boston?

His description actually sounds appealing to me. Some areas have different cultures they fit some people and not others. It's just how it goes.

I'm hoping to eventually see a well-reasoned rebuttal to this post, not just knee-jerk insults by people who are personally offended on behalf of a city. But so far no luck.

Having been a long term resident of both, his moving to Bee Cave is going to put him amongst a higher percentage of natives. Natives aren’t thrilled about higher property taxes and the sprawl. The farther out you go, the more conservative it will get. In the Bay, people aren’t worried about property tax but rent.

All your favorite places are too crowded (Austin or Bay, pre Covid). Those non aggressive drivers in Austin are all on Ambien or pot and driving 15 mph below the speed limit, which just enrages the other drivers. Houston is more of a Nascar experience. Dallas actually has made road progress, if you don’t have ptsd from the last four decades of nonstop construction. Your neighbors will all be moaning about their toll bills though.

Drive IH-35 between DFW and Austin and you’ll get what a low-service State govt is all about.

IMO, all this talk about CA culture - the vast majority moving to TX aren’t BA natives. They’re folks who came for the money and now they’re moving on. They weren’t that welcomed here, they won’t be that welcome there. That said, most Austinites aren’t natives either. It just worked until it got ridiculous (which is function of your arrival date).

Well, as they say in Texas: "Don't let the door hit you on your way out".

DFW >>> Austin

Can you elaborate further? As someone who had admittedly never visited Dallas/Fort Worth, I have this image in my head as the whole area being one giant suburban sprawl with some tall buildings in a "downtown".

That's pretty accurate actually. But maybe it's just my personal preference that you can find your large country ranch just a few miles from the suburbia and the city. That city might be the most Texan culturally - that and I can't stand the shit planning in Houston. Most property that I spoke of is pretty cheap too, with all the creature comforts and benefits of living in a major US/global city.

Edit:- bdcravens summed it up nice. The DFW area is like 5 cities joined together, each having their own unique city centre and sprawl.

Austin might be capturing most of the cultural import and export in all of Texas, but I like the way Dallas has evolved, without changing its innate Texan characteristics as much as Austin. SV people might find it distasteful, but I think it's a matter of personal preferences, and maybe I like it because I find it very distinct compared to what I'm used to (Central or Zone 2 London homes with a tiny garden).

That being said, I like Austin way more than the Bay area.

Correct. Frisco TX was mostly pasture 30 years ago and now has a half dozen 5A high schools. Thats 2000+ students. They dont build smaller schools because that’s optimal for football teams.

Lake Travis west of Austin is ~3000 students. Packed classes but got them 5 state championships.

That's pretty accurate, though many of the cities that make up the DFW Metroplex are relatively large cities in their own right (Plano/Irving/Arlington/Fort Worth). Fort Worth is actually as big as San Francisco, in terms of population.

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