Austin was supposed to be the next big tech hub | Hacker News Reader

Austin was supposed to be the next big tech hub

sherwood.news

24 pointsilamont64 comments

Open articleView on HN

A part of the reason is also the highly toxic state leadership.

- anti-LBGTQ+

- anti-abortion

- anti-immigration

- misappropriating state funds for partisan stunts [1]

- recapture program designed to fund education in poorer areas of TX. But when it was overfunded one year, it went to balance the state budget [2]

I love the city but the state leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[1] https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/21/texas-migrants-busin...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20220212004001/https%3A%2F%2Fwww...

Don't believe the hyperbole from the social media outrage machine.

1 in 3 Texans is either an immigrant themselves or the child of an immigrant. The border issues and illegal immigration are concerning to some in the state, but critically 1) Austin is far from the border and mostly unaffected and 2) there is little to no anti-immigration sentiment for legal immigrants even in the other parts of the state.

Austin itself is very LGBT friendly, and even at the state level, the only partisan debates seem to be around trans youth.

Your last point actually highlights Texas' surprisingly progressive education system. Rather than funding being local-only as in many parts of America, Texas has a strong state-level Robinhood system of taking money from wealthy zipcodes to fund schools in less affluent areas, so that all schools receive more balanced funding.

Additionally on the education front, admissions to the state's flagship schools is guaranteed for students in the top 10% of their high school. This policy is a clever hack around explicit affirmative action policies being banned (and was put in place when those were deemed unconstitutional) because it guarantees admission to students who attended lower-performing schools, often from disadvantaged communities.

There's plenty to complain about for the Texas state government, but realistically for most people the issues are more hypothetical than practical. It's not like California doesn't have it's share of governmental incompetence and dysfunction as well.

The Texas state government just pardoned a guy who drove a car into a blm protest.

And it's regularly limiting access to women's healthcare and lgbtq healthcare. It doesn't matter if Austin is lgbtq friendly if the state itself isn't.

This! I can’t accept forgiving murder. I don’t know Texas much but it now is a place where a racist kills a person and gets out of jail forgiven. From a moral point of view I don’t know how the governor and its constituents can look themselves in the mirror. Murder is murder.

Lifetime Texan here. Ten years ago I would have said that Texas was a model for rational conservative governance (and I would have said it with a tinge of grudging respect as someone who's personal politics drift in the other direction), but I will not say that now; eventually the lunacy crept in, and nothing good is going to come of it.

> The Texas state government just pardoned a guy who drove a car into a blm protest.

And to clarify, that guy was convicted of murder for shooting a protestor. His defense was that the protestor was carrying an AK-47, but Texas (notoriously) allows open carry, the guy even corroborated witness reports that the protestor wasn't aiming at him ("I believe he was going to aim at me. I didn’t want to give him a chance to aim at me."), and he had a history of racist text/Facebook messages that threatened violence against protestors and black people.

The dude went looking to kill BLM protestors and Abbott let him off scot free.

>Additionally on the education front, admissions to the state's flagship schools is guaranteed for students in the top 10% of their high school.

This is also technically true for the University of California. Top 9% of your local school = get into the UC.

The rub (and a pretty big one) is that the UC considers all of it's campuses as one, giant, single University. Thus you are guaranteed a position at a UC, but not a position at your CHOICE of UC. Practically, this means that you will be assigned to UC Merced. Top tier UCs (Berkeley, LA, San Diego) are pretty much out of reach because the competition and prestige means there will be no open space. And, frankly speaking, UC Merced isn't looked upon too favorably by the most desirable employers...

How does Texas get around this? Are all their campuses equally strong in reputation and rigor? Did they instead actually open up spaces for 10% of top in-state high school students at even the flagship campuses?

I don't think abortion issue is insignificant enough that you left it out

Just say it: There is a higher-than-average concentration of American-made ideology that's mostly ignorant with some downplayed hate: Christian white supremacy nationalism clinging to false beliefs like "America is a Christian country" and "Families require a man and a woman where the man is in-charge". The Oklahoma City bombing to the immediate north in OK was 100% home-grown terrorism.

Christian nationalism and traditional values are home grown terrorism?

Yes… they’re definitely the extremists here.

Family values are fine. I don't know why you think religious nationalism is fine unless you want your country to become like a Christian version of Afghanistan or similar. Not many people are fans of theocracies.

Exactly. It's when magical thinking drifts away from benign positive vibes and community that it becomes a dangerous belief system bent on harming others based on a self-righteous moral crusade.

Working institutions and Christian culture, correlation does imply causation?

I think you know very well the difference between Christian culture, which is fine, vs claiming or wanting to turn your country into a Christian theocracy. I find it rather interesting that the person above was talking about theocratic sentiments and you instead read it as simply Christian culture expression. Not even that you disagree that theocratic sentimemt exists, but that such is equivalent to sinply wanting Christian culture.

Evangelical Christianity just happens to be the most common patina of the flavor of absurdity. There's nothing wrong with all kinds of Christianity. Episcopalians, on average, tend to be downright cool beans. The adherents of Manifest Destiny and Monroe Doctrine probably had similar attitudes to people who weren't white and their kind of Christian. The challenge over time is ameliorating and confronting the intergenerational hate and trauma that echos into the future and healing all peoples so they can live together in peace.

Adding to this, its an ugly mix.

The state tax system heavily penalizes anyone who can't pretend to be a farmer, so you will have people with 'hobby' farms that are valued 3x+ outside of the urban areas who are playing 1/2 or less in taxes than someone with a modest home in the suburbs. Then these areas are then heavily subsidized with schooling, roads, electric and internet services. Which is a feedback loop where those counties won't raise taxes because then they get less funding transfers. Until the recent reset of the tax exemptions its was quite likely most people in the state would have been paying the same or less taxes in California.

The state hates public parks, so the per capita acreage is such that the parks are both way over utilized and nearly impossible to use due to the overwhelming demand for camping/etc on the weekends.

Then one combines the many state inflicted problems with Austin's issues. Like the fact that there is a very strong anti growth lobby the ties everything up in courts. For example that the main interstate highway going through town has been functionality obsolete for 30+ years and any attempts to fix it are stymied at every turn. Then Austin will convert decades old overcapacity four lane roads into two lanes with a rarely utilized bike lane. Or while Austin is unusual that it actually has a lot of in town public land (BCP/etc) the vast majority is closed to the public and any appropriated money is used to fence it off and post no trespassing signs, rather than providing recreational or nature oriented opportunities. And again the anti growth people formed a coalition with the green heads to slice the western part of the city up into sections requiring people who live in those areas to drive miles and miles out of their way to get around the preserves which combine with the lake to form long barriers to direct traffic flow.

Which goes to the general incompetence/fear the city has about road construction, light timing, light rail construction, etc. Leaving bonded projects never being started because they either spend all the money on smaller included projects and never getting to the main one, or waiting a decade+ to break ground and discovering that the project is now 2x-8x the original estimates.

The air quality is some of the worst in the country for $REASONS.

I could go on, but its a _long_ list of issues.

Regular power issues are also state government incompetence.

ERCOT was shit during the 2021 snowpocalypse when my refrigerator and indoor air temperature both equalized to 47 F (8 C).

Fast forward to 2024, they've improved considerably with enormous wind and solar deployments.

Although near ATX downtown: my UPSes cycled on and off 5x today during heavy rain for no apparent reason other than inadequate protection of power lines or switchgear.

What hasn't improved is the absurd level of deregulation that can result in surprise bills when local spot power prices go insane.

It seems like every "red" state has a "blue" city where the misfits & malcontents (or, did I mean refugees) can flee too. In Texas it's Austin. In Indiana it's Bloomington.

It is usually the town with the main state university. Sometimes a notable private school instead depending on particulars of the local history.

In Wisconsin it’s Madison. etc.

Sorry but a difference of opinion does not mean it’s toxic. The government is representing its voters - you’re essentially calling the majority of Texans toxic.

Removing rights should never be considered a “difference of opinion,” what a completely asinine response to a state government that has literally taken away bodily autonomy against Americans.

Well, so be it then. If the texas you got is the one you wanted this is accurate.

Is the California you have the one you want?

Never been can't say.

To be a tech hub, you need:

- top-tier universities - a history of successful knowledge transfer projects between the academia and the industry - access to capital (so you need to cater to these VC types and offer them something they want) - have a well-connected airport nearby - have some interesting people already living there (not necessarily tech-minded) - be reasonably pro-immigration

Boston, NYC and DC, if somehow merged into one city, could fit the bill. None of them by their own can. And nobody else except Bay area, of course.

Austin has had issues, long before the pandemic.

In one example (in the 10's), the owner of the building that Unisys used to lease wanted to disproportionately increase the cost of the lease; it was so much so, that it was cheaper for Unisys to close the site and offer relocation to the workers (notably, New York being a favoured relocation site).[1]

[1] - https://archive.is/dwQWh

That just sounds like the free market at work.

There's a clear reason why - Texas has no interest in attracting well educated people. Well educated people tend to think through things like, "should we understand people have different lived experiences than me?"

I'm sure Texas is great if you are a white, cishet, conservative man! I'm not so sure it's great if you aren't all those things.

Where do you live? Based on your attitude I’d guess Seattle or Portland. Last I checked, there’s proportionally more white folks in the PNW than Texas, proportionally more white folks in Seattle/Portland than say Dallas or Houston, and let’s not even get into eastern Washington or Oregon for conservative ideas like how “No free negro or mulatto not residing in this state at the time of the adoption of this constitution, shall come, reside or be within this state or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein; and the legislative assembly shall provide by penal laws for the removal by public officers of all such negroes and mulattoes, and for their effectual exclusion from the state, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them into the state, or employ or harbor them.”

Are you suggesting Texas is systemically a great place to live for non white folks? Refuting the statement above?

Seattle definitely has a history of redlining and race exclusion. It's also farther from the U.S. south, where population densities of non white folk historically lived. That city is almost certainly alienating to non white folks from a "few people here look like me" perspective.

But Texas has a higher rate of incarceration for Black folks, per 100,000 Black folks than Washington. I don't know that I'd call the state a great place to live, even if lots of people call it home. A high population of any one group does not mean that the state is a good place for those people. Or that those people will have cultural acceptance. Using your examples, Oregon and Washington and Texas all have about 50% women, but Oregon and Washington are much less likely to remove access to women's healthcare.

>> Are you suggesting Texas is systemically a great place to live for non white folks? Refuting the statement above?

As a non white person that has lived in both Seattle and Texas: I am not suggesting, it I am affirming it. It’s weird to talk with people like you who are so wrapped up in identity politics yet you can’t see the appeal of being in an area where you aren’t the only one of your kind.

I’m happy to be white, conservative and well educated.

Stay in another state that’s more… culturally enriched.

What does that mean? Because it sure reads like a euphemism for "non white".

These are people who, to put it politely, subscribe to Neil Stephenson’s thesis in “In the Beginning was the Command Line”

I happen to think Stephenson was dead wrong, and his example of composite culture was a strawman, and I’m not the only person who does.

Or, you know, they could just be racist.

What? I was replying to the guy that essentially said that the people in Austin are white, Conservative and NON-educated. I went to on explain that there also educated white conservatives…

“Culturally enriched” is a common right wing dog whistle even if you didn’t mean it that way

gosh, I wonder if there was anything else about Texas that changed in recent years that might make well-educated people from diverse cultures want to leave?

Austin was supposed to be the next big tech hub since at least the late 90's and the dot-com boom/bust.

I don't think the Oracle headquarters change makes a huge difference, but I did figure Twitter would move to Austin, and that hasn't happened yet.

It's a designation on paper, essentially

Houston made so much more sense as the tech hub for Texas. Way bigger, two top tier universities (with UT Austin in reach), built for scale, and lots of money (albeit in the super conservative energy industry, though they are trying to diversify)

It's not culturally aligned with tech workers like Austin is though. Austin has a reputation of being kinda a cool, funky city. Houston has the reputation of living in an armpit with shitty, car brained infrastructure.

Austin is also very car-brained, but worse because it's a small city that's vastly overgrown its borders. But, agree, Houston is an armpit.

More Dallas which was historically the biggest Texas tech hub. And still is, still bigger than Austin

You can blame Tillman Fertitta for scotching another UT research campus because he didn’t want something to rival his precious University of Houston

7.5% is crazy growth. There’s no way a real estate market survives that without spiraling upwards

And yet it's gone down.

>Austin rents have come down 7 percent in the past year.

from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/austin-tex...

Turns out actually building homes works :surprised_pikachu:.

My lease rate went down 40% in ATX. They're basically begging me to stay in the penthouse at this point. I won't because the neighbors here are disrespectful (loud - I can hear their howling and yapping dogs barking through the "concrete" floor at all hours of the day and night), let their dogs piss and shit all over the front of the building, and the people moving in are insanely ignorant, uncool, and anti-social.

>Turns out actually building homes works :surprised_pikachu:.

more like it turns out that having a wrongly-promised false market of endless real estate customers prompts municipalities to (over)-invest in the housing market.

to our benefit this time, but let's call a cat a cat; it was due to over-provisioning based on incorrect future forecasts, not some altruistic political maneuver to benefit housing costs for residents; just a carrot for an audience of Austin hopefuls that eventually evaporated to the benefit of locals.

Would this work elsewhere? Yeah, up until you hit the problems with excessive over-spending and waste of workforce -- which is to mean it's not a solution.

Nope. Not growing that fast anymore. It is dipping down to 0% growth rate, listings up 19%, number of home sold is down 4%, and time-on-market is up 5% longer.

https://orchard.com/homes/real-estate-market-report/city/tx/...

I like how they try really hard to avoid mentioning Florida like it doesn’t exist. Florida has taken over all the top fastest growing metro areas.

I recommend reviewing Florida’s residential real estate listing volume and trend. Recent movers walked right into a trap due to the insurance market collapsing at the same time the market was overbought.

I owned investment properties in Central Florida and liquidated them all last year. Simply not worth the potential exposure to Category 6 hurricanes and $5k-$10k/year in property insurance, if you can even get it if your roof is older than ~10-15 years. Repairs post hurricane could take months, if not a year or more.

https://www.newsweek.com/florida-homeowners-desperately-tryi...

https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-tracker-march-202...

https://www.wusf.org/weather/2024-02-06/florida-stronger-hur...

https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/5-trends-watch-2...

Category 6 isn’t officially a thing yet.

Should I have waited to sell until it was? Not my bags to hold. The insurance industry is already forward looking in this regard (pricing snapping towards risk models), I’m just riding their coattails.

I mean, the Florida state govt. doesn’t deserve your tax money so I salute you anyway.

Reducing exposure to a dysfunctional governance system is a pleasant byproduct for sure.

Florida isn't a metro area, it's a state. Maybe you mean Miami.

I don't know why anyone would want to live there:

- Way more obese people

- Lower intelligence level

- Humid AF

- Rains all the time

- Hurricanes

- Flooding

- Insane, brutal governor

<s>Because no science ever got done in like Calcutta ever</s>

Although I will say the bus system in Miami is total garbage

It's America, where single-occupant pickup trucks equal freedom. And so public transportation became largely viewed as a signal of low-status, which is why it's so inefficient and neglected. America had many local tram services that were ripped up because it seemed like cars were better and the future.

I will say one benefit of living in feudal-until-Katrina New Orleans is the excellent streetcar system

Houston would need another 5 hurricanes to be livable, and ATX just wants to keep having shitty roads and more traffic with its token tram that crawls into E ATX.

Where I grew up, I recall the demolition of a 1920's-era local train station took 15 years and it was replaced in the 90's with a light rail system with stations in the middle of nowhere and railcars were almost always empty.

Most American cities are too badly designed to allow for efficient local public transportation. I think about the only way out is high speed rail into city cores from feeder satellite residential suburbs, and then local busses and trains.

I'm glad NoLa got a clue.

The demographics matter. Is Florida's growth young, well educated professionals? Or are we seeing boomers retire there and a concentration of conservative retirees wanting to follow their politics.

There are young, talented, ambitious people graduating from school in Florida every year, but for tech they run into the same vicious cycle: there aren’t enough tech opportunities in Florida, so a lot of the most talented and ambitious will leave the state or find something else to do and the technology sector continues to be underdeveloped.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com