Why so many people are moving to Texas | Hacker News Reader

Why so many people are moving to Texas

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91 pointsschrofer142 comments

A month ago I was talking to another HNer about where to take a startup after launching in the valley.

There's a ton of great places: Seattle, Raleigh-Durham, Boston, L.A., DC beltway, etc. but I kept coming back to Austin. They've got so many things you would want: low cost of living, low regulatory burden, friendly community, lots of parks and open spaces, great nightlife, ease of travel, and so on.

When I look at the bay area, I wish them the best. They're still hands-down the best place to find money. But not so much in my mind of places to actually live. If I had a break-even startup and just wanted to live somewhere that I was surrounded by great talent doing cool things? I'd choose Austin in a heartbeat.

Although it's a close race, in my mind over the last few years Austin has moved to #2 in the startup world stateside. And it continues to improve.

Cost of living has continued to skyrocket, and all the newly arrived are destroying the once great character of Austin. It's already too late.

Said just about everyone who's ever lived anywhere at any point in time.

Minorities and artists, and the poor are getting priced out of the city and abandoning the "Live Music Capital of the World" for friendlier and cheaper climes. But don't let the facts get in the way of your snark.

That's literally been said about every big cultural city in the world.

Berlin, nyc, sf, Toronto...

Gentrification in Austin is not at all unique.

Who's avoiding facts? The facts are that this happens constantly. Places change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.. which is always a matter of individual perspective.

The only constant is that expecting conditions to never change in any material way remains a very poor bet.

The facts are that the cultural character of the city, "live music" is getting pushed out by the same people touting that as a reason to move here. They move here from SFC and NYC and then set about trying to change all the things that supposedly drew them here.

Whatever, y'all are right, and I shouldn't have expressed my view that the things y'all think are here are not in fact here.

Still cheap when compared to San Francisco.

long time locals are probably feeling the crunch just as badly as long time SF locals though

The worst people to ever move to a location are the ones that get there after you :) When you move there, you're of course strengthening the character of the place, but the riff-raff after you spoil it.

But, unlike the unaffordable areas, texas isn't restrictive with it's land use, which is strongly co-related to housing affordability. Just look at the chart on page 18 here:

http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf

You sound like a lot of people I knew from Seattle back in the 90s... Funny.

For the kiddies too young to remember: After the S&L crisis, there was an exodus from SoCal to <anywhere else>.

Another benefit to Austin: No state income tax.

No state income tax for Seattle either.

My understanding, at least in the case of Texas, is that the lack of a state income tax is largely offset by significantly higher property taxes.

On average an individual's tax burden will still end up being less in Texas.

My guess would be that most people working at a start up would be renting and thus would avoid the property tax.

Well, obviously renting doesn't "avoid" property tax -- the owner just passes the cost of the tax on to the renters. That said, the cost of housing in Austin is probably still considerably less than, say, the Bay Area or NYC.

That's how it should be. That's actually a progressive way of doing things. People who can afford pay higher taxes do.

Property taxes actually wind up being regressive a lot of the time. Having 2x or 10x income usually translates to a house that's less than 2x or 10x in value.

That's not necessarily regressive, if a billionaire buys the same house someone making $70,000/yr doesn't make it regressive. It's not linearly progressive (ie 1:1 ratio of taxes to taxable amount), but is still progressive. Current income taxes (federal at least) are more regressive even though quantity of money might still be higher for higher income individuals.

I could be completely wrong, tax stuff confuse the hell out of me...

If the ratio of taxes to income isn't rising with income or at least keeping constant (which is what I think you're referring to as "linear"), your marginal tax rate is declining as income rises. I think you maybe mean it's staying constant with consumption, but that's kind of the problem - people with higher incomes tend to consume a smaller portion of their overall income, so taxes based on consumption are usually regressive.

That's pretty much the definition of regressive when it comes to taxes - people making more are being taxed less, proportionally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

While you're partially right in terms of house property value, high property taxes encourage efficient use of land. They prevent wealthy landowners from just sitting on valuable land.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that the ultra-wealthy typically earn most of their money from investments, not income. This is why Mitt Romney pays a net lower tax rate than you or I and another reason why even progressive income taxes are fairly regressive.

State taxes often treat investment and wage income the same; particularly in California.

Formerly 15% + 0% (if you lived in WA) capital gains one year is now 20% + 3.8% + 14.3% (if you moved to California in 2013). That's a pretty big difference for the same gain.

"Land Value Taxes" are the solution to this. Taxes on the unimproved value of land, deterring people from holding huge amounts of land idly. Provide a way to donate land to environmental trust if you want it to be empty, or give rebates for certain pro-civic activities (i.e. a 100 year no-build promise on your land would reduce your taxes substantially)

How, exactly, do, real estate taxes (flat ad valorem, right?) do that better than progressive taxes on income?

Most state income taxes that I know of are flat.

> Most state income taxes that I know of are flat.

Of 43 states with individual income taxes, 7 have flat individual income taxes. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_income_tax

I could see how taxing standard of living rather than a high income could be a good thing.

> I could see how taxing standard of living rather than a high income could be a good thing.

That certainly seems like an argument that could be made, but I don't see that ownership of real property alone is a better proxy for "standard of living" than income is, so I don't see how any such argument would be relevant to the claim made with regard to property taxes. (Consumption -- as is the focus of sales and use taxes -- is probably a better proxy for "standard of living" than real estate ownership is and might be better than income, but I still don't think flat consumption taxes are more progressive against standard of living than progressive income taxes are.)

Actually, it largely offset by just fucking it's citizens out of basic services.

Like what?

What do you mean by basic services? We have roads in Austin, We have a city-owned electric company. We have hospitals. We have police and fire departments. The idea that Texas is some lawless place without services for anyone is just wrong. They might not have full salary pensions for retired government workers (the horror!), but Texas has provided plenty for its citizens.

There are lot of 3rd world countries in which I'd rather be a poor person than Texas.

Your governor believes many (if not most) Federal assistance programs are unconstitutional. He believes in drug testing for the unemployed.

Which ones? My guess is you've never been outside of the US or its satellite allies.

Again, what basic services are not provided? I'm now genuinely curious about what you consider a basic service that is not provided by Texas. Believing in drug testing for the unemployed does not mean that Texas does not provide basic services. What 3rd world countries would you rather be a poor person in?

Yet another reason for living in your van (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5794592)

Higher percentage-wise yes, but not by its affect your paycheck. My property tax is half of what I paid in MA, and it's for a house double the size and half the price - in a suburb of Austin, with a shorter commute to downtown that I had to Boston. My paycheck hasn't suffered in any way to make that trade, either.

I live in Houston rather than Austin, but I can say that in Houston the lack of state income tax is easily made up for by the extremely high property taxes.

I moved to Austin from Raleigh and got a 7.5% raise because there isn't a state income tax.

However: property taxes are significantly higher here (about $2-3 per $100 value, depending on location.) And you'll pay full sales tax on vehicle purchases (NC has a 3% highway-use tax only).

I've been saying this for the last 2-3 years now. I'm taking my startup to Austin for sure (after we get cracking here in London/Barcelona). So many reasons to go there that I've lost count.

They're still hands-down the best place to find money.

Yet there are so many VCs in TX! From what I've been told, many VCs in TX only deal with TX companies. I think there is some law about owning a large plot of land that allows for many VCs there to hide their earnings there well.

Anyway, we'll be looking for Rails and front-end UX guys in about 1 year time in the Austin area. So any of you ambitious people looking to join a startup, and want to be part of a tech+athletic (triathlon+endurance athletics) culture, feel free to get in touch with me now just to get the ball rolling. I know things can always change over a year, but happy to start the convos going now. My company is http://www.competehub.com

I find that Seattle has most of those benefits (no income tax, better regulation, state and city with balanced budgets, lower cost of living) but also the benefits of living in a socially liberal state (gay marriage, access to family planning, sane regulation of pot).

Austin however wins on weather, unless you like to stay buried in your cave programming, like me. ;)

in 2011 it broke 100f 30 days in a row in Austin. 2012 was a bit of a ball buster too, this year is predicted to break records (though it hasn't been too bad so far).

I assure you Austin does not win on weather.

I think this is highly dependent on the individual. I despise the heat, and definitely prefer Seattle's weather to Austin's. But I know plenty of people who are the opposite.

I assume places in Austin at least come with AC.

It doesn't get anywhere close to 100f in Seattle but you'll still some solid stretches 85+F which, while absolutely peanuts in most places, is pretty brutal for someone used to AC. It is one thing to be brutally hot during the day when you are outside, and an entirely different thing to be rather hot at 3am when you are trying to sleep.

Growing up in Austin it was a shock to learn there were places where you would not have AC.

There is only so far A/C goes. 100F is likely to still be 85F except in new construction.

At least you'd have some pleasant contrast. Walking into your apartment in the summer to be met with air at least as warm as outside is not very cool.

Temperature contrast is vastly underrated, and almost impossible to get in Seattle either way (never gets cold enough in the winter to be that different than a comfortable indoors temperature either).

These do wonders: http://www.amazon.com/Chill-Its-6602-Cooling-Towel-Blue/dp/B...

(I live in Atlanta, 95% humidity, 90 degrees, way too often)

I moved from the Dallas area to the Seattle area and I've had AC everywhere I've lived (except the first place). Sure I've had to install it in one case, but it's not that expensive compared to the benefit if you're used to AC.

Also, I think Seattle wins on weather too, but I lived in the southern heat for a very long time so maybe my perspective is warped.

2011 was just a really bad year, a record 90 days over 100 (previous record was 67). But the heat's not the only thing to consider. Austin averages 300 days of sunshine each year, while Seattle has only 58.

Yeah but 242 of those days are too hot to do anything. So it's kind of a wash you know?

EDIT TO ADD:

Look I'm not saying that Seattle's weather is perfect, nor that there is a perfect location, but whatever Austin is doing with its weather, it sure as hell aint winning.

That's not true. I love the warm weather - and absolutely dread overcast/rainy. I don't have Seasonal Affective Disorder, but to say that the sun doesn't brighten my day would be wrong.

It's all relative.

Seattle is closer to Hawaii. I've found Seattle to have acceptable sun by spending a few weeks out of the year vacationing to Hawaii or California. Summer in Seattle is so much better than Summer in Texas; it's the rainy winter that you have to break up.

omg. only 58 days of sunshine!? I think I need to move to this place for at least part of my life.

It doesn't sound correct though.

I lived in the Seattle area for many many years, and it got plenty of sun, summer and winter, and most of the non-sunny weather was best described as "mild." Moreover, on sunny days, it's not oppressively hot most of the time. The area's rep for bad weather is pretty undeserved (yeah I know the joke "shhh, don't tell, some Californians might hear!").

I don't like Seattle for cultural reasons, but the climate is very nice.

Is 100f 30 days in a row worse than 7 months in a row of mostly overcast and rain? Not so assured.

Oh god yes. I looooooooove rain and cloudy days, but hate heat and sunlight. No Texas for me, I think!!

Do keep in mind that if you move to TX, your children will learn creationism IN SCHOOL. Also, they will likely learn about a white-washed version of slavery. This is a really big deal to me, and it should be a big deal to more liberals who move out there.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-monroe/how-texas-school-...

I attended high school in TX and can verify that in biology class I had absolutely no exposure to creationism. For what it's worth, the Texas Legislature recently signed a bill vastly decreasing the number of high-stakes standardized tests required to graduate high school, which I hope is a sign of improvements to come for the public school system here.

Sorry, but that's nonsense. Don't believe everything read on Huff-post.

Edit: And since it's sure to come up, our sex education isn't abstinence-only, either.

Austin is great. Except for the traffic.

I compare Austin to little San Francisco. Texas is not the South. Wipe that stereotype from your mind.

I live in Waco, TX. Two hours from the hearts of Austin, Fort Worth and Dallas.

First: Internet. With Google Fiber and Grande Communications, internet speeds are insane. Datacenters are abundant and in every direction. I can drive to colos.

Second: Texas is multi-geographical. You can head south towards San Antonio/Austin for amazing caves and mountains. You can head west for a huge desert. You can head southwest for a near rain forest experience. You can head east for an experience more akin to LA/MS. Southeast gets you the beaches. I'm literally 2-4 hours in every direction from experiencing a different Texas. Memorial day weekend, we climbed and caved the Enchanted Rock near Austin. The drive through zoo in Glen Rose is amazing (giraffes eating from my hand through the sunroof!). Aquariums, museums, galleries, and exhibits passing through all the time.

Third: There is oil money here. Lots of 'old' money. If you know how to use that advice to your advantage, you'll win the Texas game.

Fourth: 2000 square foot home with a huge yard in the middle of the city cost me $75,000. Old buildings and banks from the 30s are getting auctioned off by the city for 5-25k on a monthly basis.

Fifth: Texans do not like leaving Texas. My university colleagues have settled for SQL CRUD jobs in Austin/Dallas. Data science and bioinformatics is a common degree around these parts. They would rather do CRUD than have to leave Texas.

I never thought I would settle here. In fact, I had the San Francisco dream. Yet, once I visited SF, I realized I would be a millionaire in Texas. With our 1700 sq foot 2 bedroom apartment, we easily lived off $950/mo. SF has opportunities, but to be honest, I'm just not the type to apply myself to utilize those opportunities.

Not all of Texas is cheap. In fact, some areas are extremely expensive.

I've noticed that when people compare San Francisco to Texas they are almost always comparing apples to oranges. They'll pick an area of Texas which is not at all analogous to San Francisco and point out how cheap it is. But if you look at areas which are more analogous, like nice neighborhoods in the center of Houston, you'll find that decent houses are now $800k-$1M.

There is absolutely no way you would get even a plot of dirt for $75k in the nicer neighborhoods of Houston in the middle of the city. The dirt alone will cost you $300k at least. And that's a low estimate.

You can get ~2000 sqft single family homes in the Montrose area of Houston for around $400,000. Still a hell of a lot cheaper than SF.

I grew up in the Bay Area and moved to Houston (now San Antonio) about seven years ago. No desire to move back.

You'll be really pushing it to find a detached house in a safe area of Montrose for that price. You might be able to get a townhouse, though, which will come with huge HOA fees, so it's not as cheap as it sounds.

In general, though, Montrose and Midtown are actually two of the least safe areas of the loop to live in. They're gentrified party and bar areas for the most part--great when you're young and want night life, but they aren't generally seen as areas to settle down with a family. Eastwood, statistically, is actually safer than Midtown despite still looking very sketchy in some areas.

West University, a common place to settle down with a family in the loop, is twice as expensive, at least.

Which is why families head to Katy and Pearland.

The schools out there are also fantastic.

Yes, but now we're already comparing apples to oranges. Those suburban areas, with their huge commutes, aren't even remotely analogous to living in San Francisco.

For clarification, I love the fact that there are cheap suburbs outside of Houston. And I think for the vast majority of families here, they'd be much better off going out to such a suburb than blowing money they don't have on a small house in the Heights or Bellaire or West U. One of the great advantages of Houston over SF is that you have the option of getting affordable housing if you're willing to live out in suburbia.

I just think it's important to be clear that you're not going to replicate the SF city lifestyle in Houston for cheap. It's going to cost you a very considerable amount of money, though admittedly less than in SF. Downtown apartments in Houston are definitely cheaper than SF, though--my 1300 sq ft 2br apartment is $1950/month, and it is quite nice and in walking distance of my office. I could never buy a house in this area, though.

Fair enough.

I was close to moving down to Montrose but decided to head to San Antonio instead. Geekdom[1] has some great things go for it over here.

[1] http://geekdom.com/san-antonio/

Cool, thanks for the link! I've been thinking of looking at other cities here in Texas like Austin and San Antonio. Like you I have no desire to move to the Bay Area, other than maybe the job scene. I've found Texas to be a really cool place overall, definitely under-appreciated.

You should come check out Geekdom. We hosted TechStars Cloud this year (and will for the foreseeable future). Lots of cool startups working here. My email is my profile if you ever make it out here.

Plus, our benefactor Graham Weston, one of the co-founders of Rackspace, just bought us our own building in downtown San Antonio. Right now we're in another office building he owns but this one will be entirely ours.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Geekdom-moving-t...

Third: There is oil money here. Lots of 'old' money. If you know how to use that advice to your advantage, you'll win the Texas game.

Intriguing. Explain.

I've been studying geography for a few months to try to pick out where the future is. Austin seems a strong candidate. Boston and Seattle could also swing back into #2.

What TX has going for it is that (a) it has a lot of money, (b) it has a lot of smart people, and (c) it's actually not that conservative in the cities. (I grew up in rural PA, so I know all about the fact of red/blue being meaningless, except on a few issues, at a state-by-state level.)

Seems like a great place to move when you're ready to be a founder (i.e. if you can raise money) because there's a lot of talent. However, this would go against people who are looking to be employees, because there's more competition.

Is that an accurate assessment?

Not much oil money. A lot of gas money. The Barnett Shale being one of the big cash crops http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnett_Shale

Most of my friends seem to be bankers, on a board, or loan officers of some sort. This was not by intention. It just seems everyone is connected and has their fingers dipped in money. It is insanely easy to build connections. I had an oil company offering a huge contract for a simple mobile reporting app on pipeline issues.(Also, Seattle is a great #2)

Oddly, there is not actually that much competition. As I said, most of the people I knew fell into CRUD jobs around their original homes. From a typical perspective: Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Level 3, TI, etc are always hiring new people. There are many manufacturing companies here for the electrically/computing engineer inclined. Level 3 is scoping out people from our building on a daily basis trying to buyout talent.

As far as start ups, I figure your main audience is on the wire. It does not matter if you're in TX, CA, NY, etc. Mentor over the wire. Audience over the wire. Testing over the wire. Servers spread over the world on the wire.

I'm with you - I grew up in Texas, and never thought I'd end up here after college. Increasingly, I'm actually thinking that I'll never leave.

Don't forget FiOS when you are discussing internet connectivity options - they started their rollout in Keller, just north of Fort Worth, and still have a strong presence in many parts of Texas.

I really wish the lack of a statewide startup culture (and what could be done to fix it) could get more discussion. There's some notable activity in Austin, but - for a state that supposedly prides itself on entrepreneurship, business friendliness, "pulling yourself up by the bootsraps" and the like, there's not many startups here.

My brother bought a 6000 sq. ft. house in Frisco, TX (an hour from Dallas/Fort Worth) for $650k last year. That kind of house in SF/LA would probably cost around $2-3M.

That is definitely true for Seattle as well (Seattle prices are more like LA than Texas). House prices in Texas are very low. I do miss that about Texas.

Only downside is most of the implants want to bring their left leaning policies with them, apparently completely, and blissfully, unaware that it was those same policies that ruined the states they came from. I am looking at You CA and NY.

Are we speaking socially or economically?

To be honest both. How can you have a nanny system that doesn't impact the quality of life and continued economic viability of the state?

Yeah, it's practically the third world here in NYC.

Texas's top industry: Defense (100% government spending).

Texas's 2nd industry: Oil (government subsidized, and having oil is surprisingly not a function of income tax rates).

Texas's most exciting economic area: Liberal Austin.

I'm not going to rip on Texas but it's gotta be awfully hard for you to feel free-market-superior to the city that has Wall St in it and an entrepreneur on every single street corner.

Uhhh, "old school" Houston and Dallas metro areas are #1 and #2 respectively in job growth in the nation.

While Austin may be an "exciting" center of research and technology, it's hardly a "job creation" engine -- at least not directly.

That doesn't address my original point at all. My original point was that all the laws passed in those states have been driving the cost of living up and median standard of living down, while consistently stripping away the rights of individuals.

You can tout Wall Street all you want but not many out side of your city see them as a good thing, most of the country sees them as a parasite with too much political power and way too little oversight. SEC, Secret Service, FBI, and DOJ be damned none of them have gone after them with any rigor.

You also don't have a good grasp on your own cities history. There as a time when manufacturing and textiles was its biggest industries. Yet you managed to drive them all out. If we decide to stop sending you food and gas you city comes to a stand still. Then you can have hungry entrepreneurs on every street corner...

Competition drives the cost of living up. We can explain this with supply and demand.

As far as the industrial history, yeah, service economy, information age, yadda yadda.

And I agree on Wall St, I pretty much despise them. But if you're going to preach unfettered capitalism via low taxes you should be worshipping it.

Competition generally drives prices down. Governments involving themselves in the marketplace generally drive prices up.

That sounds like supply-side competition, which does drive prices down.

When talking about competition over housing, you have a somewhat fixed supply but high competition on the demand side. In that case, prices go up.

You really need to back that up with some facts.

I can't necessarily qualify the new arrivals as more liberal (though they probably are.) I don't care for urban folks moving to more rural areas and then complaining about the locals or trying to turn these areas into the same urban hell-holes they moved from.

If LA or NYC or SFC are so much better than here, move back.

Yeah, and some of us left leaners know better than to move to a state where we can't even hold office: http://i.imgur.com/s8gUacT.jpg

Nice to hear there are good alternatives to the valley for startups, but personally, none of the reasons listed in the article resonate with me, and plenty of other good reasons for not moving to TX exist.

None of those statutes would stand up post-Fourteenth Amendment. They're about as relevant as "No Irish" laws.

EDIT: hell, your image pictures 8 states and then says "7" right under it. Is this some clever meta-humor?

Maybe it counts Texas as a country.

It's a leak from /r/atheism[1], just yesterday. That thread at least points out all the problems if you scroll down.

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1fb282/these_7_stat...

The current Texas constitution is from 1876. It disallows any religious test for office except for the "acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being".

That's pretty in line with the American flavor of Enlightenment thinking and is hardly a conservative right wing Christian theocratic view (they would insist you were a Christian, would they not?).

The acceptance of atheism in the US is a relatively recent phenomenon, like the acceptance of homosexuality.

It's invalidated anyway (14th + 1st combo meal), so not sure why it's so off-putting to you - is it so offensive that somebody hasn't symbolically removed it for you yet?

mmm... Do most of those implants think the states the came from are ruined?

Maybe not ruined yet, but it was seemingly on its way. I moved from KS.

Where was that fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 and injured 200 because of poor regulation?

Oh right, Texas.

The cause is still in question http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/us/paramedic-bryce-reed-de...

You say "most implants." I wonder if any survey has been done to determine whether this is actually so.

This seems to be a common perception among Texans I've talked to, but all of the folks I know who are moving there from CA tend to have more right leaning political views.

FWIW, though, I've known plenty of born-in-Texas liberals, and according to them, they aren't alone. They aren't precisely identical with those from other places, but the state's reputation as a conservative bastion seems a bit overplayed...

I agree. As a life long liberal living in the NY Metro area, I've recently realized the destruction caused by nannyism. I'm done with it. I would move to TX if my wife was OK with it.

What ruined CA and NY wasn't "left-leaning" politics so much as self-serving hypocritical pseudo-liberalism. Mostly, it's the NIMBY impulse. You have wealthy semi- or unemployed people (stereotypically housewives, but some are men) who have nothing to do but sit on various local boards and city councils and prevent anything that will hurt their house prices, even if it's good for the city. It's either that or sit on co-op boards, which are so full of mean-spirited intrigue that even Cthulhu can't stand those people. That's the kind of stuff that ruined NY and CA.

One thing I have noticed in this world is that hypocritical pseudoleftists do a lot more damage, than real leftists or real conservatives, because they think morality is on their side when they wreak havoc.

Also, Russian oligarchs and third-world despots fucked up the real estate markets in NY and CA. They don't live here, but they buy, and that affects everything and makes it a lot more competitive.

This is not a dig against Austin; but the good news is that the foreign speculator scumbags are not going to take an interest in Austin any time soon.

I don't live in Austin, although it sounds like a really cool place. My personal belief is that it needs some kind of centralized planning to keep inefficient growth that becomes tomorrow's legacy problem. I don't like the NIMBY regulations and self-serving injected complexity that often come about; but some kind of planning that encourages environmentally sound and healthy development is always a good thing.

Watch out when people say "There ought to be a law/rule/regulation!". That's how CA got to where it is. One small rule at a time.

The speculators are here (in Austin) - houses are being sold within 24 hours of being listed, with offers $10k above the asking price. Just crazy.

> Watch out when people say "There ought to be a law/rule/regulation!". That's how CA got to where it is.

#12 out of 38 states by per capita income and GSP per capita, and #10 by median household income. Not exactly a bad place to be. (And, as that would suggest, much better than the US as a whole at all those measures.)

I used to have to tell people that California was full, and that they should stay in Texas. But, now Texans seem to be doing my job for me!

This is what I believe is the single biggest advantage TX holds over NYC. It's hard to underestimate the power the Historic Districts Council and Municipal Art Society have over the future of the city. Despite the fact that no one elected organizations like these to govern, they have a huge impact on what gets built and what does not. The Municipal Arts Council, for example, is railing against a proposal to upzone Midtown East because it might change the look of the skyline [1].

NYC is already feeling the pinch of a housing shortage, and is so behind in building that the 2030 population projections had to be revised to account for the serious lack of housing [2].

Texas on the other hand, as bad as urban sprawl can be, keeps building. People move there, housing gets built, and supply meets demand much better than it does in NYC.

[1] http://mas.org/urbanplanning/east-midtown/ [2] http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/04/85286...

I think you mean "hard to overestimate". "Hard to underestimate" would mean you'd have to have an extremely low estimation to have your estimate be lower than the actual, i.e., that the actual amount of power is quite small. If these orgs have a surprisingly large amount of power, it would be very easy to underestimate.

> unaware that it was those same policies that ruined the states they came from.

Ruined?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-truth-about-california-...

And which left-leaning policies are we talking about, by the way? Capping property taxes? Requiring supermajorities in the legislature to do anything?

> I am looking at You CA and NY.

Sure, there's going to be some CA & NYers moving to TX, and they may even be highly represented compared to the rest of the country given they're the most populous states in the nation with Texas.

According to the graph, though, more people are still moving to CA&NY. Guess they're just blissfully unaware.

While the way you say it is a bit obnoxious, I think there is some merit to the sentiment.

The bluer states are trending down population-wise and the red states are where the most economic and population growth seems to be happening.

Normally when you hear talk of "1-percenters", the vitriol is directed toward Wall Street and business. I think it's counter-intuitive for those people and many in the media to consider that the huge income disparity and decrease/stagnation in effective wages for the middle class are the result of government over-regulation and over-taxation rather than any forces originating from the business/capitalist side of the equation.

> The bluer states are trending down population-wise and the red states are where the most economic and population growth seems to be happening.

"Seems" perhaps, but, not more than that when it comes to economic growth. [1] Its closer to (but still very far from) true in population terms, in that many of the most rapidly growing states are redder states and few are bluer states (but many of the slowest growing states are redder states, too!) [2], and to the degree it resembles truth in population terms, that underscores how far from true it is in economic terms, since the handful of redder states that are growing the fastest in GSP are also the ones growing fastest in population, which means that their GSP per capita growth rate isn't actually that good (meanwhile top-quintile GSP growth bluer states like California and Massachussetts are more in the middle of the pack in population growth.)

[1] http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/gsp_newsr... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_populati...

The liberal transplants are called locusts. They vote for big government, and a huge welfare state. As a result, the government then hikes taxes, and institutes all kinds of nanny-state regulations, strangling business. Eventually (sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly) the state begins to fail, all of the resources have been exploited, and Liberals move on to the next state.

This is an interesting and oft-repeated theory, but for at least the last three decades, if not longer, the examples of the most recent states the "liberal locusts" have just destroyed when it gets trotted out have always been some combination of New York, California, and Massachussets, and the implication has always been that they are next moving to previously "pure" states in the South or inland West.

If the trend was really as claimed, you'd expect their to be a trail of states to point to that have been moved through over time, rather than always the same states.

What you are thinking of is gentrification, which does ruin communities over time.

While I agree with most of these as great reasons for moving to Austin, as a resident I'd caution those interested in moving here to not take them at face value. Come visit and consider what they're not telling you when making a decision:

- It was cheap, but it's not staying cheap. The idea that 'Austin is cheap' has inspired a lot of people to start moving here recently, and the reality hasn't quite started to impede the hype. Reality? My rent has gone up 10%/yr each of the 4 years I've been here, and home values / rent prices across the area are still rising rapidly. A 640 sq ft. studio apartment that was $530/mo when I moved here now rents for $1050/mo, and I'm not even close to downtown.

- Texas has no income tax, and house prices may seem to be good at first glance, but property taxes are VERY high. 2.7%-3.5%, and some areas are taxed by multiple entities.

- If you can't find anything affordable close to work, prepare for a nightmare daily drive. Most people I work with have a 45- to 60-minute one-way commute. Austin rapidly outgrew its 2 highways, so "rush hour" is 7:45 AM - 10 AM, 3:45 PM - 7 PM every day, except Friday afternoon where it starts at 2:30 PM.

- Even as someone with a good software job and no debt, I can't come close to affording a house within a 30 minute one-way commute of work that was built after 1960 given the recent price increases.

- Austin is hot, so be ready for that. We set a record of 90 consecutive days of 100+ degree weather in 2011!

- Despite all of the above, I do love living in Austin for its food, weather (I hate gray skies and winter), and culture. I worry about how long I'm going to be able to afford to stay... but for now it's a great place to be.

Nos. 2, 3, 7, and 8 are basically about housing costs; as Glaeser and Tobio note in "The Rise of the Sunbelt": http://www.nber.org/papers/w13071, Sunbelt states like Texas are growing so fast because building housing there is cheap.

In most coastal cities, by contrast, building housing is exceedingly expensive and sometimes verges on impossible (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face...). So when demand rises, prices rise too, and existing residents see the purchasing power of their salaries erode because much of those salaries have to go to housing costs. In Texas, when demand for housing rises so does supply.

It's worth noting that building housing is cheap in Texas because it relies on illegal labor.

Ref. http://www.npr.org/2013/04/10/176677299/construction-booming... and http://www.npr.org/2013/04/11/176777498/texas-contractors-sa...

It is not only housing, because on this basis alone, other states would win out. I'd say that it is a big factor though when the other items mentioned are in place.

The growth in Austin is pretty crazy. I was there a few months ago, about two years after my last visit, and things were markedly more crowded. I remember thinking "I can't wait to get back home to get away from all this traffic".

I live in Los Angeles.

For those looking for a smaller city and/or more conservative city than Austin, check out Bryan/College Station 90 miles away. BCS is home to 50,000 students at Texas A&M University and also TAMU Startup Aggieland.

If any HN'ers are in the area or interested in the area, feel free to email me (contact info in my profile).

BCS is a shit hole.

What an obnoxiously rude and unproductive comment. What personal offenses have you felt that led you to feel that way?

Probably all the Aggies.

I know that it's a kind of joke to make fun of Aggies, but they are extremely nice people and T A&M has a great community an culture.

(Not an Aggie, but every one I have met treated me very nice)

Thank you. I'm an Aggie, and I'm glad to hear that's been your experience with others from my school. Most of us try to be that way.

I worked a few months in Byran/College Station for TEEX. It is one of the nicest places I have ever been! the people are extremely friendly.

I like Texas a lot, and lived there (in Harlingen near the border, and Houston too) for a while, but College Station takes the cake for nicest people all around and a great place to live!

Strangers in the street literally greet you with a big smile and a 'Howdy'. :-)

As a long-time veteran of DC traffic wars, I have to say Austin is rapidly catching up in terms of pure automotive misery. It's horrid. Geography plays a cruel trick there (the river combined with the environmentally sensitive hills to the west), and it's only going to get worse.

Texas is just plain run well. The state barely had a recession because they had common sense regulations that stop the housing from skyrocketing in the first place. It takes days not months or years to get building permits. Texas is a perfect example of how the country should be run as a whole.

I'm torn on the fire code thing (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/us/after-plant-explosion-t...). It's one thing to eschew regulation but fire codes?

Its resilience during the recession at least has something to do with oil. At least acknowledge that possibility.

A large part of it is because Texas had extraordinarily strict lending standards, enacted after the oil bust of the 1980's. That, plus our already affordable housing, meant that Texas didn't have a property bubble burst in 2008.

In most coastal states, it's difficult to do greenfield development in high-income cities because of some combination of laws preserving open space (e.g. California) and because greenfields have basically been developed to the limit of sane commuting distance (e.g. NY/DC). Moreover, with the interstate system built to completion, there are no new public works projects brining new greenfields within commuting distance of major metros, as had happened with the implementation of horsecars, streetcars, interurbans, commuter railroads, and interstate highways. Many areas have seen brownfield development, but such land is relatively limited and expensive to remediate.

At the same time, zoning laws make it difficult-to-impossible to build denser housing (even low- or mid-rise apartment buildings) to replace single-family homes on valuable land at any kind of scale.

This means the population of most of the most-productive American metros has become essentially fixed, or stuck growing at a lower level than American population growth. Instead those with the most money are bidding up the limited population supply, and those with less money <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/06/13/243972/the-secr... moving to Texas and other places where it's easy to build homes</a>.

And Silicon Valley (and the Bay Area in general), <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/03/silicon_valle... than building more housing during boomtimes</a>, is simply letting its housing prices increase to insane levels. Prop. 13, which insulates current homeowners from even having to pay higher property taxes on their ridiculously valuable homes, certainly doesn't help things.

Have a friend who lived in Texas for a while. Came back hating it. Said weather is pretty bad and there's no outdoors. The only thing going for outdoors is caving (normally we do hiking, mountaineering, climbing, kayaking, canyoneering, etc -- every adventure you could think of). What's good? "Well, if you like food, there are good restaurants". Pass.

Apparently some people can always be trusted to rewrite their entire perception of social reality in abject worship of low real-estate prices.

Pretty good points in this article. After moving from Germany to Dallas and then to San Francisco I can 100% agree with most of these reasons. California definitely feels more like a headache than Texas in terms of Rules, housing, general atmosphere. If I had kids I'd also pick Texas over California. Unless you know, I'd have several millions... then I'd buy a house in Atherton.

> After moving from Germany to Dallas and then to San Francisco I can 100% agree with most of these reasons. California definitely feels more like a headache than Texas in terms of Rules, housing, general atmosphere.

Having lived in the SF Bay Area, LA Basin, and different parts of the Central Valley, I'm sort of amused that people think that experience with San Francisco is a reasonable basis for generalizing about California.

Its probably about as useful as generalizations about Europe drawn from experience limited to the Vatican.

there is still a general "flair" inside a state. And living in San Francisco doesn't mean I don't spent any time outside of it. Napa, Carmel, LA, San Diego, etc. these are all places I've experience over weekend trips and of course they are all different and I take all those experiences to paint myself a picture of the state of california. Also Europe != California in size ;)

About 6 months ago I left Dallas for San Francisco. While Austin is a bit different, the amount of start-up things going on Dallas isn't even close to what the Bay area has to offer.

I must admit that I did enjoy the living in Dallas more then SF, more space, less cost etc. The jobs in SF though prevailed and I left.

Maybe I'll return to Dallas or Austin when I get older.

I used to be pissed off when more people moved to Austin. As a land owner I now get excited.

I often wonder if entrepreneurs will start to flee silicon valley for similar reasons. While we have the best assortment of resources in the valley, the competition for them is getting more intense by the day. It applies to everything - even rent prices. It may be easier to raise money here but the problem is that you need to spend a whole lot more too. Does the easier fundraising make up for the increased burn? I don't know. Burn is a very bad thing for a startup.

I live in Los Angeles and commute to work on a weekly basis to Houston via Southwest. I would agree that there is more money to be made in Texas.

Big cities without the big city real estate hyperinflation is very, very appealing.

An objective point here...if enough NY & CA residents moved to Texas to swing it to a blue state then the Republican party would be doomed.

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