What's it like in Texas (Austin)?

[Backov]

Just to mirror Grey Aliens thread :)

I'm thinking of relocating to Austin with my wife next year. We've got a lot of game devs here, so some of you must be in Austin with the gigantic game dev community there. How's life there? The weather looks good on Wikipedia.

What are the trendy areas to live in, I'd give examples but they'd all be from specific cities. Suffice it to say, it's where the gay people live. Or near there. The musicians and artists, etc. A former slum that's now really cool and expensive, as it were.

Anyway, any general info would be appreciated.

[Pyabo]

I lived in Austin for five years (92-97). I liked it a lot... weather is better in Austin than Seattle. Sure it gets really hot for two or three months of the year, but they have air conditioning there. And then 6 or 7 months of the year on either side of that is great (as opposed to 3 months of really good weather here).

I was a pretty untrendy student when I lived there, so not sure what the "cool" neighborhoods are... but Austin seemed too small at the time to have a gay neighborhood like SF or Seattle. Could be wrong about that though, it's been 10 years. In general, the west side of the city is nicer... I-35 is like the proverbial railroad tracks. I lived on campus for two years and in "Far West" for three years, which is a fairly nice part of town... but lots of mass-scale apartment developments.

Good public transportation (buses).
Great Mexican food. :)
Excellent live music scene.

[andrew]

I lived there for 10 years. Great barbeque, great Mexican food. Very liberal and progressive town compared to the rest of Texas. Also, VERY VERY HOT. Like 100 degrees for 3 months straight hot. Like fry an egg on the sidewalk hot. Sunny like 95% of the time. Public transportation is slow and kinda hit-or-miss depending on where you live (they really could use light rail).

There isn't really a central "gay" district, but Hyde Park is nice, Tarrytown is nice, and a lot of people are currently getting places on the East side which is gentrifying rapidly. Definitely avoid the far suburbs (like Round Rock, etc).

- andrew

[Allen Varney]

I've lived here in Austin since 1984, aside from a few extended trips. Though its character has changed a lot from the golden age of slacker heaven in the 1970s, Austin remains a wonderful place to live. Anywhere in central Austin west of Highway I-35 is fine to live, and parts of east Austin are gentrifying. Trendy spots include SoCo (South Congress) and ever-popular Hyde Park. There are huge numbers of pricey condo towers rising in the heart of downtown. Right now I'm living four blocks west of the University of Texas campus and enjoying it greatly.

Austin's weather is hotter than you think, for much longer than you think, but everyplace is air-conditioned. The food is great. The arts and theater scenes are quite good. The music scene is GREAT, for almost every kind of music except classical. For many artistic or leisure pursuits, Austin is a major center. And as you're aware, Austin is a major tech hub.

To get a sense of the life here, check the website for the weekly politics-arts-culture newspaper, the Austin Chronicle (http://www.auschron.com).

[vjvj]

I've traveled in Austin quite a bit, as well... And I think it totally rules. It's hot, but bearable (it was always a dry heat when I was there), and you have pretty much everything you need as a techie. I would move there in a heartbeat.

And last I checked (which admittedly was a few years ago), housing prices were not yet insane...

The real clincher for me is that, while the people in Austin have a very UN-south-like liberal and progressive mindset, they maintain their southern friendliness and social hospitality. This is in contrast to the liberal/progressive yet often pretentious and elitist crowd you see in northern/southern California and parts of the East Coast.

Austin is awesome!

[Bad Sector]

Can you guys stand hot weather? Having lived in Greece for, well, all my life i can safely say that i would love to move somewhere with much lower temperature. Just sitting there and sweating without doing anything is not fun. The last two years i can manage to write some code by sleeping the day and being up at night because its just a little less hot.

I'm thinking about moving to Finland or somewhere around there.

[Jack Norton]

Yes I feel the same. Since the computer rooms are clearly more hot, really sux living in a extremely hot climate. I moved to 800m on sea level to have more peace, because working was becoming impossible.
Using A/C isn't a solution either since then you have all sort of problems associated with air conditioned (which IMHO really sux).

Not talking badly about Austin or anything in particular, just the excessively hot climate, that's bad for working with computer. To relax on the seaside instead is very good :cool:

[Backov]

Personally I like the hot weather. I've been in south Florida a few times in August, and loved it every time. Hell, if there was a games industry in Miami I'd be all over that.

Thanks for the positive vibes guys, it sounds like Austin is a cool place to live.

[Pyabo]

Austin definitely gets hot, no doubt about it... but it's not the humid heat you get in Houston or Florida. And it's the price you pay for fantastic weather in March, April, May, September, October, etc.

[Jack Norton]

Ah that's true - the killing combo is hot+humid. If is "just hot", that is very different.

[Heresiarch]

The trendy areas are, as mentioned, Hyde Park and the '04 (the zip code for the area just south of the river). Since they're trendy, they can get expensive. Austin is the most expensive city (http://www.houstontx.gov/police/career/images/hr_accra_col_3q_07.pdf) in Texas to live in, but it's still below the national average.

Yes, summers get hot. But, winters don't get cold, and the summers aren't that humid. Everyplace has A/C and the energy prices in Austin are fairly low.

The Austin game dev community as a whole doesn't have monthly get-togethers... that would be weird. Yeah, there's a bunch of game companies, but it's not like we're in a union, you know? Indie groups like the IGDA are active in town. If you like networking, the fact that the games industry is small makes it easy to meet people from different companies. There is a yearly game dev conference here (GDC-Austin (http://www.austingdc.net/)), ideal for networking.

It's an American city, so you get the American City stuff: restaurants, shopping, school concerns, etc. Austin's standout offerings are live music, Tex-Mex and BBQ, the Whole Foods world HQ, and tech jobs.