If you could live...
 

Anywhere in Texas where would you live? Dallas is out of the question. I was looking at Austin, any other suggestions? I'm single no kids and work from home.

Austin seems to be the place to live, the median age is something like 27-33

Yeah, I'd say either Austin or Fort Worth. Thing to realize about the DFW area is that there is something for everyone here. Fort Worth is very laid back and generally easy to navigate. I agree Dallas would be a sucky place to live. Keep in mind that this is Texas so the roads around here are all designed like an idiot with a scetch pad went to town.

Thomas, roads here are not bad for the last time...

Roads in Texas are some of the worst in the country, and I've driven on some BAD roads...

Nothing can be worse than the roads in LA...

Well a visit to Austin will happen in the next few months. I already got a few real estate people looking into rentals.

Next step clear it with my company...:fingersx:

I didn't even say they were poorly maintained this time (even if they are). I said they were poorly designed... just like everything else in Texas *cough* drainage *cough*

Texas roads are all new construction compared to Oklahoma shitty roads. If we had FTM roads they would be gravel.

Not to be off subject. Definitely Austin, as much as I love my DFW homies. Austin is growing leaps and bounds, and the music scene is phenominal

Having lived all over this great country and having lived in Waco, Dallas, and San Antonio I would have to say San Antonio by far. Dallas/DFW sucks IMO. There is a reason I never left San Antonio after visiting from Dallas (Plano area) in 97' :) Austin is okay but the traffic is a pain at times. But it is a good city and if you are in IT, things can be good but the job market is better in SA. The music scene and party scene are great and the people seem to be typical Texas nice and it seems like a great place to live if you are young an adventurous.

I have lived in many big cities and I have to say, there are some things I miss about Florida, Hawaii, NY, Chicago, etc. But the pros of San Antonio by far outweigh the cons. You have a little bit of everything and great weather to boot. SA is really growing. We are centrally located to Dallas, Houston, and the coast/Valley. My choices would definitley be between Austin and San Antonio.

Why Texas???

Cost of living, Warm Weather, Job market, Women, No mudslides, No earth Quakes, No owing twice what your house is worth, etc., etc. :)

I'd definitely pick Austin, SA is nice, but Austin has a slightly better vibe in my opinion. This is a very liberal college town so if people passing laws and doing things because they are cool as opposed to doing things out of common sense drives you nuts, (like the guhzillion dollar bond they just passed which has no provisions for road improvements) might want to pick SA instead. A lot of people have moved here over the years and then tried to change this place into where they came from which is annoying (like calling South Congress "SoCo"...ugh..) but the pluses definitely outweight the minus either way. (I've been here since 79)
I've traveled alot too, even lived overseas, roads here aren't nearly as bad as other places, navigating is pretty easy too if you have half a brain. The problem with Austin is people decided 15-20 years ago that if they didn't build the roads etc. that nobody would want to come here, obviously they were horribly wrong and now we're stuck with infinite construction trying to catch up. The network of roads itself isnt' awful in Texas, it's basically I-35 or I-10 with a few minor turns to get to all the big places, other roads are on par or better than surrounding states. (in my experience anyway) Nothing a GPS or actual paper map can't solve anyway.

Music scene here is pretty much second to none, every night of the week you can find someone playing something in all different genre's, it's phenominal. You throw in SouthbySouthwest (SXSW) and the annual ACL festival and other big acts who come through here and it's nuts.

oh, one more thing,might want to check out San Marcos or New Braunfels, or PFlugerville and Round Rock, Cedar Park, and Leander too, smaller towns that are inbetween SA or on the outskirts of Austin, probably cheaper to live in compared to larger cities etc.

We do get the occasional hurricane though but meh, it's only really bad like once every 30-40 years or so? :D:

(I'm sure I'm way off, but who needs accuracy in sarcasm anyway)

Less smog, No cold summer nights, Cost of living, cost of living, cost of living, no earthquakes!!! No shitty fake people. I've lived all over PA parts of Colorado and Parts of Ca. Its time to checkout Texas then possibly then south.

houston dude :D

He said less smog.

Houston is too busy, also there is this girl there and it would look weird if I moved to her city. I talk to people all day long from Texas, the most relaxed ones are from Austin.

Houston traffic blows. Not to mention the constant flooding and humidity.

why not:dunno:

I think you would like Austin

I agree with phrenetiK, just come 2 houston!

NOOOOO Houston is a no go. I don't wanna live near this girl, just want to be able to visit here and there.

Houston is ok except for the summertime and traffic, austin is a lot easier to deal with weather and size wise. My sister lives in McKinney which is a nice area too by the way, just outside Plano/Dallas/etc.

Texas is way over due for its earth quake actually. We sit on a major fault line. There was a 3.something earth quake in dallas a couple years ago. I remember hearing about it from family.

Edit: I found these for you to look at:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...as/hazards.php

The Balcones fault and the Mexia fault lines run straight through all the major cities. If they decide to move thats going to be a lot of damage.

https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.p...1&d=1294976432

Austin had a teeny one about 10-15 years ago real close to where I live, barely registered on the scale but it was enough to make the news.

Well if you go to the map of the us and you view CA. you can see there's about 100 or so quakes a week about as tiny as the ones in Texas. There was a 2.6 this past week north of SA. To me 2.6's are fun, anything less than 4.0 is fun!

maybe this will help you decide:

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home...-college-grads

Houston placed 5th, Dallas 2nd, and Austin 1st.

That's one of the reasons why I'm moving!

Even though I have a fantastic job and work at home. It's nice to know I most likely wont need to sit around for a year waiting for a new job.

What about Galvestan Island or whatever...

it's pretty there! :)

Austin! don't piss in my cheerios.

Haven't spent a whole lot of time in Texas... But from the time I have spent there, I can say...

NOT EL PASO! haha

Ha i have been all over texas... i say pick a smaller town just outside say 30 min from any big city. Such as Round Rock right outside Autin. Lived there loved it!

I live in Abilene right now and all they got going for them is the damn airport and AF base... deff an aviation oriented city.

I'd also like to add that the streets in TX are normally far better until you hit west/midland TX then in which you Okies can stop complaining lol.

Im a military brat so i have lived damn near everywhere within the US or close to it.

Austin/ RR being my fave place to live even with the dire lack of a car scene.

what?!?!! dude, seriously, this place has a HUGE car scene. Austin is host to 3 of the biggest shows in this region, (lone star roundup, HeatWave, and the Rot rally) possibly even the South. There's about a million clubs ranging from lowrider to Corvette's and Vipers and most anything inbetween including motorcycles, there's parking lot meets every Saturday in a couple of different places, several surrounding areas have drag strips and/or road courses and Austin is getting its own F1 track. Check out www.motoraustin.com, there's tons of stuff for car dudes here, just have to look for it a little bit.

I'd have to second San Antonio. It's really a great city and I like the feel of it a lot more than Austin. A lot of people love Austin, and it is a nice city, but not my style I guess. I haven't done research on the topic, but cost of living in San Antonio is pretty low and I'd imagine it's much lower than Houston or Austin.

What kind of hang outs/activities do you like in your free time?

If you're going to be visiting Austin, it's not a far drive to SA so you might want to try checking out both if you have enough time. That'll be the best way to get a feel for both cities.

Sadly I'm going to move without visiting. Currently I'm looking into northwest and southwest Austin. I need to be close to a Krav Maga studio and the local franchise is near st Edwards university. Close being a 15-30 minute drive.

At this point I'm kinda lost. All the reviews I've read on apartments made them sound like horrid places to live. There is an Archstone near tech ridge that looks nice but that's about it.

Anyone have any other thoughts on where to live or what some nicer part of town is. I'd prefer to live somewhere that doesn't require me keeping a weapon on me at all times hahaha. Any help would be awesome.

do you have any hobbies?

Apartment reviews are generally written by people with a beef with the place. I've yet to ever read a positive one, I don't even bother reading them anymore really. Best way to check 'em out imho is to just go and see for yourself.

My hobbies are Krav Maga, Shooting, fishing, vegetable gardening and Working on cars. I really wish I could visit and check everything out beforehand but I just cant afford it. Plane tickets are around $350 for a weekend, on top of moving expenses and fixing up my current place, I just can't do it.

Yea its gonna be interesting.

Ever here of Southwest airlines?

I would highly recommend you check out the area and apartments first

I'd try contacting an apartment locator, they're literally hundreds around town, the complexes pay these people to find them people to rent so they're pretty much all free, they'll be able to tell you what's up as far as neighborhhods etc. too.

One warning about review sites is that typically there's a lot of negative reviews compared to positive. A lot more people will go out of their way to complain about an apartment than to talk about a good experience or neutral experience. The apartment I'm in now had something like 30-40% satisfaction/recommendations but, aside from being old, I can't really say there's anything wrong with it. It definitely helps to know the areas of town and be able to see it in the day (and night, if possible) though.

Flight is $385 hotel is $140 car rental $90. not worth it IMO.

Yea I'm working with a guy now I got it down to 3 apartments

west of Austin http://www.themcclintock.com/index.html

south of Austin http://www.livingatsouthparkmeadows.com/estates.htm

north of Austin http://www.archstoneapartments.com/a...ne_tech_ridge/.

Yea I find allot of the reviews are just stupid complaints like shotty management and dog poop.

$385? Search on Southwest.com first off, as they don't post their fares on other travel sites

I'm getting $250-$300 tops for a weekend LAX to AUS for example. Even cheaper if you book farther out and not across a weekend too.

Just be prepared to get herded on and off the plane like cattle, though the in flight service is usually ok.

Good find!

Either way its just not feasible. Were talking $2500 within a few weeks of each other just on travel and moving expenses, that's not including bills and rent. It's not like I'm getting married, if I don't like the place I'll just move in a year no biggie.

out of all three you posted, this would be my choice:

west of Austin http://www.themcclintock.com/index.html

I live about 3 miles from southpark meadows, it's way south, it's a nice area in itself, but it is surrounded by older south austin hoods and it's gotten pretty crappy around this part of town over the years, it's right off I-35 too so I don't know if you'd like living that close to a major interstate? The tech ridge ones are okay, but they're too far north in my opinion. The west Austin choice would be a bad ass place to live, plus you're practically in the middle of everything. You'd be about 10 minutes away from Lake Travis (and more importantly, Lime Creek rd), you're right on 2222 pretty much (another fun road) which runs E-W, 360 aka capital of texas highway can take you south or you can shoot over to mopac etc. The area that place is in is pretty awesome, most of the places on 360 are once you get past bee caves rd. etc. You're also real close to old spicewood springs, which is another really fun road right off 360. :)

edit: not only are you like 10 minutes away from lake travis, you're like 2 minutes away from lake austin, pretty rad wakeboard scene down in that area, I believe there's even a website http://www.under360.com/ that covers all of it.

Sadly I didn't see this until now, I went with the north Austin one. I got a pretty sweet deal though i couldn't really turn it down.

I also just signed my lease and will be out there April 1st. I'm hoping to catch the big Texas meet if I get out there in time.

Thanks for all the help guys!!

it's all good dude, you might find you wind up liking the tech ridge ones better anyway, once you're here and you get a feel for the place you'll know where you want to be so you're in good shape either way.

Indeed and the lease is only 10 months. It's not like I'm getting married having 5 kids and planning my funeral.

:lol: true

Nice dude, hopefully you can make it.