Texas is the new California.

Texas is a business friendly climate.  Cheap living cost with low taxes and less government regulation.  Good state to go home to if you are American. 

https://youtu.be/dpHRFr3rk6E

My brother lives there. He moved there from Oakland.

He likes it.

Yeah, lots of people leaving California to retire in Texas due to the lower taxes, stable housing market, and strong private property protection laws.

But they're driving up the property costs in a lot of cities and crowding cities like Austin faster than those cities can keep up with the growth, so not a lot of Texans are happy about that, lol.

The commute to Austin, for example, especially in the mornings, has gotten really bad over the last past decade. Let's say it would normally take 30 minutes to drive there from a set point. When I was younger, it would take you at least 2 hours if you were commuting in the morning. People are now reporting that it takes anywhere between 3-5 hours, depending on what's going on.

Have a good friend here who was from Texas, and met a bunch of others from there.  Good people, for the most part.  The one issue, I had was that they were like the Canadians of the U.S.  They always brought up the fact that they were from Texas at the drop of a 10 gallon hat.  One group even had a relative back home send them name tags with "Don't mess with Texas" on them.  Absolutely cringe inducing.  Getting stuck on a night out with a Texan and an insecure Canadian was the worst.  Had a girlfriend in high school whose family moved to Austin from Toronto.  Some relative gave her older brother a shirt that summed up things perfectly.  It had "Texas is big" on the front and on the back "But, Ontario is bigger."   

^ Completely agree with that last comment. I've liked many Texans that I've met. I'd like even more if they dropped the assumption that being from Texas made them special. This gets even more complicated with Austin people, because they sometimes play the "I'm from Texas, but it's not what you think!" card a bit heavily. Because it's the capital city you're still constantly blasted with Texas iconography at every turn, however.

Texas has been very successful at marketing themselves as a business-friendly alternative to California, and it's undoubtedly true in some respects, but like many things Texan a lot of it is overblown. The state can afford to provide a "low tax environment" for some businesses because taxes on oil and gas extraction make up the shortfall. Property taxes are among the highest in the country, which is a serious issue in cities like Austin. The housing costs there are often blamed on an influx of Californians but of course people move from other states and normal population growth isn't an insignificant factor. So tax savings for income could be cancelled or at least dented by the excess you pay in property taxes, if you own a home. There was an interesting case a few years ago when a working-class family from Houston won a new Austin house in an annual Home and Garden TV competition, planned to move in, then realized they couldn't afford the property taxes, which were close to $2,000 per month. Obviously this is less true if you live somewhere like McAllen... but that's not really where the jobs and people are.

Finally, the whole California exodus thing is generally exaggerated in an attempt to bolster the whole red state / blue state rhetoric. Out-migration from California isn't a new phenomenon. The attempt to capitalize on it for partisan purposes is the major novelty here. 



Texas is a popular destination for Californians, but so are blue states like Oregon and Washington. And there is net migration to California from states like red and purple states like Ohio, Alabama, Wisconsin and Florida

I realize that chart in my previous post is a bit out of date, but the most recent stuff I could find put current rates at similar around 600,000 out for the last few years, with net losses in the 150-200k range, so probably similar to the 2003-2006 numbers.

Austin's property values and taxes have been fairly out-of-control for a long time, in part because of everyone wanting to move there. And yes, they come from all over, but as far as I've been told by numerous people, the ones doing the most damage are coming from California. They're the ones with all the money. But the damage isn't so much to larger cities like Austin as it is to smaller ones like New Braunfels. I have friends who live there who were basically forced out of their homes because of Californian retirees swooping in buying up large plots of land and raising the property values to a point that they can no longer afford it.

Austin is a different kind of monster. It's a music hub, SXSW is held there, and a shit-ton of rich folk have moved in and basically gentrified large chunks of the city. Police there is one of the highest paid in the entire nation, and the city overall has a very low rate of murder (high suicide and burglary, though). I have an old coworker there who has a modest house that she built back before property costs skyrocketed, in a very ideal location in the middle of the city. While this doesn't save her from the high taxes, she's basically able to make a shit-ton of money by renting out her spare bedroom and even her backyard to people during big events, especially during SXSW. We're talking big execs from really big music production companies coming from all over the world who're willing to camp out in a tent in her backyard so that they can be closer to the venues that they plan to visit while scouting for new talent. It basically pays for her property taxes every year.

I like Austin, but I could never live there, and I avoid it like the plague during big events. It's impossible to get around by car during those times.

Hardcore Austinites pride themselves on being "weird" and "different." I think it's even an unofficial motto: "Keep Austin Weird." It's part of the artsy aesthetic that Austin attracts, people who try to set themselves apart from everyone else. There are downsides to that, but there are a lot of upsides, too, and that's part of what attracts so many people there. Lots of interesting businesses and restaurants. So many different personalities. Pretty high chance of running into someone famous. OR someone who will become famous.

I heard Austin was a Yuppy leftist hub within Texas but the rest of the State was still conservative.  They had progressive overpriced policies?  I had heard Dallas and Houston still had lower housing prices compared to California due to less red tape. 

But if California transplants start voting the same way they did in California, they'll ruin it for their kids and turn it into another crazy California.  Hopefully, they'll be smart enough to not let history repeat itself.  But anyone younger now looking to move for a job should avoid the coasts due to bs rents.  A better deal may be found in some part of Texas with more companies?

Yes, Austin is a fairly liberal city in Texas, but it has conservative roots, and that still shows. Lots of good people there regardless of which way they swing, though.

As for the rest of Texas, yes, it's conservative, but some areas are more or less conservative than others, and most of Texas is nowhere near as conservative as many people believe. It's actually very specifically three counties that kind of jump some of the more ultra conservative numbers way up (you can see this in the number of executions that have been conducted in Texas -- the vast majority have been done in these three counties). If you were to be pulled over for speeding, for example, you might have a good chance of getting let off with a warning, depending on the officer and on how much you were speeding. If you get pulled over in one of those three counties, though, you're guaranteed to get that ticket. It's going to happen.

Unfortunately, people from California are also bringing in their politics to Texas.
They moved from California because they didn't like the insane Democrat policies, but continue to vote Democrat once they have gotten there.

Since Joe Biden has also rolled out the red carpet for illegals.....Texas may well be on its way to becoming a failed state

If the Hispanic swing to the GOP continues, then Texas will stay red. It will look a lot different, but it will stay red for a few more cycles.

I heard Austin was a Yuppy leftist hub within Texas but the rest of the State was still conservative.  They had progressive overpriced policies?  I had heard Dallas and Houston still had lower housing prices compared to California due to less red tape. 

But if California transplants start voting the same way they did in California, they'll ruin it for their kids and turn it into another crazy California.  Hopefully, they'll be smart enough to not let history repeat itself.  But anyone younger now looking to move for a job should avoid the coasts due to bs rents.  A better deal may be found in some part of Texas with more companies?

I wish somehow we could somehow convince all the woke and lefties to go off and form their own country. Give them a nice-sized one too with decent resources and such. Then sit back and watch them all eff it up with insane woke laws and them fracturing into tribes as their rainbow coalition dissolves into factions that have little in common with each other. And the realities of practical work and getting things down run smack dab into their ideals.

If the Hispanic swing to the GOP continues, then Texas will stay red. It will look a lot different, but it will stay red for a few more cycles.

Well, Texas and Florida where voting is not manipulated so far.  Everyone has to show an ID and prove who they are I do believe.  Hence the GOP surge which may have happened elsewhere too.  Who knows? 

I wish somehow we could somehow convince all the woke and lefties to go off and form their own country. Give them a nice-sized one too with decent resources and such. Then sit back and watch them all eff it up with insane woke laws and them fracturing into tribes as their rainbow coalition dissolves into factions that have little in common with each other. And the realities of practical work and getting things down run smack dab into their ideals.

Already happened, sort of. Look up the history of Liberia.   

Of course, that wasn't really setting up a bunch of Americans with their own country - it was more like dumping them off on a beach and letting them figure it out, so it probably doesn't translate well as an analogy....

nonono let a bunch of real ayn rand types (right-libertarian hoo-rah capitalism folk) set up a community and see what happens. call it uhhhh "galt's gulch" and give them a bunch of land in south america. oh yeah they tried it in chile! one of the founders conned the shit out of the others and all of the investors. the whole project went to shit for what? just so they could realize that they needed the governments to regulate their economic activity after all.

nonono let a bunch of real ayn rand types (right-libertarian hoo-rah capitalism folk) set up a community and see what happens. call it uhhhh "galt's gulch" and give them a bunch of land in south america. oh yeah they tried it in chile! one of the founders conned the shit out of the others and all of the investors. the whole project went to shit for what? just so they could realize that they needed the governments to regulate their economic activity after all.

Of course he did!


He was only acting in self interest!

nonono let a bunch of real ayn rand types (right-libertarian hoo-rah capitalism folk) set up a community and see what happens. call it uhhhh "galt's gulch" and give them a bunch of land in south america. oh yeah they tried it in chile! one of the founders conned the shit out of the others and all of the investors. the whole project went to shit for what? just so they could realize that they needed the governments to regulate their economic activity after all.

Would the Dutch East India Company and its rise and hideous fall count?

Randians are the worst.

nah they didnt have to eat where they shat as much (afaik)

If the Hispanic swing to the GOP continues, then Texas will stay red. It will look a lot different, but it will stay red for a few more cycles.

Mexicans will vote for Biden...its a big problem. That's why Biden is trying to flood the country with them.

Get out your your Rosetta Stone and start learning Spanish...

ah yes that SIGNIFICANT voting block... illegal immigrants! if i was an illegal immigrant i would definitely try to vote. but i'll assume you're talking about US citizens? in which case... yes i hope they vote however they want:)