Austin or Houston? Or Elsewhere??? Any Advice is Appreciated

[CoderGeek]

Originally Posted by Malvie

(Houston, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego) offer anything close to the "metropolitan" feel of Manhattan. The "skyscraper districts" of these cities (uniformly called "downtown") are almost totally business districts, with tiny---by NYC standards---pockets of "urban living". You will HAVE to have a car in any of these places---and yes, there are those on here who will scream, "No you don't!" but trust me, you do---unless you want to limit yourself to the areas where our -extremely limited- public transportation goes.

Keep in mind that Houston has 5 "downtowns" - something that is very confusing to folks (like me) from up north where a city usually has one "downtown." Houston's skyscraper districts are Downtown (the one we actually call Downtown), Medical Center, Greenway Plaza, Galleria and Westchase.

I lived in Galleria for a little over a year. It is walkable. Metro (our transit system) is really cool about making up for their lack of coverage with most buses (maybe all now?) allowing you to bike to your bus stop and then you load your bike on the bus for no additional cost, then where you get off, grab your bike and keep going. Mass transit in Houston isn't the worst I've seen in a big city, but it's certainly no NJ Transit or MTA.

Now, just because it *is* walkable doesn't mean you'll want to walk it. In August it doesn't go much below 90 degrees at night with high humidity. As a result, you probably want a car.

Also, if you're the exploring type and want to come to the awesome stuff outside Beltway 8, a car is almost always required. So, get a car, but make sure you get a place with gated parking because car vandalism/break-ins is the most common crime in many areas (I know this is true in Galleria when I lived there 2008-2009). I lived in Galleria with a 2-bedroom apartment and gated community for $710/mo, with easy access to highways and transit. The name of the community was 5401 Apartments on Chimney Rock Road if you're interested, but they were transitioning into new management when I left so their rents may have gone up significantly since then.

[redhead]

since in your post you asked for other suggestions on different areas to consider................well here it is...........check out sacramento....downtown midtown area....job market in ca is bad but sacto being the cap it has lots of gov jobs but don't think there's hiring going on though. but there's other industry, the folsom area northeast has intel and roseville has some industry and is a nice community but downtown would be more hip. and it's lots lots more affordable then the east coast. so go to it's forum and check out city data info. sacramento is located where you can drive to lake taho or san francisco or the wine country all in less then 2 hours. it's a pretty city and the people are pretty open. if you don't mind grey sky almost year round seattle is another ok pic and you'd be use to the "cold' people there. good luck

[YankeesJerseyGirl]

Thanks everyone for the wealth of information! I'm getting my resume prepared as we speak. I'll take all your suggestions into consideration when job hunting.