Relocation from NYC to Texas: Houston, Dallas, or Austin? (Henderson: house, neighborhoods)

[artsyguy]

Ha ha I know it's really funny but it's so so true!

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

"weirdo white hippies" CHORTLE.

[diablo234]

Originally Posted by artsyguy

You have no clue what you are talking about: people mislead me to go to Austin because it was supposed to be a big huge progressive and modern bastion. I felt like I went back in time by 60 years: that is how lousy Austin, Texas is. Please stay the hell away from the city and move to Dallas, Texas. Dallas is a vast and modern city with a lot of great nightlife. You don't see traffic and crowding out on the streets like you do in Austin because the people in Dallas are inside partying and having a good time.

Did you even read the OP's post?

[artsyguy]

The nightlife in Dallas is not dead despite the look of it: it's good but you have to be inside the venues: most venues have events on a schedule too. The difference is that people in Austin like to crowd and mob the streets like packs of rabid hyenas. You won't see that in Dallas. That's my point. That's the difference. If it matters.

Originally Posted by diablo234

Did you even read the OP's post?

[diablo234]

Originally Posted by artsyguy

The nightlife in Dallas is not dead despite the look of it: it's good but you have to be inside the venues: most venues have events on a schedule too. The difference is that people in Austin like to crowd and mob the streets like packs of rabid hyenas. You won't see that in Dallas. That's my point. That's the difference. If it matters.

The OP said he was into the alternative scene and listed Denver and Portland as a city he/she liked. That's why I recomended Austin because Austin is very similar to Portland and Denver in this regard.

Anyways you have some wierd "issues" with Austin. May I recomend that you see a therapist?

[cmacemm]

There definitely isn't a dead night life here...

[diablo234]

I never said Dallas had a dead nightlife. But Austin moreso than Dallas caters to the "alternative/indie" scene, which is why I recomended Austin in the first place.

[cmacemm]

Originally Posted by diablo234

I never said Dallas had a dead nightlife. But Austin moreso than Dallas caters to the "alternative/indie" scene, which is why I recomended Austin in the first place.

yes and no...definitely depends on which alternative scenes you prefer.
Austin is more indie rock and the such
Dallas and Houston each have some of the largest punk and hardcore scenes in the nation
Dallas and Houston also have better "public" art scenes
Austin has a lot of "hippies" who are actually rich folk, lot's of crust fund punks, etc

[homeinatx]

Originally Posted by carryzero

Thanks for all of the responses so far! Very helpful! I also thought I should point out a few more things on my wish list for a city. I am looking for something with more of an "alternative" vibe, and not to offend, but I am not the biggest fan of the cowboy/rodeo scene (which may just be an inaccurate stereotype for all I know). Some examples of my favorite neighborhoods in NYC are the Lower East Side, the East Village, and Greenpoint in Brooklyn. I hope this helps to clarify!

Dear O.P. There are no urban neighborhoods in the state of Texas that are anything like the Lower East Side, the East Village and Greenpoint, Brooklyn in terms of the built environment, streetlife, and general 24/7 atmosphere of the first 2. (Greenpoint sleeps much earlier than the other 2). I lived in NYC for nearly all of the 1990s and go back often. The closest you will get in the state of Texas is Central East Austin - the roughly 3 square miles north of Ladybird/Town Lake and east of 35. In terms of the built environment, it is mostly small houses on small lots built between 1890 and 1950 in varying degrees of repair, with quite a bit of modernist Dwell magazineish infill, a few old warehouses and some pretty blah new construction pseudo-lofts. Demographically, it is a mix of African American and Mexican American working class families, gays and lesbians and is home to the biggest concentration of hipsters south of the Mason-Dixon line, outside of a few spots in Atlanta and New Orleans. The recession has put a brake on rampant gentrification, so you will find many of Austin's best restaurants and cocktail bars lining 6th ( not to be confused with 6th west of the Highway - which would be kin to Bleeker in the Village, but younger and worse), 7th and 11th Streets with urban grittiness intact for now. I have a longtime Austinite musician friend who moans and ******* about the Williamsburgification of the East Side, and I agree with her that Williamsburg rather than Greenpoint would be the most obvious point of comparison, though even that is a stretch. There is no Hasidic Jewish community in Central East Austin; nor is the lower East side of Manhattan across the bridge. That said if you want to live in a racially diverse neighborhood where hot tattooed young people ride their bikes everywhere, where no-one will look twice if you light up a joint on a bar patio, surrounded by some of best and oldest Tex-Mex restaurants in the state, along with spectacular BBQ options, next door to a hipster nightclub where they have kumbacha on top and to my mind, ghastly home-made vegan chocolates, and watch a band of baby-dykes play screaming guitar under a venerable Pecan tree, there really is nowhere else. I am now too old but if I were 15 years younger or so, I would be parking my bike at the back of Rio-Rita, the Liberty, Shangri-La or any other of 20 similar places and deeply hanging out.

The Dallas recommendations you have gotten vary between lame and wrong to me. Deep Ellum should be the premier boho neighborhood in Texas. It has beautiful early 2Oth century warehouses, the odd cobbled street and excellent potential. For some reason it has never taken off as a livable, artist colony type residential neighborhood. In the nearly 10 years I have lived in Texas it has been a raucous entertainment district, consequently very dead in the daylight hours and then a languishing shell. I expect the arrival of light rail will turn it yuppie pretty quickly and it will never have the urban magic of a surprising mix of people all sharing the streets. Uptown is mostly faux new urbanism, Ed Hardy tee shirts and kinda grown-up frat boys in their first - grantedly often well-cut- suit. No "alternative vibe" at all. Oaklawn is a better Dallas suggestion. Whoever said Beltline Road in Addison needs to change his/her meds. It offers a collection of sports bars and chain restaurants in a strip mall type environment, and the most interesting characters there look like they are auditioning for a low rent version of the Real Housewives of Collin County. Don't think you'd like it. The one neighborhood in Dallas that might work would be the Bishop Arts District in North Oak Cliff, which is definitely prettier than Central East Austin, but has not as much going on in terms of a scene.

I love Montrose in Houston, and you would be close to Houston's very impressive museum district, but you are probably 20 years too late for anything like the vibe of your favorite NYC neighborhoods. Like Austin's South Congress area, it is now mostly fairly chic bohemia.

If my favorite NYC neighborhoods were yours, I would look at Bishop Arts, Montrose and then move to Central East Austin. And still be prepared for the suburbanity of it all. There is after all nothing like.

P.S. You did not ask about San Antonio, but King Williams/Southtown could very easily be the coolest urban neighborhood of the lot.

[cmacemm]

I completely agree with your opinions on uptown but you just missed deep ellum during it's prime. once everyone realized it was cool, rents went up, tenants moved out
used to be "punk mecca" of the south

[Squirl]

I was born in NYC and grew up in the greater NY area. Lived in the midwest, in California, and in Texas. The beauty of moving is to experience the culture and not try and find the closest thing to where your comfort zone is. Your boss probably wants you to move to Texas so you can become a fuller person. Just think about all the corporations who sponsor young exec's taking a year off and doing humanitarian work in poor economies. I recommend, for your personal enrichment, that you embrace your inner cowboy and try Fort Worth. Before you decide where you will move, go to a NYC bluegrass bar and have several glasses of good whiskey and think about all I just wrote. Do it this weekend. Think Fort Worth or San Antonio.......