[throwaway-1283]

I've considered moving to Austin (like so many others). I think my biggest concerns are 1) lack of good public transit 2) scorching humid heat ~5 months of the year 3) not a major airline hub.

I honestly wish Vegas became the tech dream that the Zappos founder had tried to build like 10 years ago. I would move there in a second.

[noirbot]

I can't really argue with #1 or #2, but I've found that flights in and out of Austin aren't drastically more expensive than elsewhere. Directs to Seattle, SF, LA, NYC, Boston, Atlanta, Miami are all $200-300 round trip, and there's a lot of flights that are just a quick hop to Dallas or Houston and then on to fill in the gaps.

You'll find some weird one-offs - Louisville KY was a $700 round trip last time I checked, for some reason, and there's no way to get to Vancouver that doesn't take like... 8 hours, but in general, I haven't had serious problems.

You also have the advantage of it being a smaller airport, so you can pretty reliably get to the airport with only an hour or so before your flight, since the gate is at most 5 mins from security.

[jdhn]

The fact that neither Vegas or Reno have become major tech hubs is confusing to me. Both are closer to the Valley (Reno is a 4 hour drive away), they're in the same time zone, and Nevada is super business friendly. That being said, Texas does have a lot more people than Nevada, which could definitely be part of the draw.

[chrisco255]

Folks on the east coast are often hesitant to move to the west coast because of distance from family. I think the west coast already has plenty of tech hubs so who do they draw talent from? Who wants to leave the Valley for Reno? Outside of gambling and tourism what major anchors are there?

Austin became a tech hub over decades due to anchors like UT, National Instruments, Dell, Intel, IBM, etc.

[throwaway-1283]

I think there's more appetite now because the housing crisis in CA has really reached a tipping point (IMO). There's plenty of inflow into cities like Vegas from CA. Housing prices have rebounded but still relatively speaking cheap.

[bluedino]

Why would you want to live in Vegas? Bleh.

[throwaway-1283]

Reno is really small, but agree it's too bad Vegas hasn't become a major hub for more companies. The best thing is there are so many cheap direct flights, especially during the weekday. And only ~1hr from SFO and less than that from LAX...

[maehwasu]

Also has really, really beautiful nature in the outskirts. And the weather is great outside of 3 months/year.

[stevenwoo]

I found the heat unbearable only a couple of months of the year (as a native Texan) on the other hand it got cool enough that a pool requires a heater for almost half the year. :) My allergies went off the charts in Austin even compared to other parts of Texas, also the traffic if one has to go cross town is comparable to Houston, a much bigger city, since there was only I-35 going through town (versus the 360 loop which had a lot of lights)

[selimthegrim]

These all sound like anti-New Orleans arguments too. Give us a shot, we’re way more fun and we have Internet too.

[mrnobody_67]

With the money you save on taxes and housing vs. california, you'd be able to take uber over public transit

[untog]

That doesn't scale, though. If everyone does that then you're going to be stuck in traffic all the time.

[throwaway082729]

Not everyone on the road can afford to do it. Maybe a small segment of the population will do it.

[chrisco255]

You understand Vegas is in a desert right? Austin's heat has nothing on Vegas.

[throwaway-1283]

Dry heat is fine. It's the humidity that makes heat miserable.

[theli0nheart]

Austin heat is dry (usually).

[driverdan]

Only about 50% of the time. Much of the summer is over 50% humidity.