[mcu]

I moved from reasonably liberal parts of Illinois/Wisconsin to Dallas/Fort Worth about three years ago... I wouldn't recommend this.

When I decided to move from DFW to start a company I looked at Portland, Boston, San Francisco, and Austin. Austin made sense, financially. Texas has no state income tax (unfortunately the social services reflect this), jobs, and the cost of living is a fraction of what it is in other cities of its size. Also, winter is just another word for January here.

Unfortunately, Austin is still a reasonably small town surrounded by Texas.

I wouldn't have come here if I wasn't trying to sack away money in a town with a reasonable selection of 24-hour cafes and restaurants. While I know a few SF->Austin transplants who love it here, I'd rather be in San Francisco.

[bretthoerner]

As someone who went SF->Austin (and is originally from DFW) I'm curious why in the hell you'd pick DFW after you looked at Portland and Austin?

[mcu]

Family.

They moved down after I went away for school. After being away from them for about 6 years during/after school, I went down the summer before my brother got married and ended up staying for a bit after meeting a girl.

This was well before I considered Austin or the others. I didn't intend to settle in Texas when I first got here.