[deltaomega]

I’m one of those that moved my family from CA to Austin during the pandemic. We wanted cheaper housing and more space, and told ourselves Texas is the future.

We pretty quickly learned that Texas does not feel like the future. The traffic was surprisingly worse than where we moved from (Orange Co), we had an incident with some nut that harassed us at the grocery over wearing a mask, and the weather was absolutely unbearable. We don’t drink or watch sports so it felt like there was nothing to do besides sit inside our air conditioned home in a quiet neighborhood and occasionally get really good barbecue.

We made it almost 3 years, but but the bullet and moved back. California has its shortcomings too, but we have a newfound appreciation for it and will probably never leave.

[igetspam]

We stayed 8. Moved just outside Austin in 2016. By 2018, the neighborhood doubled and traffic tripled. The pandemic absolutely destroyed the neighborly facade. Then the last few summers hit peak heat and that was it. Our 2.5 acres with a $12k playground castle was all but unusable most of the year. And the people were becoming more and more cruel. We left for New England. The weather is much better and so are the people. I won't go back to CA. I spent most of my life there but it's not the right home for my family. We're much happier here.

[wendyshu]

Cruel in what way?

[cvhashim04]

Trading OC for Austin seems funny to me. I’m strongly considering moving there from my cold state if things fall into place. OC is one of the nicer areas of SoCal that’s also relatively affordable.

[deltaomega]

I’ve never heard of someone refer to OC as “affordable”. It’s one of the least affordable counties in the US [0]. Travis county (Austin) homes are less than half the price [1].

[0] https://www.attomdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Top-10-...

[1] https://www.redfin.com/county/2866/TX/Travis-County/housing-...