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0 pointsthephyber4y ago0 comments

Your intuition is shared by many, but it is a little off.

Lots of low/middle income Californians actually have a higher total tax burden in Texas.[1] And I’d guess that Austin is one of the places where cost of living is highest for Texas, reducing the net quality of life profit.

Also, residential expansion in those two places is a bit of apples and oranges. Bay Area is surrounded by water, mountains, and Open Space Preserve. Austin is surrounded by land, land, and more land; and most of it is flat.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-19/wait-c...

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jasondigitized4y ago

Austin is where the Hill Country begins. A large swath of it is hardly flat. With that said your main premise is correct. Land as far as the eye can see.

nine_k4y ago

This is a good point. But it does not apply to most well-paid engineers who might consider moving to Austin.

Land and more land is one solution. Density and more density is another, so the downtown can actually grow bigger and bigger; if people are willing to live closer to everything, they have a better chance than in SF (but still a far cry from NYC or Chicago).

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