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Texas Attracted California Techies. Now It’s Losing Thousands of Them.
(www.texasmonthly.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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As a Texan, not sure what part of Texas you think is so ugly. There is a lot of beauty here.
Our politicians just suck.
Having lived there, Houston to College Station to Waco is 100% ugly. Really all of East Texas. I admit the hill country is pretty decent.
I moved to Seattle, though. Most Texans don't know what they're missing.
I've traveled the country full time in an RV for two years. Yes, there are more beautiful places in the US (Sequoia, Redwood Forests, Olympic National Park, etc), but I'm just saying that Texas isn't all just some drab hole-in-the-wall. If you want that, go to Ohio or Indiana.
Every state has some beauty. Ohio has Cuyahoga Valley and Indiana can see the Chicago skyline across Lake Michigan.
I love that you say every state has some beauty and then say that the best thing in Indiana is that you can see the next state over.
Not only that but you look over to see man made beauty not natural like we were talking about lmao
I loved the little dis, but for real the Great Lakes Region is one of the most beautiful parts of the country, I’d put it on par with our mountain ranges. Indiana only has a sliver of it, but northern Indiana is beautiful unlike the hellhole that is Fort Wayne. It’s like if a bunch of people decided to move to Lima for some unknown reason.
Indiana actually has some very nice state parks, and the Hoosier National Forest is quite pleasant as well
I’d put Turkey Run State Park near the top of the list for Indiana.
How did a state with the Appalachian mountains, major cities, a major tributary of the Mississippi, and a Great Lake make your bland list. You want to see nothing? Go to Iowa. The Great Plains are a magnificent ecosystem with immense value, but gods is it a boring one to look at. You glimpse at it and are just like “yep, it’s grass and farmland”.
As a kid we drove from Dayton to Denver and yeah that chunk of Ohio is boring, as is that chunk of Indiana and Illinois, but once you pass the Mississippi holy fuck is there just nothing until mountains show up. It’s like being on the open ocean
I'm enjoying the hell out of just my commute here in Seattle, on a motorcycle in the rain.
Mt Rainier is unbelievable, the way it looms.
I moved away from Seattle (not to Texas), and while it's gorgeous, it's also kinda depressing. So I live in Utah, which is sunny, has gorgeous mountains, and lots of other natural beauty. I do try to make it back to the PNW periodically (planning to go this June).
The only place I've been in Texas is San Antonio, which was pretty (esp. the river walk).
June is a great time to go back. I always dream of being a snow bird and just living in Seattle when the weather is great (June through Sept), then going somewhere warm and deserty for the winter.
I've considered moving back, but honestly, I'm happy just being within driving distance of the PNW. I'm thinking of maybe moving to E. Washington or E. Oregon near the mountains to get a bit of the best of both worlds: lots of sun and only an hour out two drive from the green mountains.
That doesn't really solve the winter months, but it means I would only move south for 3-4 months of the year (December-March).
So for now, I go back almost every year. I'm going for a wedding in June, and two years ago we did a big road trip up there and visited Victoria, BC. Next year we'll probably do another trip there.
But I much prefer the sun, so I'm content to travel.
Driving i35, getting to i35, its all parking lots and shopping malls.
It looks like a giant oversized strip mall.
Within city walls it's beautiful. But since Texas is so car dependent most of what you see are strip malls, giant bridges, and poor road design.
Sounds like I-15 through northern Utah.
i mean, if you could appreciate it anywhere it would be a lot better. how the fuck do so many people actually not have ANYWHERE BETTER to take pictures of wildflowers than the side of the freeway. that really highlights a big problem with Texas. they may have had beauty, but they bought, sold, rented, and ruined most of it until there's only a trash covered vestige at a dangerous crossing left. it's the biggest contiguous state, and somehow has nearly the least public land.
Try visiting a not ugly state like California.
I've seen basically all of the West half of the US and lived there. Yes, California is more beautiful. I'm just saying Texas isn't some horribly drab state all around. Big Bend, Davis Mountains, etc. are beautiful in their own right.
?? Socal is pretty ugly. It has gross rolling hills that remind me of S. Idaho, suburban sprawl, and the beaches are all crowded. San Diego is nice, but pretty much anything between San Diego and SF Bay area is pretty ugly imo, and that's where most of the population lives.
Northern California is pretty though, as are the national parks. But imo, pretty much everything California has, somewhere else does it better:
I really don't like visiting Cali. My in-laws live in LA and my cousin's live in SF, and both are unpleasant to visit imo. If I had to live anywhere, I'd probably pick San Diego or northern Cali (well north of SF.
I currently live in Utah, which I much prefer. It has:
If I moved, I'd probably go east (N. Caroline seems nice) or back to the Northwest (grew up near Seattle, so I'd probably go east of the mountains for more sun). Never to California.
I'm very much not a desert person, but the scale of the inland valley, the quiet beauty of Joshua tree, etc... Moved from socal, but there was a lot of beauty that doesn't call you to it loudly, you just suddenly notice and enjoy it.
Joshua tree looks like a bunch of rocky hills... Till you notice they're all rounded and stacked perfectly. You notice how arid it is, and then notice green leaves in spite of that.
If you're observant, there's beauty everywhere natural.
Sure, but try comparing that to southern Utah, western/central Colorado, northern Arizona/New Mexico, or western Wyoming/Montana.
There's cool stuff in Cali, it's just largely locked away in national and state parks. In all of the areas I mentioned, you can live in that beauty all the time, or go visit national and state parks for even more of it.
In my area, I can be away from people and among natural beauty with a 15 min drive up the canyon, or ride my bike about 30 min to hit some trails. I look out my windows and see towing mountains, and on my commute I can take the long way (about 15 min extra) and drive through the mountains instead of the highway.
Cali is fine if you're into urban stuff and want beauty on the weekends and are fine sitting in traffic to get there. I prefer beauty all the time.
Not knocking your choices, just to be clear. I do in fact like keeping up with entertainment and arts, can't really get concerts, symphonies and plays out in the hills. For me and many others, cities are great. There are places that are still nestled in the hills with small town vibes in soCal, check out Silverado canyon as an example.
I camp when I want to reconnect to nature, and ride my bicycle all over the place. Cities can be very beautiful in their own right, though I admittedly have an engineer's bias when viewing.
I'm like 40 min from downtown SLC, and there's a commuter rail like 10 min from my house. So going to concerts, symphonies, and plays really isn't an issue.
Worst case, I'll take a flight to an urban center for a weekend (regular flights to NYC, SF, LA, etc) if there's an event I really want to go to (I like the Seattle Nutcracker). Vegas is like 6 hours away, so it's also an option for events.
Likewise if I lived near Denver.
Looks nice, but a bit pricey. Then again, my area is getting pretty pricey as well (like $500-600k for a decent place, when it used to be $200-300k when I moved here).
I would be a bit nervous about fires and flooding though. No issues with that in my area.
Sure, and I like visiting ours, I just don't want to live in one. Give me close access to commuter rail and a canyon and I'm happy. That way I can get the best of both worlds.
My main complaint is that my area isn't very bikable, so I bought a house right next to a major bike path, which goes like 20 miles in either direction through fields, near urban areas, and along train tracks. I used to commute 10 miles each way on that path for work, and I regularly exercise on it now that I commute to far (25 miles downtown). Most of my trips are fine on a bike, with the grocery, library, and lots of parks within a mile or two with no major roads in between (or just one with a solid crosswalk).
Utah is gorgeous.
There are definitely parts of Socal that are ugly. Also parts that are sublime.
Eh, I've been around a but and the "good" parts usually have better analogues elsewhere. And then you add all the smog and traffic and it's just not where I want to spend my time.
The weather is nice and predictable though, so I'll give it that.
someone from utah complaining about smog somewhere else? now I know they haven't left the state in decades.
It only sucks in February and parts of November. Most of the year it's totally fine. Most days are green, with a handful of red and yellow throughout the year, and most of the red days are from Cali and Nevada wildfires.
I grew up near Seattle, and I regular visit family there. We visit Cali (LA) almost every year too (my in-laws), and I visit family in Montana as well. My in-laws almost always have crappier air than us because smog in LA is a constant, instead of inversion-based like it is in Utah.
And yeah, I wish they air was better. We're doing something to fix it, with tier 3 gas at most stations (lower particulate emissions), lots of people moving to solar power (net metering), and EV charging stations getting more and more available. I wish we'd do more (e.g. tax big trucks like crazy), but air quality is rarely an issue.
That said, I'm acutely aware of air quality issues here because I used to commute almost every day by bike. It's worse near SLC, which is part of why I'm in northern Utah county (close-ish to downtown, but less pollution).
Fucking lmao. Dude, Texas has its own beauty, but it isn't a pretty state.
I have driven across 49 states. When I go back to the photos I took in Texas, I think "huh, wonder what I thought looked cool here... That lump in the distance?"
Yes there are hills. There's even mountains. Not near anything though. Where everything is, it's flat as fuck. Brown, dirt, sandy boring.
Hamilton Pool is the most gorgeous thing in the whole state. It is a sight to behold. It's also 1 hour of boring scenery away from any group of humans conducting any kind of business.
Easily the ugliest scenery of any state I can think of. Second only to Alabama and Mississippi? At least Louisiana has the bayous. Tennessee has real mountains. Oklahoma has... Grass?
Texas is fucking hideous. It's like Nevada without anything cool.
You haven't seen Texas, then. Texas has Big Bend, which is my second favorite National Park in the whole country. And I've been to over 100 National Parks, Preserves, and Monuments.
Yosemite is still more beautiful, though.
National parks are owned by the Feds, so using them as "my state is beautiful" is cheating. Guarantee it TX was actually responsible for the maintenance of their parks... Well they probably wouldn't exist to begin with, but sure as shit wouldn't be what they are today
That’s ridiculous.
lol ever been to Houston?
Im not sure they're issuing blanket dismissal. Parts of Texas are indeed ugly. I'm sure part of you is ugly to, but that doesn't mean all of you is ugly, you beautiful bastard.
Have you? Houston isn't the "concrete jungle" it was in the 80's.. I personally prefer it over NYC and LA. Chicago is a close second to Houston for me.
I have multiple times and i strongly believe that it’s the ugliest city I’ve ever seen.
Like many southern states, there is much natural beauty in Texas. It doesn't seem like many of the locals realize what they are blessed with.
What happens is that it all gets paved over for wider highways, more expansive empty parking lots, and sprawling suburbs.
It happens everywhere in the US, but particularly in Texas. It's an asphalt nightmare.
Well, you've got Big Bend and Palo Duro. Where's the 3rd beautiful place?
Davis Mountains, Palo Duro, Enchanted Rock.......Texas is a huge ass state with a lot of different stuff to see.
Yosemite is my favorite National Park in the country, but Big Bend is a close second.
I wouldnt say Texas ia ugly per se but y'all aint got much goin on ya dont even got mountains. Even Arkansas has ya beat with their hills.
The whole houston area, dallas area, and all therural parts are ugly. The only decent ok looking areas are kinda the austin san antonio area and even then.
Deaf Smith county is so ugly.
I love it.