Come on, Houston is the New Jersey of Texas.
Unlike Austin, Houston is an actual, real city with a less than 90% white population, industry that contributes more to the world than a high blues rock band/capita ratio, frat boy parties that span it's entire main street, and pretention built upon student debt. Austin food is a breakfast taco with sprouts on it. Contrast: Austin's art scene is your friends and friends of friends bored at a semi-relevant internet artist's kareoke show. Contrast: Houston has actual institutions that are world reknown, and Austin has SXSW which spoiled after only a few years in the open air. Oh, you like punk music and no wave but wish someone had been doing it decades earlier? Thanks, Houston Austin is the Bay Area of Texas, but without the Nobel winners, flocks of smart and adventursome folks, enormous world class colleges, and shitloads of money. Ie, it's a fantasy camp for adults, but the Bay actual earned it. Houston is city living on expert level, it's one of the realest, most heterogenous, and opportunity-filled places in America, but no one is gonna throw you the keys and say "Don't forget your free t-shirt before you leave!"
Woulda worked a lot better without the anti-Austin sentiment. Austin is 48% white, has a booming tech industry, and invented the food truck trailer park. Austin City Limits is fucking legendary, both as a TV show and as a festival. One of the best choral groups in the nation was born here, and UT's student radio was so good it became our NPR affiliate and then split into two frequencies broadcasting simultaneously. Austin has so many good musicians it's actually a problem, because club owners can always find someone great willing to play for less. Houston gets off on bands that came out of there 50 years ago. Austin is a cultural and technological hub that's been on the right side of hip since it was Waterloo, and yeah it's a shame it's being gentrified, but that's no reason to discount the great art, food, and industry that still flows through this town.
But then it wouldn't be fun :) You're still wrong about Dallas being better than Houston, though. And, of course, people from Austin don't waste their time thinking of dick measuring contests with other cities, it definitely stems from insecurity.Woulda worked a lot better without the anti-Austin sentiment.
This has been a great Texas city thread, thanks galen and iammyownrushmore. Neither of you are wrong, I think it all boils down to individual taste of what you're looking for in a city. I'm in Houston now, but I spent most of my life in San Antonio, now the seventh largest city in the nation, with almost no representation in national media. It's just too poor. San Antonio is certainly on the rise though, and I much prefer the laid back mentality as opposed to the "EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE" feeling I get from Houston. People come to Houston to sell their lives for large salaries, which is a bummer for suckers like me, living on a modest research stipend. Yeah, there's a serious homeless problem, I see some real shit on the metro rail at least once a week. But I'm also witness to the most diverse demographics in the United States, and it's a beautiful thing. There's no way I could choose a favorite Texas city, but I can definitely advise everyone to stay the fuck away from College Station and Texas A&M. Worst three years of my life. Austin doesn't seem as bad as iammyownrushmore claims (I've only spent a bit of time there), but it's definitely a "thing" now, and I generally don't cope well with "things".