Is Austin losing its luster?

I spent a few months in Austin for the first time this year. I hadn't expected much from it, but by the time I had left it had grown on me. I loved that it still had 24-hr coffee shops, I couldn't even find those in Seattle this summer. I also met a bunch of really kind, fun, and ambitious people in my age group (30s) through board groups, including other people interested in founding startups. Overall, it's definitely way more exciting than Raleigh, and the music scene was great too. I think it will continue to attract talent, especially from tech/startup-oriented southerners who may not feel culturally at home on the West Coast. The only other southern city I've organically ran into founders was Nashville, which is nice, but also quite expensive and doesn't have the history of tech investment that Austin does.

Is it Austin that lost its luster, or all that low interest capital funding is gone so startups are drying up in general?

Its funny to see govt falling all over itself to regulate crypto but crypto got nothing over the biggest ponzi scheme of all time that they themselves created called 'the us housing market'. Tons of ppl in know in austin, dallas area have like dozen houses where they are now partial owners. Most of those draw rentals less than the monthly mortgage but ppl buying them regardless because "housing always goes up/govt will never let housing fall" .

Complaints about the weather and then moving operations to Houston? I’ve lived in both cities and Houston is much worse for weather.<p>I just looked at new home price in Austin though and it’s $2m for 4k square foot house. That seems like a bad idea but there’s plenty of people out there willing to risk going underwater. Houston housing is still much cheaper.

Fort Worth is not a hip microcosm of California in Texas but it is about to leave Austin in the dust. They have been growing at similar rates for about the last 20 years but Austin is slowing down and growth in Fort Worth continues to accelerate. Fort Worth is scheduled to be the first to reach 1 million residents out of Jacksonville, Austin, Seattle, and San Jose.<p>If you ignore the non-numerical trend nonsense the writing has been on the wall for more than 5 years based on raw data commonly available to everyone.

The article cites a few data points for &quot;Austin losing its luster&quot;:<p>- Techstars pausing their Austin tech accelerator and venture funding being down 46%. This is the most compelling data point in the article, however venture funding is down 48% globally [0], so this has nothing to do with Austin specifically.<p>- A startup moving its HQ from Austin to Houston (where they previously were before moving to Austin), specifically because it is looking for non-software talent that they believe will be more plentiful in Houston.<p>- A laundry company that has ~10 employees moving from Austin to Tulsa<p>- An &quot;online travel agency aimed at Millenials&quot; with ~10 employees moving to Sacramento<p>Meanwhile, companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Oracle have some of their largest office locations in Austin and show no signs of slowing down, as far as I can tell. This is definitely a new side of Austin, which used to be known for smaller tech startups and didn&#x27;t have these giant behemoths - so I&#x27;ll agree that it&#x27;s losing luster in that way, if that&#x27;s what is being looked at.<p>I mean no disrespect towards the company&#x27;s listed in the article, but I&#x27;ll wait to make conclusions until there&#x27;s better data points than a few random companies I&#x27;ve never heard of moving.<p>0: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;finance&#x2F;venture-capital-funding-plunges-globally-first-half-despite-ai-frenzy-2023-07-06&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;business&#x2F;finance&#x2F;venture-capital-fun...</a>

I mean, the whole deal in Austin was that it was super cheap, and for a super cheap town it was kinda interesting and had a funky vibe.<p>Now it’s very expensive while still far behind other major cities in quality of life and cultural amenities. Not a good deal anymore.<p>Relatedly, the funky vibe is going away as it was largely generated by interesting people living there and doing things that didn’t necessarily pay that well but worked when space was super cheap. And once you lose the community it’s really hard to get it back.

Houston is way better designed to be a tech hub for several reasons:<p>1. It&#x27;s way bigger than Austin<p>2. It&#x27;s international airport is a key hub for United and has an expansive route network, including routes to China<p>3. It&#x27;s road network has significantly more capacity,<p>4. It has much better suburban infrastructure, and those suburbs are growing rapidly, and<p>5. Surprisingly its public transit is better!<p>Yeah, it&#x27;s hot and swampy in the summer months, but you&#x27;re probably inside something air conditioned anyway.<p>Houston beats Austin hands down every day of the week for me.

&gt;During the COVID-19 pandemic, investors and startup founders alike flocked to the Texas capital<p>Wasn&#x27;t this mainly a number of Silicon Valley transplants?<p>That would be like a number of Houston energy technology growth enthusiasts moving to Sacramento to be right where the action is in the middle of the California software entrepreneur ecosystem.

Given the perceived state of the economy and housing prices&#x2F;interest- sure. As others pointed out... if you have ever lived any of these mid-market cities, this is a cycle that tracks to SV... I think we saw an increase during COVID thanks to remote... but just like everything during covid, castle made of sand.

My co-worker (remote) lives in Austin and he says he’s more out because it’s basically becoming too commercial and unaffordable. I noticed that he’s also having a child soon, I feel like this is the classic urban paradox, young people like towns for young people.

Did it ever have a luster? It always seemed sort of overhyped and underwhelming to me. And now it is super expensive and is an island in an insane state.

Every tech-centric area is losing its luster. It&#x27;s called <i>the end of the era of free money</i>.

Why only Austin got that kind of boom and not any other US city? Was there a government backing?