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Last year for sure but at least so far this year El Nino has been putting in work. Weird to still see green grass when it's nearly June.
His girlfriend can get on an ACA plan during open enrollment. I hear they are great.
Only takes a road trip if she needs to kill a baby.
Last year for sure but at least so far this year El Nino has been putting in work. Weird to still see green grass when it's nearly June.
If your favorite thing about Hungary is Viktor Orban, you’ll love Texas. Except Austin.
It's hot but it's not as stupid hot as last year or say 2011. But it's been too wet imo. You either get too hot or too wet. I like summer days to be in the 70s with cool nights and reasonable amount of dryness and low humidity days.
ACA-Obamacare plans are terrible, I would know. The network is extremely limited and often you have to drive hours for basic care, god forbid specialists.
A clump of cells that can't survive outside of the womb isn't a baby.
The West Coast cities’ downtowns are all trashed and full of homeless drug addict zombies. Retailers are pulling out left and right.
That leaves the Northeast.
yup, the West Coast Democrat leaders have steadily ran the area (sad, the weather there is generally pleasant) into a post-apocalyptic dystopian reality in the past few decades.
While the Northeast Democrats run their places more similar to how European countries and cities are run, the democrats on the West coast are just outright nuts and like you said, zombies.
It all starts at the top. The hobo zombies and trashed, looted, vandalized streets in places like Cali, Portland, and Seattle didn't just come out of nowhere.
The Northeast is indeed the most European in terms of climate, weather, political policy, and also just ethnically and in general. It should always be the natural starting point for anyone moving from Europe.
Boston is a good starter city/metro imo for people moving from Europe. The tax is moderate for US standards but mild for European standards. The climate is similar to most of Europe, especially Western Europe and the UK. There's lots of jobs there. Cost of living isn't cheap but it isn't insane like some places and it's on par with most European cities.
So anyway, if you want a diverse, dense, European-style city with an international feel and lots of amenities walking distance away or within reach of public transportation, don’t move to Texas at all. Not even Austin. Stick to the Northeast like MM says.
If you want American-style living with a large house in an anodyne suburban area using an automobile to get where you need to go, then any large Texas city will do. Austin is the most “hip,” being a liberal college town with extensive nightlife. Houston is a really good foodie city, and has a good arts scene, and is leafy and green, but the climate is hot and very humid, with a good solid four months with high temperatures over 35 C. Think India. Also, it is enormous, with sometimes an hour drive on the freeway to get across town. Dallas is similar to Houston, just as sprawling, but not as humid, not as green, with not as good an arts scene. San Antonio has more of a small-town feel despite being the same size as Austin. The pace of life is slower. The culture is a blend of Mexico and Texas.
All these Texas cities also have what we call “gentrified” areas, where older parts of town have been refurbished and the poor have been pushed elsewhere. These provide a measure of city living, with nice flats, though not with all the urban amenities of a European alpha city.
Too wet? Where in Texas are you? SA area is still in extreme & exceptional drought.
We have gotten El Nino rain yet. That usually doesn't come until fall. Then we will be talking about all of the flooding. I'm looking forward to our aquifer getting refilled.
Rain in SA peaks from April to early June, regardless of ENSO status (neutral, La Nina or El Nino). Often, it comes with severe storms, hail, tornado watches, and power outages. There's a secondary peak in October that's associated with El Nino years, but it doesn't come with severe storms, hail, much lightning or risk for any tornadoes. Though it causes flooding especially flash flooding.
SA tends to be bone dry in late June, July/August even in El Nino years and especially in El Nino years because the only rain threat outside of a few isolated popcorn sea breeze showers during that time of year, is from tropical systems like the tropical disturbance (wasn't strong enough to get a name) that made landfall at the end of June 2002 and infamously parked over us for a month, or Tropical Storm Erin in 2007. We got rain from Dolly in 2008. Stuff like that. But El Nino generally ---> weaker hurricane and tropical cyclone season for the Gulf, Caribbean and Atlantic due to increased wind shear, so less chance of TDs, TSs and hurricanes threatening Texas in the summer months.
With a Super La Nina event like the ones in 2011 and 2022 you can get a bone dry wet (spring) season, but in a normal year you'll get about as much rain as we did this spring, maybe a tad less.
We came out of that last month
Will probably go back in the summer but it's nice seeing green in June for once
I like this advice
Still confused why OP chose Texas and what's his prior experience in the USA
I remember back in the day a very ethnic Chinese rich aunt of my GFs (at the time) moved to Texas to live with an American husband and it took her a while to adjust. Although Texas has alot to offer even arguably Top10 State, I think someone new to America and no experience with Mexican cuisine/culture would find it difficult to start off.
Right. Ethnically Chinese would do best in a big West coast city or NYC, but it's expensive. Any liberal place on the northeast seaboard might do.
Dallas is flat, mostly boring, and has the worst drivers of any major city on the planet. Texas in general blows, but Dallas is especially awful.
The areas north of Dallas before you get to the Red River (south Oklahoma i saaaaiiiiddddd) are growing fast but I’d move there if you have to stay in Texas. But of course prepare for hail to pound your car into oblivion every April/May.
Just don’t move to Texas.
yep, outside of "having good jobs" DFW has nothing really going for it. If you absolutely HAVE to move there, suburban areas like Prosper, Frisco, Mckinney etc have good school districts if you have kids ... but it's not like the "generic white suburb with good schooling" is independent to DFW or anything
"I'm going to go on vacation to DFW" - said nobody ever i saaaaaiiiiiiddddd
Last edited by Mark Celibate; 06-02-2023 at 11:52 AM.
Is there anywhere in Texas at all that's a vacation destination spot? People from all over go to Florida, Myrtle Beach, NOLA, Cali, Hawaii. Those are year round attractions. Then there are the mountains, especially Colorado, the great lakes (particularly in summer and fall), and the nicer national parks, weather permitting. What does Texas have that's really alluring at all? 9 months of blazing hot summer and tons of bugs?
South Padre Island
Big Bend
San Antonio
I personally like Port Aransas, but it’s not a nationally popular destination like those other three.
South Padre is really the only place I can think of, but even then that's more of a place people IN Texas go to that don't want to fly. You won't hear many people from other states go "Oh I really want to go to South Padre"...although it's not bad.
Maybe it's not fair to say the word "vacation" but still, whenever somebody is making a big move to DFW it's always because they got a job at "insert big name Fortune 100 company". and then it's cost of living...work, cost of living...that's all people talk about when talking about Big D. Boorrringgg. You never hear "oh make sure you visit X.Y.Z. You'll really love it!" Which creates a soulless, keeping up with the Joneses culture.
And I'm not even sure these "good jobs" you always hear about in DFW are even that good anymore. Last time I was there and had an onsite tech job at a big name company, it seemed like we were only interviewing the dregs of society. Interestingly enough, that really changed after COVID. Went from interviewing good quality candidates to Somalian/Nigerian refugees w/ three DUIs almost overnight for literally the same position. It was like all the smart people that worked at these places just disappeared overnight. Either affirmative action in overdrive, great Reset , etc That's when I knew it was it was time to hit the eject button.
This winter will be fun.
Houston and Dallas are on the international tour list. There are all kinds of events happening in both cities all the time.
From a rural aspect driving around East Texas it like much of the South is a wasteland of deserted 1950s brick downtowns, Walmarts, and Dollar Generals. The farms you see are not homesteads for the most part. Instead you will see the clusters of trailers for the low wage workers.
You start heading NW over the hill country towards Waco or to Lubbock and the rural areas start to improve. Lot more family homesteads holding on and communities with functional downtowns. Lot more ranching and livestock out those areas.
Of course West Texas is beautiful but 100s of miles of nothing outside of Fort Stockton and a few other places.
There is a ton of money and opportunity in Houston. The way the city is zoned, they have consolidated all the poverty to these areas around downtown. You end with ghetto as far as the eye can see with pockets around Midtown, Petroleum Row, and the like. Kinda third world frankly. Then of course you have the swamp weather, a million refineries on the coast blowing their inland and Hurricanes every few years.
Dallas is weird because of how decentralized it is. There is a ton of money here as well but it is not as concentrated around a few industries like Houston. Because of how Dallas is so divided, living in Plano is different than Irving is different than Dallas or Fort Worth proper. The number of toll roads is also remarkable. Dallas elites have this smarmy arrogance about them I don't see elsewhere in the state so much.
Austin used to be a glorified hippy commune. Tech giants and cultural ultrawealthy elite types moved in over the past 25 years so now 'Keep Austin Weird" is only niche culture. The city has undergone a lot of gentrification over the past 25 years and areas around south and east austin have seen a lot of racial friction much like what happened in NY 10 years prior. They also play games with their zoning. They have a vice quarter around 6th street downtown. Outside of there they make it difficult to get a liquor license. That area used to be a lot of fun but now it is more lawless.
San Antonio used to have a small town feel but now the city is pushing out to another loop it just doesn't feel that way anymore. At the same time there are not the large tech or oil companies. The city and local groups have done a lot of work over the last decade or so building art districts and the like. There has been quite a lot of art and culture being produced in the city lately. San Antonio also has the most graft. Your most likely to run into a building inspector expecting you to up his fishing game to pass and the like. Houston is second in that regard.
DFW is quite a boring place to live. You have a decent six flags, top golfs, golf courses, Main Event's (which is fun even as a young adult, not just for teens) and are within driving distance of a couple casinos just on the Oklahoma side. That's about it. It's landlocked, hot, continental, humid, nothing interesting outdoorsy like lakes or mountains or beaches.
As far as the jobs go, yeah they've been a lot less selective since covid and more willing to hire tier candidates if it means they can pay them half as much.
Well, first of all, there IS no zoning in Houston. Second, the landscape you describe was accurate 30 years ago, but now the Heights and East Downtown have gentrified, with the western part of the Third Ward in progress. The poverty and crime are now more dispersed.
I lived there last year. The pockets may be bigger but it is still a 15-20 min drive between the pockets as you drive through town. Areas have also deteriorated as white flight keeps pushing money up the highways. Gentrification is why you have those pockets in the first place.
The west side is a pretty solid “pocket” from the Medical Center up to Garden Oaks.
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