Austin Loses Appeal For Residents, While Another Texas City Gains Popularity

Austin, the mightiest "move-to" city in Texas for years, has been taking a tumble of late.

It used to be where the "cool kids" from smaller Texas cities hoped to end up- until it became a hot spot for huge companies from out of state. Austin rapidly went from being the charming quirky music capital of Texas to a bland, boring, and ridiculously overpriced city like anywhere else.

Now, that uneven growth is correcting itself, and Austin has become the 5th highest "move out" city in the U.S. Interestingly, another major Texas metropolis has become the third most move-in city: Houston.

There is a lot of speculation as to why Austin has fallen out of favor. Greg Abbott will tell you that it's because Austin is too liberal:

I think that analysis is reductive at best, and I say that as a lifelong Texan who once held Austin in high esteem.

Obviously, there are multiple factors at play here. For starters, many of those tech companies that brought so many people into Austin are all leaving Austin- and they will take most of their employees with them.

It also can't help that the average rent for a tiny studio apartment is over $1200, which is actually down from last year.

Looking at these factors compared to the now popular Houston we have to ask what the differences are. 

Houston creates a ton of jobs (80K in the last 12 months), so that's a likely candidate, especially as Austin seems to be losing them (although some reports have Austin's job growth equal to Houston's).

Also, that same studio apartment that was over $1200k in Austin is $1K in Houston. Still not cheap, but significantly less for most people's biggest bill each month.

However, I do think a big part of it is that Austin just isn't as magical as it was before- and the people who made it magical like artists and musicians have been priced out of the city. Perhaps they should have Kept Austin Weird, after all.