Study: More Californians Moving to Houston than to Austin, San Antonio or Dallas

[10023]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

My sister has lived in San Antonio since the mid 80s. She generally speaks of the River Walk in scornful tones, while displaying pride and the desire to share when speaking of most other parts of the city.

That’s pretty much what I would imagine, hence my comparisons to other tourist-traps-that-locals-hate elsewhere. I didn’t mention Times Square because that’s on a whole other level (New Yorkers still hate it, but it’s globally iconic and everyone should visit at least once).

I’m sure it’s good for the local economy, though, and if nothing else at least draws crowds to downtown that make it safer.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by JManc

I know that is a pot shot at Houston but I will see your hurricanes and humidity and raise you LA's fires, earthquakes and droughts. Oh and worst of all, the Kardashian/ Jenner cabal wreaking havoc on the city. And yes, the rain is a pain in the ass and looking forward to sunny days in the Bay Area.

It was NOT intended as a potshot!! I like Houston and love nearby Galveston. Houston is a welcoming city, not afraid to help out working people and immigrants with high wages and reasonable living costs like L.A. used to (but now is outrageously costly). I like Houston way better than Dallas & as much as San Antonio where my mother is from. I am from L.A. and if I compare a city like Houston to L.A. it is a complement. It is a fact that Houston is flat and is much rainier than L.A. (45 inches vs. 15 inches) but does not have quakes or wildfires, which is good thing. Once in a while a hurricane sneaks into the Houston area, but also not infrequently L.A. has flooding winter rains and damaging mudslides in the hills. Houston shares a sprawling urban form with L.A. (although L.A. zones) but is densifying rapidly like L.A. has, and building rail transit like L.A. has. I am an L.A. boy, not a Bay area boy (although I have lived there). Now live in San Diego area. Both L.A. and Houston have their faults, but in some ways I see them as twin cities in many respects, at least in urban form and lifestyles. Would be cool if Houston & L.A. meet again in the World Series!

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

It was NOT intended as a potshot!! I like Houston and love nearby Galveston. Houston is a welcoming city, not afraid to help out working people with high wages and reasonable living costs. I like it way better than Dallas & as much as San Antonio where my mother is from. I am from L.A. and if I compare a city to L.A. it is a complement. It is a fact that Houston is flat and is much rainier than L.A. (45 inches vs. 15 inches) but does not have quakes or wildfires, which is good thing. Once in a while a hurricane sneaks in, but not infrequently L.A. has flooding winter rains and mudslides. Houston shares a sprawling urban form with L.A. (although L.A. zones) but is densifying rapidly, and building rail transit like L.A. has. I am an L.A. boy, not a Bay area snob (although I have lived there). Now live in San Diego area. Both L.A. and Houston have their faults, but in some ways I see them as twin cities in many respects, at least in urban form and lifestyles. Would be cool if Houston & L.A. meet again in the World Series.

I don't think we've has notable mudslides in years
Nobody talks about it.
Same for earthquakes.

Hurricanes seem to be more of a threat than fires, since most residents aren't affected by them.
Do they suck? Yes, but I'd say hurricanes are currently the worst for populated areas these days.

[R1070]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

The study's numbers are here: https://www.storagecafe.com/blog/the...s-on-the-move/

What the Houston Chronicle's article conveniently fails to mention is that the DFW area (4 counties) has the highest total numbers and the Austin area (3 counties) has the second highest. At least when counting only the top ten counties. Counties surrounding Houston are not included because they aren't in the top ten.

Not shocked by the spin one bit. They are trying to frame the narrative as a positive of Houston over Dallas and Austin which both tend to get more media attention.

[benp]

Originally Posted by LA21st

I don't think we've has notable mudslides in years
Nobody talks about it.
Same for earthquakes.

Hurricanes seem to be more of a threat than fires, since most residents aren't affected by them.
Do they suck? Yes, but I'd say hurricanes are currently the worst for populated areas these days.

Houstonians experience a "normalization of deviance" when it comes to natural disasters.

There is a whole section on Houston Disasters in Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Houston

[DFW]

Although in these counties survey Harris county is the largest in land area and is the center of it’s population, it’s about twice as large Dallas county in area. But overall in Metro area, Dallas/Fort Worth gets more migrants from California than the Houston Metro area.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Houston has more palm trees. Other Texas cities have few or none. That would make Californians feel more at home.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Though, now that I check it out on Google street view, looks like you mostly have to go to Galveston to get lots of palm trees:
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.3045...7i16384!8i8192

Still, Galveston isn't far from Houston.

[badrunner]

This should settle it.

[James Bond Agent 007]

^
Dallas has more of those than Houston. So you'd think they'd go to Dallas instead.

I still think it's the palm trees.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by LA21st

That's because there's more Californians than anywhere else.
Its the same thing when I lived on the east coast. You saw more ny plates in VA or NC..
Didn't see alot of Delaware plates , because not many people live there.

Either way, these are small numbers percentage wise.

Yep, that's what I was saying. It's really just that California has a large population, so it fits that you'd see more of them versus other state plates. I see more California and Florida plates in Austin than I do any other state plate. I'd say they're about equal, maybe with a tip toward California. Still, the idea that Californians are moving here in droves was only ever taken seriously by conservative Texans who pointed that out and said "Ah, ha!" as if it was some sign of California's dramatic decay. At the same time they were happy to report everyone fleeing California they also were pissed they were coming here and worrying about the political consequences.

Originally Posted by 10023

I wonder how these Californians are going to handle the humidity. Or vastly inferior beaches.

A cold ocean is useless unless you like your balls shriveled and being shark bait. I mean, it's not that there aren't man eating sharks in the gulf - there are, namely tiger sharks, but we don't have any great whites really since the water is just way too warm for them. They have been spotted in the gulf, but it's very rare. The worst thing about the gulf beaches is seaweed on the beach and the occasional tarball.

Originally Posted by LA21st

That's because there's more Californians than anywhere else.
Its the same thing when I lived on the east coast. You saw more ny plates in VA or NC..
Didn't see alot of Delaware plates , because not many people live there.

Either way, these are small numbers percentage wise.

Originally Posted by 10023

I wonder how these Californians are going to handle the humidity. Or vastly inferior beaches.

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

Houston has more palm trees. Other Texas cities have few or none. That would make Californians feel more at home.

Houston has palm trees, but probably not as many as what southern California has, and they're a different species anyway. San Antonio actually has a fair amount of them, easily more than Austin does.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by 10023

That’s pretty much what I would imagine, hence my comparisons to other tourist-traps-that-locals-hate elsewhere. I didn’t mention Times Square because that’s on a whole other level (New Yorkers still hate it, but it’s globally iconic and everyone should visit at least once).

I’m sure it’s good for the local economy, though, and if nothing else at least draws crowds to downtown that make it safer.

Sorry but having been to just about every major tourist trap in America, I simply disagree and find this one more bit of snobbery not only on your part but also on the part of locals who consider themselves too sophisticated to actually see the charms of something that charms out-of-towners. I see it as a pleasant place that most cities would love to have but can't because they don't have the geography and while it's clearly not a place that locals are attracted to en masse, it's the only thing in the downtown of any Texas city that attracts me.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

A cold ocean is useless unless you like your balls shriveled and being shark bait.

Tell it to a serious surfer. The Gulf of Mexico hardly has waves.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Tell it to a serious surfer. The Gulf of Mexico hardly has waves.

That's true. I have cousins in Hawaii who are serious surfers even doing some instruction and also lifeguard work for extra money and they always joke about the gulf coast. Our waves are about as impressive as what they have on the Great Lakes. lol The best wave activity here is in December.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Tell it to a serious surfer. The Gulf of Mexico hardly has waves.

(*except in a hurricane)

[CaliNative]

*Earthquakes scare me more than tornados, hurricanes, blizzards. You can see the storms coming on the weather channel and have a warning to take cover or evacuate. Most quakes give no warning beyond a few seconds at best. So here I sit in CA, quake central. I'm not sure why.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Yep, that's what I was saying. It's really just that California has a large population, so it fits that you'd see more of them versus other state plates. I see more California and Florida plates in Austin than I do any other state plate. I'd say they're about equal, maybe with a tip toward California. Still, the idea that Californians are moving here in droves was only ever taken seriously by conservative Texans who pointed that out and said "Ah, ha!" as if it was some sign of California's dramatic decay. At the same time they were happy to report everyone fleeing California they also were pissed they were coming here and worrying about the political consequences.



A cold ocean is useless unless you like your balls shriveled and being shark bait. I mean, it's not that there aren't man eating sharks in the gulf - there are, namely tiger sharks, but we don't have any great whites really since the water is just way too warm for them. They have been spotted in the gulf, but it's very rare. The worst thing about the gulf beaches is seaweed on the beach and the occasional tarball.







Houston has palm trees, but probably not as many as what southern California has, and they're a different species anyway. San Antonio actually has a fair amount of them, easily more than Austin does.

Are the palms there damaged by the winter cold snaps ("blue northers")? Dallas gets too cold for palms in winter, correct? I don't recall seeing permanent outdoor palm plantings there. Galveston and south Texas sure.

[JoninATX]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

*Earthquakes scare me more than tornados, hurricanes, blizzards. You can see the storms coming on the weather channel and have a warning to take cover or evacuate. Most quakes give no warning beyond a few seconds at best. So here I sit in CA, quake central. I'm not sure why.

So true. I was living in Las Vegas at the time when the Ridgecrest earthquake hit California back in 2019. It was a freakish experience as I never experienced an earthquake.

[theOGalexd]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Speaking of San Antonio, I would like to see it become more relevant and urban in the future. Out of all the Texas metros, it's the most interesting to me. As Austin continues to grow, maybe some of that growth will rub off onto San Antonio.

Already happening on both ends. It just gets overshadowed by Austin, DFW and Houston. Most of the tourists go straight to downtown/the Riverwalk, when the bulk of the development and "cool" things in the inner city are off Broadway north of downtown, the Pearl and Southtown.

There's a ton of stuff going up in suburban areas around the Rim/La Cantera (sort of like a Scottsdale-lite) but again, probably way off most tourists radar.

[Xing]

The only city in Texas I would ever consider living in is Austin. Otherwise, I have interest in living in Texas.