Desperate Residents of Austin Completely Surrounded by Texas

[Eleanors38]

39. Back before finding a "cool place" to live became hep and profitable...

Austin flew under the radar for years: $100 - $200/semester at U.T., $110/ mo for an efficiency, cheapest city in the nation. And did so for years, with only hippies passing the word around between Ann Arbor, Gainesville, Athens etc. What broke it open was PBS's "Austin City Limits" with Willie, Waylon & the Boys. Even blue collar folks were up on Austin after that show got rolling.

Cheap stuff is gone, college kids snared to a lifetime of debt, unbelieveable rent and prop. taxes, utterly dysfunctional transportation, and folks who give you a blank stare when you say "how do?" Even BBQ has been made into an exotic with commensurate prices. Perhaps worse is the loss of political agency: It's now hep to be apathetic. God the old atmosphere and the crumbling reputation didn't spring forth from the head of Zorro. It was Battled for.

I've thought of moving back to Florida where I was raised. No need. Florida seems to have found me out here.