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Old Jul 31, 2012, 8:02 am
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spankytoes
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: New York, NY
Programs: The Golden status boy
Posts: 854
As long as you stay out of East Austin, you’ll be fine. I’d also avoid the 35/Rundgren area as it’s seedy. (Basically, anywhere around Highland Mall) If you don’t need the club/bar scene, you could go out as far as Pflugerville or Round Rock if you wanted to. I-35 and Mopac are both a mess, so there’s no commute advantage to living closer to either. $2,000.00/month is a reasonable price range for a condo. I haven’t lived in Austin since college, so I can’t give you up-to-date hotspots, but I have many friends there and visit 6 times a year for Longhorn football games.

Ethnic food places are littered through Austin. The closer you are to downtown, the more options you will have. The Alamo Draft theatre is a big player and they have locations through the city. HEB, Whole Foods and Randall’s are the major markets in the area. Fiesta is a big player in the Mexican world for ethnic foods. Austin is a huge supporter of the local scene so you’ll be hard pressed to find chain restaurants over mom and pops joints. Obviously, the BBQ in the Hill Country is sublime. It's 1 hour to San Antonio, 3.5 hours to Dallas and about 4.5 hours to Houston. Bergstrom airport is nice and has enough direct flights to make it worthwhile.

Austin is a great place to live if you like outdoor activities. (Wakeboarding on Lady Bird Lake, biking throughout the Hill Country, tubing the Comal or Guadalupe river, several dog parks, etc.) However, it’s lost some of its soul the last 10 years due to the influx of hipsters and wanna be d-bags that frequent 6th Street these days. If I had the opportunity with work, and my wife could be convinced that I wouldn’t be a 30-something frat boy, I’d move back in a heartbeat.
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