Why I am Leaving Austin & Shifting Again to NYC

Posted: 4/17/23 | April seventeenth, 2023

After eight years in Austin, I’m leaving and heading again to NYC full-time.

I first visited Austin in 2013, bought hooked, and began coming again a lot that I made a decision to maneuver right here in 2015. I used to be solely semi-here my first couple of years. I cut up my time in NYC for a bit, traveled loads, and lived in Paris for a bit.

However, in 2019, this grew to become my solely house.

Nonetheless, over the past yr, it’s change into clear that the town and I’ve grown aside. The bizarre little city that drew me right here as a respite from the hustle and bustle of NYC is not a bizarre little city however a giant metropolis missing large metropolis infrastructure. The visitors is horrible, my meals truck parks are gone, it’s costlier, and quirky Rainey Road is now all excessive rises and motels. The town’s character has simply modified loads as Austin has change into “the place to be.”

Now, I’m not attempting to be a type of “get off my garden” individuals. I’m certain individuals lamented people like me coming and altering their metropolis. Simply as people earlier than them and folk earlier than them.

Change is a continuing in life and attempting to cease change is like attempting to carry again the tide. Austin can change all it desires. Not the entire modifications have been dangerous. There’s much more to do within the metropolis, there’s extra jazz and comedy, higher meals, and the airport has extra direct flights now.

But when Austin desires to be a metropolis — and its native leaders appear to need it that method whilst they bemoan the rising value of housing — then be a metropolis. Give us higher infrastructure, extra housing, bike paths, and public transportation. Austin has change into a metropolis however with none of the advantages that include cities.

Final yr, roaming from NYC to Paris to Berlin to London, I started to note that the issues I really like about large cities aren’t current in Austin. I missed strolling in every single place, museums, jazz golf equipment, public transportation, copious artwork museums, and variety of individuals, concepts, and meals. I missed the hustle and bustle that comes with locations like NYC, Boston, London, and different metropolises.

I spent plenty of final yr in Austin and, beginning in October due to my allergy photographs, I didn’t go away for six months. Throughout all that point, I dated, joined social golf equipment, and constructed a life there.

However my coronary heart simply stored whispering, “This isn’t the place.”

Austin not seems like house. NYC has all the time had a bit of my coronary heart. I wish to return and see the way it goes. Will I spend 8 years there? I don’t know. By then, I’ll be fifty!

However, proper now, I’m able to say goodbye to Austin. After eight years, this chaper has come to an finish.