As a gay dude I will never take a job in Texas. Companies may enjoy the lax regulatory environment and favorable tax laws, but there are many bright people who - for one of a NUMBER of reasons - will never move there. It is repressive and frightening.
Who knows if that will be enough to move the needle on any of this, but companies aren't just buildings and incorporation paperwork, they're also the people.
People who "refuse to move" to Texas honestly have no idea what they're talking about. Yes, you probably wouldn't like it, but it's certainly not what you think it is. I grew up in Texas (mostly Austin), and later in life moved to California, and genuinely can't stand the navel-gazey "I've never been there but I know I'd hate it" type of attitude that prevails here.
Texas is a gerrymandered purple state, not a red state. It's just that the state is the California's bogey-man, because Californians don't actually want to face the fact that we have major problems with long-term affordability and the ability to build a life for middle-class folks (perhaps less appreciated by the disproportionately high-income folks on this forum). Every single urban area in Texas is now heavily aligned with the Democratic party, and the vast majority of those areas are affordable places to build a life and build wealth.
When I was growing up in Austin, it had the second highest per-capita gay population in America after San Francisco. Houston had a lesbian mayor. In many cities Spanish is the dominant language spoken. Texas cities are not some place where minorities have to fear for their safety.
The reason not to move to Texas is that it's a suburban hellscape, and you'll be stuck in traffic for more hours a day than you'd like to admit. I left after pushing for transportation alternatives at Austin City Hall, and the result of that traffic mitigation was an express lane down the highway. Texas is, in large part, following the development pattern of Southern California.
Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso are all lovely towns, full of vibrancy, amazing culture, friendly people, reasonable weather most of the year, wonderful food, and reasonable cost of living. Politics are an issue, but again, that all hangs on a 2%-5% swing in a census year, and the entire state could end up redrawn as 50-50 split. I just want folks on the American coasts to remember that a big part of why Texas is branded as "that really bad place" is exactly because folks on the coast refuse to look in the mirror and fix the problems of affordability, wealth inequality, and clean energy that Texas has addressed. Instead, they've made Texas a bogey man that is "very bad" so that you can't point to things like rapid development of housing and renewables as actually the way to fix affordability.
> Texas is a gerrymandered purple state, not a red state
Man, I just don't get this at all. Sure, there may be some democratic areas in the large cities, but they pretty much have zero say in the local state governance. Look at the recent walk outs and leaving the state only to return to have the legislation they were protesting pass with nothing they could do. There is no democratic power. Even those large cities that lean left have attempted to buck the system by passing local regulations that the state then sues them to prevent those liberal policies from taking place. As an example, Dallas passed decriminalization for marijuana, but the governor said no via law suits. This idea of Texas being purple just comes across as farcical and out of touch. I say this as someone that grew up in Dallas, lived in LA, and now lives back in Dallas. You sound just like someone from Austin.
I know plenty of women that are very unhappy with the state for not dissimilar reasons as the GP with friends that have moved out of state specifically for the government's apparent disdain for women.
The effect of gerrymandering is why Texas is a very red state and nothing approaching the purple you claim. That claim is what makes you sound as if you were from Austin even if you didn't state it. Austin has a reality distortion field around it where they think everyone is a liberal hippie while being the heart of the right wing operation center. Try visiting Collin or Tarrant County or pretty much any small Texas town. It'll be quite a bursting of your purple bubble
My point is that OP was worried about lifestyle and safety. That fair. Don’t live in Ft Worth.
A “Red State” is a state where pretty much wherever you go, it’s Republican voters. Their election results statewide are R+15 or more. Oklahoma is R+34. Texas’s statewide elections are surprisingly close. Often R+5 or less, and occasionally R+2. That’s purple. That means that half the state are allies.
All this is true, but the abortion restrictions are state-wide and a real issue while also remaining a symbolic turn-off for women from blue states. The bigger issue is the influence of Christianity on the legal system, which approaches third world levels for such a rich state.
> Every single urban area in Texas is now heavily aligned with the Democratic party, and the vast majority of those areas are affordable places to build a life and build wealth.
How much does that matter with the state legislature firmly in Republican control? The legislature isn't shy about making state laws to stop cities when the cities try to do Democrat things locally.
Well off tech folks in this forum will like California more. I’m well off and left Texas, so I obviously agree with that.
My point is that it’s easy to clutch pearls in a zero-sum economy like CA’s when you’re on top. The reason I still have a fondness for Texas is that despite some of the political change that I find frightening, it’s still a better place for most folks to go to build a life.
It’s not perfect, but when every single blue city in a blue state has an affordability crisis, I have to commend Austin for actually building the housing people need to actually own something, instead of just talking about it and doing mostly nothing like SF, LA, Seattle, Portland, NYC, and Boston have all done.
Good on Texas for not letting cities try to preserve themselves in amber. That just enriches incumbents by allowing them to engage in rent-seeking.
Austin's affordability is still incredibly bad, especially when you consider how stratified the incomes tend to be. When I was working there my apartment cost around $1300 a month and the year I left my rent rose by 30% to around 1700 a month. This was in an area far away from the core of Austin, next to absolutely nothing. It's recovered a bit recently but because all of the people (you included) are encouraging folks (see: tech) to move to Austin the rents spike based on how much perceived demand there is. The minimum wage has not (and by state law cannot change) kept up with modern standards and while many companies offer starting pay above minimum wage it's still well below other cities. If you honestly think Austin is a place where people can go to own something then I think you've been so long away from the city as to be out of touch.
In comparison I'm paying around $2000/month for an apartment in Seattle but this is in an area that's right next to the light rail and well taken care of. With the light rail expanding I could easily find apartments even cheaper that still keep me within walking distance and without needing a car.
Just to add to your Texas comment: there are a few larger states that have distinct hubs where people think so differently, that they might as well be living in different states. People who haven't lived in these states don't really have a good feel for how different the internal cultures can be.
California: we know how SoCal is culturally worlds apart from Norcal, and both are worlds apart from inland California.
North Carolina: culturally Charlotte ≠ Research Triangle ≠ Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Point. There is no single NC culture.
Florida: the stereotypes exist, but I've visited different metros in Florida and they couldn't be more different. South Florida (Miami) is very Latin while the panhandle (Tallahassee, Pensacola) couldn't be less Latin -- it's mostly southern culture. Orlando, Tampa are also way different.
Florida in fact shouldn't be governable -- every part of the state has different interests. Yet it somehow works.
Honestly it may be 50-50 purple in population, but the policies are what affect people the most. I’m not even worried about Democrat vs Republican, as I’m not associated to either party, and both have their share of crazy.
There are a number of laws in Texas that make it a non-option for many of us.
I don't even know how to respond to statements like this. Yes, if you care about issues de jour, yes, Texas is going to look terrible. And Texas has terrible stances on issues like abortion.
At the same time, you can't ignore the facts. Texas has high property taxes, which are de facto wealth taxes, so it shouldn't surprise anyone on that Texas has significantly lower wealth inequality than California does.
Again, unless you literally inherit a house with an inherited property tax assessment in CA or vest equity in a unicorn, you're probably going to be poorer in CA than in Texas.
We have to stop pretending the landed aristocracy that exist in California somehow "doesn't count" as inequality and injustice.
Oh California has its problems too, I moved away from California after living there for a few years due to the impossibility of affording a home. It’s a beautiful state but the affordability was oppressive, even for high earners. On top of a bunch of other social issues of their own.
Absolutely not here pretending that California is some promised land. Hell, even the state I ended up moving to has its own problems.
It’s just that the problems that Texas does have are untenable for my family.
Texas policy is actively hostile to women and the poor (healthcare, labor protections, etc). You’re probably fine if of means, and not a woman of reproductive age. Everyone else is existing in Texas as an economic human factory farm.
California is hostile to the poor. When median income in SF is $140K per household. A two-bedroom apartment costs $5000 per month. It's literally illegal to build housing for actual poor people who have jobs there. I know plenty of working class folks in the 40s and 50s here in SF with multiple roommates, because CA has effectively become a rent-seeking paradise. There is no future for these people. They will eventually lose their housing and either move to a state like Texas or become homeless.
I’d rather be poor and/or homeless in California, anywhere in the state, versus Texas. Especially as it relates to climate. Texas is running out of water and will only keep getting hotter.
Wait... you're talking about a Water crisis in terms of Texas compared to California? You really should give Cadillac Desert a read.
Texas is draining their portion of the Ogallala, and are putting strain on Texas rivers, but California is literally a desert that moves water to its cities from hundreds of miles away... devastating communities and national parks in the process.
California is the world’s fourth largest economy and the number #1 state by population, they have the resources and the political will to ensure continuity of basic human living needs like water. I argue Texas has neither. I’m not here to change your mind, those who want to remain in the sacrifice zone Texas is are free to make that choice.
Data centers, solar panels, and battery storage belong in Texas, not humans, roughly speaking.
> California is the world’s fourth largest economy and the number #1 state by population
Texas is the world’s ninth largest economy if we include CA, and is projected to pass CA in population by 2050. Not really sure what your point is.
I obviously don’t love Texas. I moved away. I just think it’s a very reasonable place to live and we could do a lot to improve California by addressing our problems in way that Texas has successfully combatted them, especially housing and solar development.
I live in Texas (Austin). The biggest downside day-to-day is the weather in summer. The politics are also a valid concern.
That said, it’s not some dystopian hellscape. Day-to-day it’s not that different than any other place.
Also the cost of living is a lot less than the big tech centers (Bay Area and Seattle). A similar house to mine with a similar commute in a similar quality school district is 4x the price in the Bay Area. I can give my family a better life here.
I've lived in Texas. It is exactly as bad as people say, and I will never move back. Regardless of how nice Austin is, there is only so much I can tolerate an actively hostile state government to my existence.
The real reason companies are moving to Texas (the casual racism is just a bonus)? Court shopping for their arbitration clauses. If you sue/have an arbitration dispute with a Texas based company they have strategically located their headquarters in the areas with the most 'court shopped' judges that will rule for the corps.
Refuse to do business with Texas corporations. They are un-American and take away so many of your rights when you do business with companies based there.
Why would you refer to historic racist policies that are no longer enforceable? We might as well talk about Japanese internment. It's not relevant to modern life.
I don't know why you're being junked, you said nothing that any Texas resident wouldn't agree with. Shit, we have two of the largest airlines in the world that as an industry have always been incredibly welcoming to the LGBT community.
The only thing that sucks about Texas is the property taxes, other than that it is a very welcoming state with great infra and comfortable standard of living.
Seriously. It's a bunch of people who've never lived there telling me what it's like.
The property taxes are what keep Texas affordable. Texas's infrastructure is going the way of Southern California, when the politics on property taxes follow what Southern California did, the affordability will disappear too.
>The only thing that sucks about Texas is the property taxes, other than that it is a very welcoming state with great infra and comfortable standard of living.
Great infrastructure is fucking insane thing to say. I was living there during the big freeze in 2021 The state is incredibly unprepared for any sort of major weather event and refuses to actively harden infrastructure against these sort of events. That was one of the many reasons why I chose to leave, because I don't want a repeat.
You're referring to the rather backwards (and isolated) power grid in Texas. Its just another example of how Texas is managed by Good-Ol-Boy network instead of opting for a more consensus-oriented structure as California would do. The ruling party centralizes power at the state level, from where it will burn books, monitor menstrual cycles, issue school curriculum plans and limit power of localities. I don't see how this management model survives to the point where its population grows to pass California. I'd think that TX growth slows some as smaller states like Tennessee, N. Carolina, & Colorado siphon away some of its success owing to better management.
Some folks find Howdy Arabia to be a pleasant, rewarding place to live. To me, I think roughly half of the US working population would dispute this, as they would dispute a discussion of any other place. It's just that the disputants change based on where you're talking about.
It's warm. It's dry, and there's some evidence the power system isn't up to the task. Their call.
The most obvious recent example is the right to receive lifesaving medical treatment. It's no coincidence that between 2019 and 2023, there was "a 33% increase in maternal mortality rates in Texas, compared with a decrease of 7.5% nationally during the same time," and the "rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester."[0]
If you have a non-viable pregnancy, but there's still a heartbeat, Texas will try to force you to carry to term anyways. In the best case this causes you immense emotional suffering, in the worst case it means that doctors will often hold back lifesaving medical care until your life is in imminent danger - but waiting this long causes your chance of injury/death to rise sharply. Unfortunately Texas also doesn't want you to receive this lifesaving medical care out of state, so anyone helping you is liable to be sued for $10,000[1].
No matter what your position is regarding the intent of the law, we can hopefully all agree that the changes in maternal mortality are horrible, and that nobody should be forced to risk death just so they can see their non-viable pregnancy die before their eyes[2].
I'd much rather companies that incorporated in Delaware than the Wild West that is Texas: I want to have peace of mind knowing the company is not trying to get away with shady stuff like Elon is with his companies.
Where the hell are you getting your information? Texas has the second-largest LGBTQ+ population in the United States, trailing only California. An estimated 1.8 million LGBTQ+ adults reside in the state. Demographically, this includes approximately 735,000 gay or lesbian adults, over 1.2 million bisexual individuals, and nearly 93,000 transgender
People who have lived in Washington for a long time do not, in fact, welcome Californians to Washington, nor is Washington especially warm and welcoming to anyone else. The Seattle Freeze is real.
as a normal human being who enjoys social safety nets and don't want to shut down local pools just because black people are allowed in them, I also don't like texas.
Sounds like a whole lot of “companies can do whatever they want to without anyone else having a say in it”. Sounds amazing in the short term but a nightmare in the long term if you live there.
Honestly it sounds like a nightmare even in the short term, companies are well known for literally poisoning everyone around them when no one else has a say in it...
The low regulation and trend of news articles from Texas... it doesn't inspire confidence.
Something I've wondered: for all its claims of business-friendliness, why does Texas insist on attracting the lowest-margin industries? All of the high-margin innovation-based industries continue to get started in California.
There was a huge Bitcoin push in Texas about 5ish years back. But the way they went about it was that they passed a bunch of tax breaks for Bitcoin miners - the most commodified, energy-intensive part of the value chain. Coinbase and Kraken and Ripple and Solana and Binance's U.S. operations are all based out of California.
The article mentions Exxon's reincorporation in Texas, and Chevron also recently moved their headquarters from California to Houston. But oil is a dying, commodified industry. The replacement is electrification, in terms of solar, batteries, EVs, inverters, and other parts of the value chain. Enphase is in California, SunPower was until its recent bankruptcy, Tesla R&D is still in Palo Alto, and other major companies like Rivian and Lucid also put all their R&D in the Bay Area.
The other major industry Texas is known for is construction, and cheap houses. But construction, if you read any of the construction-physics.com articles that frequently pop up here, is another famously low-margin industry. We know how to do it, and millions of people do.
My theory is that low-margin industries get located in Texas because they make it easy. By being business-friendly, low-regulation, and low-expenses, they become the only place that low-margin commodity businesses can survive. Thus, everyone who has no pricing power and struggles to cut costs moves to Texas, because they offer the lowest costs of everyone.
California is the opposite: by making business onerous, creating huge amounts of regulation, taxing the hell out of both people and businesses, and enshrining a pyramid scheme in their state constitution via Prop 13, they make sure that only the richest can survive there. And thus only the richest do survive. The state is filled with wealthy companies and wealthy individuals because everybody else got priced out and moved elsewhere. Selection effects dominate efficiency effects.
New York, California, and Florida have higher life expectancies. That's a quarter of the US population better off, after only taking into account 3 states.
Rural Washington, Oregon, and California actually are what these leftists think Texas is. Let’s not forget which state Cliven and Ammon Bundy staged their standoff in.
Yep. It's a great city though I wouldn't live there due to the summers.
Honestly, the reflexive hate both Texas and California get on HN is ridiculous and a great way to filter out accounts to ignore.
There are valid criticisms to make for both, but if someone only criticizes and cannot point out or conceed positive attributes as well, it's best to just treat that account as a lost cause.
Yep. And it's absolutely being exacerbated to further entrench divisions.
Honestly, I wish the HN/YC moderation team could be explicit in showing how it has taken down certain bot rings as a trust building exercise, because there absolutely are nation state bot rings on HN as well.
Given the state's war on education, how do companies think they'll have a pipeline of well educated workers? We know it's only going to become more biblical as long as the current Supreme Court exists.
Additionally, Apollo (the world's second largest PE firm after Blackstone) has just selected Austin as it's second HQ [0] as it is looking to shift the bulk of it's hiring and headcount outside of NYC [1].
This is a huge deal, just like how Wachovia-Wells Fargo merger helped build NC's PE industry and Citadel's new HQ in Miami helps put Florida on the map for high finance.
I’m skeptical about this, at least for finance. Your second link points out that these firms are between a rock and a hard place: senior employees and leadership are already established in NYC, and junior employees/new hires want to move there (both for the experience, but also because it exposes them to competitors/alternative employers).
Perhaps it’s different this time, but the underlying message in the past has been more about negotiation with the city and state rather than an earnest intent to relocate to an entirely new state (and regulatory environment, etc).
I don't expect it to displace NYC but it's a good shift and it's good to have additional clusters arise.
For example, if you were always specialized in Energy, Houston/Dallas would have always been comparable to NYC, or if you were specialized in TMT then LA and SF were similar.
Reading between the lines, I'm assuming Austin was chosen not just for QoL but also to solidify an Energy and probably AI and Data Center thesis as well. Also, I'd assume most backoffice roles like Accounting, Compliance, IT, etc would be shifted to Austin similar to what JPMC did in Dallas.
Republicans and the Supreme Court have learned their lessons from Georgia, and will never let this happen. They will find new ways to disenfranchise all the people who'd vote blue. Plus their war on education ensures that people who grow up there will remain uninformed and hateful and thus red.
> State officials are eager to supplant Delaware as America’s corporate-law hub. In 2024 they established the Texas Business Court, presided over by expert judges capable of handling even the most complex disputes. Last year the state also introduced a measure to allow firms to prevent shareholders with a stake of less than 3% from suing them, and another to let only large shareholders put forward proxy proposals.
Interesting, hadn’t heard. I can’t wait to see where this goes.
Working with regulators is a terrible experience. I hope they can fix this as well.
Having lived in Texas for 30+ years and now happily living in southern California, I feel pretty qualified in saying that my personal quality of life is dramatically better in California.
The cost of living is higher, but I get a tremendous amount of value for the extra costs and wouldn't move back to Texas for any amount of money at this point. Los Angeles is a very safe city for its size, I live in a comfortable, walkable neighborhood and I just got back from a run through a beautiful, well-maintained city park. My neighborhood is diverse, my representatives care about what is happening, and the city and state government generally try to make things better for the people who live here, even if they don't always succeed. I rarely felt that to be true in my 30+ years in Texas.
Austin is a great city, but the cost of living is high enough now that it is very hard to justify it vs. the dramatically higher quality of life, access to nature and culture, and incredible weather that you get in southern California.
It’s always amazing to see people who have a certain view of California or San Francisco because of what they’ve been told all their lives to finally come here and realize that it’s actually a very nice place to live. Like San Francisco is one of the best cities to live in (if you can afford to). Why would you not want a nice weather year long, great food scene, access to outdoors, good employment prospects, walkable/bikeable streets and low crime rates (yes San Francisco has very low crime rates as compared to any other major city despite what the media headlines say).
Funny, I moved to SoCal (Orange County) from the Seattle area and have also found it to be a huge improvement in everything except air and water quality. Can’t have everything I suppose. But the politics are much more sane, crime is low, and there are so many parks and playgrounds that can be used year round. The city government listens to residents (no, we don’t want dense housing, we want a big park) and although cost of living / taxes are high, we get a great quality of life in exchange.
The editors of the magazine whose article we are commenting on have repeatedly placed the blame for poor governance of the state's finances on Proposition 13, which is not a progressive proposition.
I know, right? Prosperity, civil rights, an enormous economy leading the country and the nation, and fiscal policies that make rich assholes ostentatiously relocate. Just terrible!
Highest COL in the country, a lot of it due to regulations, zoning and prop 13 which prevent density and building. Paris has the same area as SF but 3X the population.
Probably one of the highest salary areas for non-owners as well. Pretty good weather, particularly near San Diego. As people have pointed out, Prop 13 isn't progressive. Nor, really are the NIMBY rules that keep housing density low and prices high.
Some folks dislike the fact that it's a desert. It wiggles quite a bit and has been known to burn. Few blizzards, though. Little frostbite.
Quite incredible that you get downvoted while extreme left talking points posted on threads that are not political whatsoever face no issues. HN is less and less a tech news aggregator and more and more an orange Reddit
Every forum with overly online people goes this way. I’ve stopped visiting Reddit, and let Google summarize their content for me so I don’t have to wade into the sewage. HN isn’t as bad yet but it has noticeably gotten worse since the 2024 election.
The sixth largest, more likely. US dollar declined enough last year that Japan and the UK probably surpassed California again. And India is also getting close to California.
I can confirm this. Fairly conservative family guy, love it here in OC. Not sure if due to balanced politics or apathy to politics but it’s awesome. After leaving the Seattle area where I was getting hostility from randoms on the street just for driving a Tesla, I feel at home here.
You think California is ruled by progressives? There are a lot of moderate Dems. It is just nationally "Republican" has gained a reputation of christofascism and/or cult of Trump.
As a gay dude I will never take a job in Texas. Companies may enjoy the lax regulatory environment and favorable tax laws, but there are many bright people who - for one of a NUMBER of reasons - will never move there. It is repressive and frightening.
Who knows if that will be enough to move the needle on any of this, but companies aren't just buildings and incorporation paperwork, they're also the people.
People who "refuse to move" to Texas honestly have no idea what they're talking about. Yes, you probably wouldn't like it, but it's certainly not what you think it is. I grew up in Texas (mostly Austin), and later in life moved to California, and genuinely can't stand the navel-gazey "I've never been there but I know I'd hate it" type of attitude that prevails here.
Texas is a gerrymandered purple state, not a red state. It's just that the state is the California's bogey-man, because Californians don't actually want to face the fact that we have major problems with long-term affordability and the ability to build a life for middle-class folks (perhaps less appreciated by the disproportionately high-income folks on this forum). Every single urban area in Texas is now heavily aligned with the Democratic party, and the vast majority of those areas are affordable places to build a life and build wealth.
When I was growing up in Austin, it had the second highest per-capita gay population in America after San Francisco. Houston had a lesbian mayor. In many cities Spanish is the dominant language spoken. Texas cities are not some place where minorities have to fear for their safety.
The reason not to move to Texas is that it's a suburban hellscape, and you'll be stuck in traffic for more hours a day than you'd like to admit. I left after pushing for transportation alternatives at Austin City Hall, and the result of that traffic mitigation was an express lane down the highway. Texas is, in large part, following the development pattern of Southern California.
Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso are all lovely towns, full of vibrancy, amazing culture, friendly people, reasonable weather most of the year, wonderful food, and reasonable cost of living. Politics are an issue, but again, that all hangs on a 2%-5% swing in a census year, and the entire state could end up redrawn as 50-50 split. I just want folks on the American coasts to remember that a big part of why Texas is branded as "that really bad place" is exactly because folks on the coast refuse to look in the mirror and fix the problems of affordability, wealth inequality, and clean energy that Texas has addressed. Instead, they've made Texas a bogey man that is "very bad" so that you can't point to things like rapid development of housing and renewables as actually the way to fix affordability.
> Texas is a gerrymandered purple state, not a red state
Man, I just don't get this at all. Sure, there may be some democratic areas in the large cities, but they pretty much have zero say in the local state governance. Look at the recent walk outs and leaving the state only to return to have the legislation they were protesting pass with nothing they could do. There is no democratic power. Even those large cities that lean left have attempted to buck the system by passing local regulations that the state then sues them to prevent those liberal policies from taking place. As an example, Dallas passed decriminalization for marijuana, but the governor said no via law suits. This idea of Texas being purple just comes across as farcical and out of touch. I say this as someone that grew up in Dallas, lived in LA, and now lives back in Dallas. You sound just like someone from Austin.
I know plenty of women that are very unhappy with the state for not dissimilar reasons as the GP with friends that have moved out of state specifically for the government's apparent disdain for women.
You are describing the effects of gerrymandering.
The effect of gerrymandering is why Texas is a very red state and nothing approaching the purple you claim. That claim is what makes you sound as if you were from Austin even if you didn't state it. Austin has a reality distortion field around it where they think everyone is a liberal hippie while being the heart of the right wing operation center. Try visiting Collin or Tarrant County or pretty much any small Texas town. It'll be quite a bursting of your purple bubble
My point is that OP was worried about lifestyle and safety. That fair. Don’t live in Ft Worth.
A “Red State” is a state where pretty much wherever you go, it’s Republican voters. Their election results statewide are R+15 or more. Oklahoma is R+34. Texas’s statewide elections are surprisingly close. Often R+5 or less, and occasionally R+2. That’s purple. That means that half the state are allies.
All this is true, but the abortion restrictions are state-wide and a real issue while also remaining a symbolic turn-off for women from blue states. The bigger issue is the influence of Christianity on the legal system, which approaches third world levels for such a rich state.
> Every single urban area in Texas is now heavily aligned with the Democratic party, and the vast majority of those areas are affordable places to build a life and build wealth.
How much does that matter with the state legislature firmly in Republican control? The legislature isn't shy about making state laws to stop cities when the cities try to do Democrat things locally.
Well off tech folks in this forum will like California more. I’m well off and left Texas, so I obviously agree with that.
My point is that it’s easy to clutch pearls in a zero-sum economy like CA’s when you’re on top. The reason I still have a fondness for Texas is that despite some of the political change that I find frightening, it’s still a better place for most folks to go to build a life.
It’s not perfect, but when every single blue city in a blue state has an affordability crisis, I have to commend Austin for actually building the housing people need to actually own something, instead of just talking about it and doing mostly nothing like SF, LA, Seattle, Portland, NYC, and Boston have all done.
Good on Texas for not letting cities try to preserve themselves in amber. That just enriches incumbents by allowing them to engage in rent-seeking.
Austin's affordability is still incredibly bad, especially when you consider how stratified the incomes tend to be. When I was working there my apartment cost around $1300 a month and the year I left my rent rose by 30% to around 1700 a month. This was in an area far away from the core of Austin, next to absolutely nothing. It's recovered a bit recently but because all of the people (you included) are encouraging folks (see: tech) to move to Austin the rents spike based on how much perceived demand there is. The minimum wage has not (and by state law cannot change) kept up with modern standards and while many companies offer starting pay above minimum wage it's still well below other cities. If you honestly think Austin is a place where people can go to own something then I think you've been so long away from the city as to be out of touch.
In comparison I'm paying around $2000/month for an apartment in Seattle but this is in an area that's right next to the light rail and well taken care of. With the light rail expanding I could easily find apartments even cheaper that still keep me within walking distance and without needing a car.
It’s not even comparable: https://www.redfin.com/cost-of-living-calculator/austin-tx/v...
Austin is much cheaper than Seattle.
Purple, eh? Guess the blue ones weren't around when the various abortion issues were voted on. The OB/GYN population must not like the sun.
You know what gerrymandering is, right?
Yup. Which is why however nice Austin it, it's still in Texas.
Just to add to your Texas comment: there are a few larger states that have distinct hubs where people think so differently, that they might as well be living in different states. People who haven't lived in these states don't really have a good feel for how different the internal cultures can be.
California: we know how SoCal is culturally worlds apart from Norcal, and both are worlds apart from inland California.
North Carolina: culturally Charlotte ≠ Research Triangle ≠ Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Point. There is no single NC culture.
Florida: the stereotypes exist, but I've visited different metros in Florida and they couldn't be more different. South Florida (Miami) is very Latin while the panhandle (Tallahassee, Pensacola) couldn't be less Latin -- it's mostly southern culture. Orlando, Tampa are also way different.
Florida in fact shouldn't be governable -- every part of the state has different interests. Yet it somehow works.
Honestly it may be 50-50 purple in population, but the policies are what affect people the most. I’m not even worried about Democrat vs Republican, as I’m not associated to either party, and both have their share of crazy.
There are a number of laws in Texas that make it a non-option for many of us.
I don't even know how to respond to statements like this. Yes, if you care about issues de jour, yes, Texas is going to look terrible. And Texas has terrible stances on issues like abortion.
At the same time, you can't ignore the facts. Texas has high property taxes, which are de facto wealth taxes, so it shouldn't surprise anyone on that Texas has significantly lower wealth inequality than California does.
Again, unless you literally inherit a house with an inherited property tax assessment in CA or vest equity in a unicorn, you're probably going to be poorer in CA than in Texas.
We have to stop pretending the landed aristocracy that exist in California somehow "doesn't count" as inequality and injustice.
Oh California has its problems too, I moved away from California after living there for a few years due to the impossibility of affording a home. It’s a beautiful state but the affordability was oppressive, even for high earners. On top of a bunch of other social issues of their own.
Absolutely not here pretending that California is some promised land. Hell, even the state I ended up moving to has its own problems.
It’s just that the problems that Texas does have are untenable for my family.
Texas policy is actively hostile to women and the poor (healthcare, labor protections, etc). You’re probably fine if of means, and not a woman of reproductive age. Everyone else is existing in Texas as an economic human factory farm.
https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-texas-el-paso/news/20...
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/13/10-states-worst-quality-of-l...
https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-abortion-ban-miscar...
https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-maternal-mortality-...
https://www.propublica.org/series/life-of-the-mother
California is hostile to the poor. When median income in SF is $140K per household. A two-bedroom apartment costs $5000 per month. It's literally illegal to build housing for actual poor people who have jobs there. I know plenty of working class folks in the 40s and 50s here in SF with multiple roommates, because CA has effectively become a rent-seeking paradise. There is no future for these people. They will eventually lose their housing and either move to a state like Texas or become homeless.
I’d rather be poor and/or homeless in California, anywhere in the state, versus Texas. Especially as it relates to climate. Texas is running out of water and will only keep getting hotter.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/13/texas-water-explaine...
https://www.texastribune.org/series/texas-water-supply-droug...
Wait... you're talking about a Water crisis in terms of Texas compared to California? You really should give Cadillac Desert a read.
Texas is draining their portion of the Ogallala, and are putting strain on Texas rivers, but California is literally a desert that moves water to its cities from hundreds of miles away... devastating communities and national parks in the process.
California is the world’s fourth largest economy and the number #1 state by population, they have the resources and the political will to ensure continuity of basic human living needs like water. I argue Texas has neither. I’m not here to change your mind, those who want to remain in the sacrifice zone Texas is are free to make that choice.
Data centers, solar panels, and battery storage belong in Texas, not humans, roughly speaking.
> California is the world’s fourth largest economy and the number #1 state by population
Texas is the world’s ninth largest economy if we include CA, and is projected to pass CA in population by 2050. Not really sure what your point is.
I obviously don’t love Texas. I moved away. I just think it’s a very reasonable place to live and we could do a lot to improve California by addressing our problems in way that Texas has successfully combatted them, especially housing and solar development.
Just ask that person if they've ever lived and travelled around there, and how old they are, etc
I live in Texas (Austin). The biggest downside day-to-day is the weather in summer. The politics are also a valid concern.
That said, it’s not some dystopian hellscape. Day-to-day it’s not that different than any other place.
Also the cost of living is a lot less than the big tech centers (Bay Area and Seattle). A similar house to mine with a similar commute in a similar quality school district is 4x the price in the Bay Area. I can give my family a better life here.
I've lived in Texas. It is exactly as bad as people say, and I will never move back. Regardless of how nice Austin is, there is only so much I can tolerate an actively hostile state government to my existence.
Is it this state people are talking about? This isn't my center of anything.
"Racist clauses in property deeds can’t be enforced, but still exist. A Texas bill would make it easier to remove them."
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/17/texas-property-deeds...
"Racist Clauses Are Common In Local Zoning Documents. Several Texas Bills Would Make It Easier To Change That." https://www.kut.org/texas/2021-05-14/racist-clauses-are-comm...
The real reason companies are moving to Texas (the casual racism is just a bonus)? Court shopping for their arbitration clauses. If you sue/have an arbitration dispute with a Texas based company they have strategically located their headquarters in the areas with the most 'court shopped' judges that will rule for the corps.
And even worse than establishing corporate headquarters as a form of court shopping, creations of corporate courts. https://www.commondreams.org/news/texas-business-courts
And the new Texas hotness? Why yes, private courts. https://www.steptoe.com/en/news-publications/private-judges-...
Refuse to do business with Texas corporations. They are un-American and take away so many of your rights when you do business with companies based there.
Why would you refer to historic racist policies that are no longer enforceable? We might as well talk about Japanese internment. It's not relevant to modern life.
I've been there, it sucks, i will never move there
I don't know why you're being junked, you said nothing that any Texas resident wouldn't agree with. Shit, we have two of the largest airlines in the world that as an industry have always been incredibly welcoming to the LGBT community.
The only thing that sucks about Texas is the property taxes, other than that it is a very welcoming state with great infra and comfortable standard of living.
Seriously. It's a bunch of people who've never lived there telling me what it's like.
The property taxes are what keep Texas affordable. Texas's infrastructure is going the way of Southern California, when the politics on property taxes follow what Southern California did, the affordability will disappear too.
>The only thing that sucks about Texas is the property taxes, other than that it is a very welcoming state with great infra and comfortable standard of living.
Great infrastructure is fucking insane thing to say. I was living there during the big freeze in 2021 The state is incredibly unprepared for any sort of major weather event and refuses to actively harden infrastructure against these sort of events. That was one of the many reasons why I chose to leave, because I don't want a repeat.
You're referring to the rather backwards (and isolated) power grid in Texas. Its just another example of how Texas is managed by Good-Ol-Boy network instead of opting for a more consensus-oriented structure as California would do. The ruling party centralizes power at the state level, from where it will burn books, monitor menstrual cycles, issue school curriculum plans and limit power of localities. I don't see how this management model survives to the point where its population grows to pass California. I'd think that TX growth slows some as smaller states like Tennessee, N. Carolina, & Colorado siphon away some of its success owing to better management.
Thank you for NOT coming to Texas at all, we have plenty in Austin. 4th generation Texan.
Same thoughts as the father of a young girl.
I don’t want her to have less rights.
Some folks find Howdy Arabia to be a pleasant, rewarding place to live. To me, I think roughly half of the US working population would dispute this, as they would dispute a discussion of any other place. It's just that the disputants change based on where you're talking about.
It's warm. It's dry, and there's some evidence the power system isn't up to the task. Their call.
> It's just that the disputants change based on where you're talking about.
It would be good if everyone agreed that taking away basic human rights from women is a bad thing, but I guess were way past that.
what “basic human rights” do women not have in texas?
The most obvious recent example is the right to receive lifesaving medical treatment. It's no coincidence that between 2019 and 2023, there was "a 33% increase in maternal mortality rates in Texas, compared with a decrease of 7.5% nationally during the same time," and the "rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester."[0]
If you have a non-viable pregnancy, but there's still a heartbeat, Texas will try to force you to carry to term anyways. In the best case this causes you immense emotional suffering, in the worst case it means that doctors will often hold back lifesaving medical care until your life is in imminent danger - but waiting this long causes your chance of injury/death to rise sharply. Unfortunately Texas also doesn't want you to receive this lifesaving medical care out of state, so anyone helping you is liable to be sued for $10,000[1].
No matter what your position is regarding the intent of the law, we can hopefully all agree that the changes in maternal mortality are horrible, and that nobody should be forced to risk death just so they can see their non-viable pregnancy die before their eyes[2].
[0]: https://www.propublica.org/article/texas-maternal-mortality-...
[1]: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/texas-abortion-law-10-000-...
[2]: https://www.ms.now/health-mindset/was-torture-texas-mom-reco...
"Howdy Arabia" is gold. I legit laughed out loud.
I'd much rather companies that incorporated in Delaware than the Wild West that is Texas: I want to have peace of mind knowing the company is not trying to get away with shady stuff like Elon is with his companies.
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Fewer rights.
"Less" isn't incorrect here.
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Where the hell are you getting your information? Texas has the second-largest LGBTQ+ population in the United States, trailing only California. An estimated 1.8 million LGBTQ+ adults reside in the state. Demographically, this includes approximately 735,000 gay or lesbian adults, over 1.2 million bisexual individuals, and nearly 93,000 transgender
The second largest state by population has the second largest population of a subset of the population? You don't say.
california forever
i hope the right people and companies leave and go deal with high humidity and heat waves
Y'all are welcome to Washington if you can stand the gloom.
People who have lived in Washington for a long time do not, in fact, welcome Californians to Washington, nor is Washington especially warm and welcoming to anyone else. The Seattle Freeze is real.
Seattle is turning into a communist nightmare. Be warned.
the point is that there is no place like california.
seattle is nice but i would pick sf 100 out of 100 times
as a normal human being who enjoys social safety nets and don't want to shut down local pools just because black people are allowed in them, I also don't like texas.
All people who can self govern are allowed in local pools.
what a meaningless at best, statement.
Why are you replying with meaningless statements to comments you think are at best meaningless?
i dont know ustria, why dont you like pools.
Sounds like a whole lot of “companies can do whatever they want to without anyone else having a say in it”. Sounds amazing in the short term but a nightmare in the long term if you live there.
Honestly it sounds like a nightmare even in the short term, companies are well known for literally poisoning everyone around them when no one else has a say in it...
The low regulation and trend of news articles from Texas... it doesn't inspire confidence.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48249747 / https://reclaimthenet.org/texas-woman-arrested-for-facebook-...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48198551 / https://www.autonocion.com/us/tesla-lithium-refinery-texas/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44121178 / https://www.texastribune.org/2025/05/28/texas-fracking-water...
Something I've wondered: for all its claims of business-friendliness, why does Texas insist on attracting the lowest-margin industries? All of the high-margin innovation-based industries continue to get started in California.
There was a huge Bitcoin push in Texas about 5ish years back. But the way they went about it was that they passed a bunch of tax breaks for Bitcoin miners - the most commodified, energy-intensive part of the value chain. Coinbase and Kraken and Ripple and Solana and Binance's U.S. operations are all based out of California.
The article mentions Exxon's reincorporation in Texas, and Chevron also recently moved their headquarters from California to Houston. But oil is a dying, commodified industry. The replacement is electrification, in terms of solar, batteries, EVs, inverters, and other parts of the value chain. Enphase is in California, SunPower was until its recent bankruptcy, Tesla R&D is still in Palo Alto, and other major companies like Rivian and Lucid also put all their R&D in the Bay Area.
The other major industry Texas is known for is construction, and cheap houses. But construction, if you read any of the construction-physics.com articles that frequently pop up here, is another famously low-margin industry. We know how to do it, and millions of people do.
My theory is that low-margin industries get located in Texas because they make it easy. By being business-friendly, low-regulation, and low-expenses, they become the only place that low-margin commodity businesses can survive. Thus, everyone who has no pricing power and struggles to cut costs moves to Texas, because they offer the lowest costs of everyone.
California is the opposite: by making business onerous, creating huge amounts of regulation, taxing the hell out of both people and businesses, and enshrining a pyramid scheme in their state constitution via Prop 13, they make sure that only the richest can survive there. And thus only the richest do survive. The state is filled with wealthy companies and wealthy individuals because everybody else got priced out and moved elsewhere. Selection effects dominate efficiency effects.
>> Something I've wondered: for all its claims of business-friendliness, why does Texas insist on attracting the lowest-margin industries?
Tech is one of the highest margin industries.
Not blockchain tech.
Life is short. If folks want to spend their time in Texas more power to them.
lol statistically life is longer in 23 other states
So that puts them in the middle? For such a massive state, regression to the median sounds likely.
New York, California, and Florida have higher life expectancies. That's a quarter of the US population better off, after only taking into account 3 states.
Are we talking about life expectancy at birth, or life expectancy of the current population?
If the later I'd expect Florida to get a big boost because so many people retire there.
I was looking at birth numbers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
Anticipating all the Texas hate comments, just gonna plant a flag and say I love living in Austin. This city rules.
Rural Washington, Oregon, and California actually are what these leftists think Texas is. Let’s not forget which state Cliven and Ammon Bundy staged their standoff in.
Yep. It's a great city though I wouldn't live there due to the summers.
Honestly, the reflexive hate both Texas and California get on HN is ridiculous and a great way to filter out accounts to ignore.
There are valid criticisms to make for both, but if someone only criticizes and cannot point out or conceed positive attributes as well, it's best to just treat that account as a lost cause.
I have a mirror feeling about Chicago: very good city, but I wouldn’t want to live there due to the winters.
Geographic negative polarization has become far too entrenched in online discourse.
They're not that bad :)
(Or I'm just built for Siberia and fit right in idk)
Yep. And it's absolutely being exacerbated to further entrench divisions.
Honestly, I wish the HN/YC moderation team could be explicit in showing how it has taken down certain bot rings as a trust building exercise, because there absolutely are nation state bot rings on HN as well.
I find it amusing that these two stories hit the front page one right after the other.
> Texas is America Inc's new centre of gravity
> What Happens to an Economy When It's Too Hot to Work?
> What Happens to an Economy When It's Too Hot to Work?
Same thing that happens when it's too cold to work? Wait for another season?
Given the state's war on education, how do companies think they'll have a pipeline of well educated workers? We know it's only going to become more biblical as long as the current Supreme Court exists.
https://archive.is/2g0QI
Additionally, Apollo (the world's second largest PE firm after Blackstone) has just selected Austin as it's second HQ [0] as it is looking to shift the bulk of it's hiring and headcount outside of NYC [1].
This is a huge deal, just like how Wachovia-Wells Fargo merger helped build NC's PE industry and Citadel's new HQ in Miami helps put Florida on the map for high finance.
[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/036a838f-8209-4df7-8cbc-bb069e4e7...
[1] - https://www.ft.com/content/efeca6be-c9b5-4912-b66b-15716cc91...
I’m skeptical about this, at least for finance. Your second link points out that these firms are between a rock and a hard place: senior employees and leadership are already established in NYC, and junior employees/new hires want to move there (both for the experience, but also because it exposes them to competitors/alternative employers).
Perhaps it’s different this time, but the underlying message in the past has been more about negotiation with the city and state rather than an earnest intent to relocate to an entirely new state (and regulatory environment, etc).
I don't expect it to displace NYC but it's a good shift and it's good to have additional clusters arise.
For example, if you were always specialized in Energy, Houston/Dallas would have always been comparable to NYC, or if you were specialized in TMT then LA and SF were similar.
Reading between the lines, I'm assuming Austin was chosen not just for QoL but also to solidify an Energy and probably AI and Data Center thesis as well. Also, I'd assume most backoffice roles like Accounting, Compliance, IT, etc would be shifted to Austin similar to what JPMC did in Dallas.
This is only going to help with turning that state blue.
Republicans and the Supreme Court have learned their lessons from Georgia, and will never let this happen. They will find new ways to disenfranchise all the people who'd vote blue. Plus their war on education ensures that people who grow up there will remain uninformed and hateful and thus red.
Texans, I hope you like PFAS in your water and soil because Texas being unregulated would have loads of it.
I love how on an article about Texas, half the comments are about California. As a Midwesterner, i always forget that those are the only two places
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48418721
> State officials are eager to supplant Delaware as America’s corporate-law hub. In 2024 they established the Texas Business Court, presided over by expert judges capable of handling even the most complex disputes. Last year the state also introduced a measure to allow firms to prevent shareholders with a stake of less than 3% from suing them, and another to let only large shareholders put forward proxy proposals.
Interesting, hadn’t heard. I can’t wait to see where this goes.
Working with regulators is a terrible experience. I hope they can fix this as well.
Texas saw "one share one vote" and thought "that isn't exclusionary enough, we should disenfranchise retail shareholders altogether".
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Having lived in Texas for 30+ years and now happily living in southern California, I feel pretty qualified in saying that my personal quality of life is dramatically better in California.
The cost of living is higher, but I get a tremendous amount of value for the extra costs and wouldn't move back to Texas for any amount of money at this point. Los Angeles is a very safe city for its size, I live in a comfortable, walkable neighborhood and I just got back from a run through a beautiful, well-maintained city park. My neighborhood is diverse, my representatives care about what is happening, and the city and state government generally try to make things better for the people who live here, even if they don't always succeed. I rarely felt that to be true in my 30+ years in Texas.
Austin is a great city, but the cost of living is high enough now that it is very hard to justify it vs. the dramatically higher quality of life, access to nature and culture, and incredible weather that you get in southern California.
It’s always amazing to see people who have a certain view of California or San Francisco because of what they’ve been told all their lives to finally come here and realize that it’s actually a very nice place to live. Like San Francisco is one of the best cities to live in (if you can afford to). Why would you not want a nice weather year long, great food scene, access to outdoors, good employment prospects, walkable/bikeable streets and low crime rates (yes San Francisco has very low crime rates as compared to any other major city despite what the media headlines say).
Funny, I moved to SoCal (Orange County) from the Seattle area and have also found it to be a huge improvement in everything except air and water quality. Can’t have everything I suppose. But the politics are much more sane, crime is low, and there are so many parks and playgrounds that can be used year round. The city government listens to residents (no, we don’t want dense housing, we want a big park) and although cost of living / taxes are high, we get a great quality of life in exchange.
The editors of the magazine whose article we are commenting on have repeatedly placed the blame for poor governance of the state's finances on Proposition 13, which is not a progressive proposition.
I know, right? Prosperity, civil rights, an enormous economy leading the country and the nation, and fiscal policies that make rich assholes ostentatiously relocate. Just terrible!
Highest COL in the country, a lot of it due to regulations, zoning and prop 13 which prevent density and building. Paris has the same area as SF but 3X the population.
Probably one of the highest salary areas for non-owners as well. Pretty good weather, particularly near San Diego. As people have pointed out, Prop 13 isn't progressive. Nor, really are the NIMBY rules that keep housing density low and prices high.
Some folks dislike the fact that it's a desert. It wiggles quite a bit and has been known to burn. Few blizzards, though. Little frostbite.
Fixable problems by any measure though
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What parades would those be?
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This feels like FUD, I have lived in California for a long time and I’m not really sure what it is you’re trying to reference as a negative.
Quite incredible that you get downvoted while extreme left talking points posted on threads that are not political whatsoever face no issues. HN is less and less a tech news aggregator and more and more an orange Reddit
Every forum with overly online people goes this way. I’ve stopped visiting Reddit, and let Google summarize their content for me so I don’t have to wade into the sewage. HN isn’t as bad yet but it has noticeably gotten worse since the 2024 election.
Is it intended to be a tech news aggregator though?
Yeah, they got rid of the smog. Just terrible.
And have increased their standing to the world’s fourth largest economy. Absolutely terrible.
The sixth largest, more likely. US dollar declined enough last year that Japan and the UK probably surpassed California again. And India is also getting close to California.
You have to understand that to a conservative, living in CA feels like dying. It's a feeling of constant intense psychic pain.
Tell them to move to Orange County. Unless there's been total demographic changes since the 1990's, they'll feel fine.
I can confirm this. Fairly conservative family guy, love it here in OC. Not sure if due to balanced politics or apathy to politics but it’s awesome. After leaving the Seattle area where I was getting hostility from randoms on the street just for driving a Tesla, I feel at home here.
Plenty of conservative areas in CA and the Left Coast in general. They don't have to live in fear of smelling marijuana on the streets of SF.
But why? Because they can't oppress people as much as they want, and it drives them nuts?
...turning a bunch of Boomer homeowners into members of a landed gentry is progressive?
Democrat = Liberal = Progressive in these folks minds. I think that already starts the discussion off on a challenging foot.
You think California is ruled by progressives? There are a lot of moderate Dems. It is just nationally "Republican" has gained a reputation of christofascism and/or cult of Trump.
Texas is where companies go to die.
Can you put some substance behind that statement, or is it just snark?