Sometimes I wonder if New York is seen as something extraordinarily special by those who live there because they don’t know anything else. They got an itch, New York City scratched it. Austin scratched mine. Maybe another city would have done the same.
Just sayin’.
I’m from Texas and I moved to New York.
New York wins.
Austin is awesome, though. And pretty. And far, far cheaper.
I don’t think I’ve rambled much on this site about how Austin is OK. My fans know that I frequently assert Houston’s superiority to Austin and suggest that if you prefer Austin, then you’re likely a racist. Some of that could be chalked up to provocation because I suppose I like countering the notion that it’s okay to like Austin whereas associating yourself with Houston means associating yourself with suburban sprawl, wanton gasoline consumption, fat people, etc. Most people are afraid of the association, I think—like how lots of people say they like all music except country music. Though country is in many ways extremely similar to rock or folk music, it’s the identifiable characteristics that put the fear of god into people so that they can’t like it. In other words, it’s as much about, say, white guilt as it is about the music. I think the same goes, and more, for liking New York out loud and in front of others. New York is OK but I say I like it so that people know that I’m ambitious and maybe cosmopolitan and fashionable. I encountered this same pattern of behavior in San Francisco when every body I met who wanted to tell me that they know about Tartine told me how great Tartine was. I can only laugh about it now.
