austin 1969;tucson 2009

[huisache]

I had never been there before last week but south Tucson, just beyond the University of Arizona campus, reminds me a lot of Austin in the late '60s and early '70s when I was a student. Not so many trees or water but the area around the U abounds with great old houses that accomodate students by the jillion and the stores and cafes, etc, reek of old Austin before it got Californicated. And the best used book store I have ever been in is a few blocks away.

Anybody from the old UT days would enjoy spending a day around that area.

 

[Joe Fan]

I spent some time there in the 1990s and thought it was kind of a dump. Except for the golf.

 

[tlonghorn]

I've lived here for almost 2 years. I lived in Austin for almost 12. I currently live directly south of the U of A campus.

I can assure you, Tucson is nothing like Austin and I moved here strictly because I thought that was the case. I compare it nonstop.
And if Austin was the pile of mess in 1969 that Tucson is now I'm not sure how or who made Austin the best city in America.

 

[huisache]

Keep in mind that I was comparing it to the Austin of forty years ago---a snail pace place where there was a lot of old housing and everybody did not live in apartments and condos. There appear to be a lot of 'weird' people in Tucson now just as there were in Austin then---not the agglomeration of BMW and Mercedes drivers who rule the roost now. Lots of slackers and stoners

 

[majorwhiteapples]

Too many old people in Tucson.

 

[NBMisha]

Re Austin 2009... the wife came back from a few days in Austin with her sister, with a magazine in hand entitled "Tribeza".

This has to be the douche/pozer bible. Good lord, people like that should not be allowed south of Dallas.

 

[Wild Bill]

No question Austin has changed a lot in the last 40 years. I grew up there, and when I graduated HS in '76, the population was about 250K. A lot of people outside the State had not heard of it. They knew the big cities, but not Austin. Like huisache said there were a lot of hippies and slackers hanging around. It seemed to change overnight in the early/mid '80's with the tech boom and the influx of Californians and NEasterners. It is still a great city, but a little crowded. I still miss the old Austin though, but hey, I'm an old guy.

 

[Horn-N-LA]

I drove through there back in the summer of 95, and it looked like a drab ********, save for the beautiful campus of UofA. I drove up on campus, about 3 weeks before school started, I turn this corner and 500 or so beautiful blondes in white sorority rush t-shirts are barrelling right at me. It was like the clouds broke and the sun shone through. Anyway, doesn't sound like the rest of it's changed in nearly 15 years.