The “Texas Miracle” loses some of its magic as Oracle announces it’s moving its new HQ out of Austin and Tesla lays off nearly 2,700 workers.

    • Anamnesis@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Having lived there, Houston to College Station to Waco is 100% ugly. Really all of East Texas. I admit the hill country is pretty decent.

      I moved to Seattle, though. Most Texans don’t know what they’re missing.

      • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I’m enjoying the hell out of just my commute here in Seattle, on a motorcycle in the rain.

        Mt Rainier is unbelievable, the way it looms.

      • chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I’ve traveled the country full time in an RV for two years. Yes, there are more beautiful places in the US (Sequoia, Redwood Forests, Olympic National Park, etc), but I’m just saying that Texas isn’t all just some drab hole-in-the-wall. If you want that, go to Ohio or Indiana.

        • Patquip@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Every state has some beauty. Ohio has Cuyahoga Valley and Indiana can see the Chicago skyline across Lake Michigan.

          • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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            6 months ago

            I love that you say every state has some beauty and then say that the best thing in Indiana is that you can see the next state over.

            • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              I loved the little dis, but for real the Great Lakes Region is one of the most beautiful parts of the country, I’d put it on par with our mountain ranges. Indiana only has a sliver of it, but northern Indiana is beautiful unlike the hellhole that is Fort Wayne. It’s like if a bunch of people decided to move to Lima for some unknown reason.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          How did a state with the Appalachian mountains, major cities, a major tributary of the Mississippi, and a Great Lake make your bland list. You want to see nothing? Go to Iowa. The Great Plains are a magnificent ecosystem with immense value, but gods is it a boring one to look at. You glimpse at it and are just like “yep, it’s grass and farmland”.

          As a kid we drove from Dayton to Denver and yeah that chunk of Ohio is boring, as is that chunk of Indiana and Illinois, but once you pass the Mississippi holy fuck is there just nothing until mountains show up. It’s like being on the open ocean

    • bitwolf@lemmy.one
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      6 months ago

      Driving i35, getting to i35, its all parking lots and shopping malls.

      It looks like a giant oversized strip mall.

      Within city walls it’s beautiful. But since Texas is so car dependent most of what you see are strip malls, giant bridges, and poor road design.

      • TimmyDeanSausage @lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Have you? Houston isn’t the “concrete jungle” it was in the 80’s… I personally prefer it over NYC and LA. Chicago is a close second to Houston for me.

        • stoly@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I have multiple times and i strongly believe that it’s the ugliest city I’ve ever seen.

    • Neps@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      The whole houston area, dallas area, and all therural parts are ugly. The only decent ok looking areas are kinda the austin san antonio area and even then.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        ?? Socal is pretty ugly. It has gross rolling hills that remind me of S. Idaho, suburban sprawl, and the beaches are all crowded. San Diego is nice, but pretty much anything between San Diego and SF Bay area is pretty ugly imo, and that’s where most of the population lives.

        Northern California is pretty though, as are the national parks. But imo, pretty much everything California has, somewhere else does it better:

        • forests - PNW; Olympic rainforest, and anywhere on the west side of the cascades beats anything Cali has
        • mountains - cascades and the Rockies are much prettier imo
        • beaches - surfing is good in Cali, but for pretty much everything else, I prefer the gulf for warmer, calmer water

        I really don’t like visiting Cali. My in-laws live in LA and my cousin’s live in SF, and both are unpleasant to visit imo. If I had to live anywhere, I’d probably pick San Diego or northern Cali (well north of SF.

        I currently live in Utah, which I much prefer. It has:

        • pretty mountains
        • gorgeous state and national parks
        • fishing
        • mountain bike and hiking trails near my house
        • enough population to have everything I need

        If I moved, I’d probably go east (N. Caroline seems nice) or back to the Northwest (grew up near Seattle, so I’d probably go east of the mountains for more sun). Never to California.

        • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I’m very much not a desert person, but the scale of the inland valley, the quiet beauty of Joshua tree, etc… Moved from socal, but there was a lot of beauty that doesn’t call you to it loudly, you just suddenly notice and enjoy it.

          Joshua tree looks like a bunch of rocky hills… Till you notice they’re all rounded and stacked perfectly. You notice how arid it is, and then notice green leaves in spite of that.

          If you’re observant, there’s beauty everywhere natural.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            Sure, but try comparing that to southern Utah, western/central Colorado, northern Arizona/New Mexico, or western Wyoming/Montana.

            There’s cool stuff in Cali, it’s just largely locked away in national and state parks. In all of the areas I mentioned, you can live in that beauty all the time, or go visit national and state parks for even more of it.

            In my area, I can be away from people and among natural beauty with a 15 min drive up the canyon, or ride my bike about 30 min to hit some trails. I look out my windows and see towing mountains, and on my commute I can take the long way (about 15 min extra) and drive through the mountains instead of the highway.

            Cali is fine if you’re into urban stuff and want beauty on the weekends and are fine sitting in traffic to get there. I prefer beauty all the time.

            • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Not knocking your choices, just to be clear. I do in fact like keeping up with entertainment and arts, can’t really get concerts, symphonies and plays out in the hills. For me and many others, cities are great. There are places that are still nestled in the hills with small town vibes in soCal, check out Silverado canyon as an example.

              I camp when I want to reconnect to nature, and ride my bicycle all over the place. Cities can be very beautiful in their own right, though I admittedly have an engineer’s bias when viewing.

    • thedirtyknapkin@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      i mean, if you could appreciate it anywhere it would be a lot better. how the fuck do so many people actually not have ANYWHERE BETTER to take pictures of wildflowers than the side of the freeway. that really highlights a big problem with Texas. they may have had beauty, but they bought, sold, rented, and ruined most of it until there’s only a trash covered vestige at a dangerous crossing left. it’s the biggest contiguous state, and somehow has nearly the least public land.

    • foggy@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Fucking lmao. Dude, Texas has its own beauty, but it isn’t a pretty state.

      I have driven across 49 states. When I go back to the photos I took in Texas, I think “huh, wonder what I thought looked cool here… That lump in the distance?”

      Yes there are hills. There’s even mountains. Not near anything though. Where everything is, it’s flat as fuck. Brown, dirt, sandy boring.

      Hamilton Pool is the most gorgeous thing in the whole state. It is a sight to behold. It’s also 1 hour of boring scenery away from any group of humans conducting any kind of business.

      Easily the ugliest scenery of any state I can think of. Second only to Alabama and Mississippi? At least Louisiana has the bayous. Tennessee has real mountains. Oklahoma has… Grass?

      Texas is fucking hideous. It’s like Nevada without anything cool.

    • profdc9@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Like many southern states, there is much natural beauty in Texas. It doesn’t seem like many of the locals realize what they are blessed with.

      • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        What happens is that it all gets paved over for wider highways, more expansive empty parking lots, and sprawling suburbs.

        It happens everywhere in the US, but particularly in Texas. It’s an asphalt nightmare.