Bay Area had 99 straight days of poison air in 2020 and there's no reason to expect 2021 to be any better, especially considering that so far the 2020-2021 water year has been the driest ever recorded in human history.

In the midst of the pandemic, it is easy to overlook California's yearly water supply. The snow-pack numbers this year do not bode well for next year.

It's easy to forget about the drought when the pandemic is raging and half of the states are trying to get the Civil War started again, but for a Californian the drought should be the main thing on their minds. Large municipal water systems are likely to be fine, at least next year, but just due to the nature of stochastic processes we can expect at least a few small municipal water districts to go dry, and some irrigation districts are probably not going to get any water deliveries at all.

Texas - Famous for not having wildfires.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Texas_wildfires

Right, and how many have we had since one of the most exceptional years on record? Also our flatter land tends to avoid temp adversions that trap smoke and really reduce air quality.

That said, the pollen is terrible.

The worst one in history was 9 years ago and 4 million acres burned.

That’s almost as much as California this year. If you have that much hubris as to think another event won’t happen like that in Texas with increasing frequency, then I guess enjoy Austin?

How much forest is left to burn at this rate?

> Think about whenever you travel to Austin for conferences, it's oppressively hot and you basically travel from one air conditioned building to the next.

Commentary from someone who only visits Texas in the summer is bound to be one-dimensional.

> To me this spells the end of Oracle's supremacy in anything other than selling smaller and smaller volumes of mainframes.

True because average regional temperature has always been a solid predictor of company success, which is why companies like 3M, Cirrus Logic, Dell, Indeed, National Instruments, and Silicon Labs all collapsed after establishing their headquarters in Austin due to talented employees leaving en masse for the beauty of other regions /s

Used to live in Texas for several years. 3M has little in common with Silicon Valley but those other companies are legit so I am willing to say I don’t know enough and I am eager to see how this turns out. I was trying to appeal to others experiences of Austin when mentioning conferences. I assume more people visit than live there on this site. For me, Austin would be pretty awful to live in year in and out by comparison to Silicon Valley even with having to wear N95 masks during fire season.

Also just wait for Analog Devices to buy Cirrus and relocate them back to SV. (Totally kidding)

> Not to mention you have much more beautiful choices of nature in Northern California.

You're making the mistake of assuming access to nature is a priority for everyone, which I think is a consequence of the cultural bubble that Silicon Valley is in. Most people who are part of the scene are into nature stuff, and they assume everyone is because they don't know anyone who isn't. I have definitely heard of people who moved to SV/SF for a job and then being looked down on and sometimes even bullied by coworkers for not having any interest in nature activities. There is very much an attitude that if you don't partake in the Standard Silicon Valley Hobbies then something must be wrong with you.

By contrast, I've lived in Texas all my life and I don't know many people who's really into going hiking and stuff all the time. A couple of people, sure, but most people I know are content to only do the kinds of activities you can do in an air-conditioned room.

I would imagine there are a lot of tech people who moved to NorCal for work but aren't comfortable with the culture there. They don't care about nature and would be happier if they got to socialize with coworkers who had similar interests, and so they might be much happier if their employers relocated to Texas or something. And while I can't really speak to Austin, my experience in Dallas is that the tech scene (which is thriving and active) is much more enterprisey and doesn't really attract people who would prefer a more SV-like culture.

I don’t go out nearly as much as I should but if I lived in Texas (as I have for several years previously) I would never enjoy being outside other than in the winter. That’s just not healthy.

In Austin I can go golfing on Christmas Eve and play outdoor basketball that afternoon. Yeah, it’s hot in the summer, but 96 isn’t oppressively hot and by the time you’re out of work at 6pm the weather is in the low 90’s.

I agree with most of your post but the last bit is really a non-sequitur. There is no relationship between Oracle fortunes and Californian weather; if there ever was, it has definitely not been a factor for 20 years. What matters is what they buy and how they repackage it. Mainframes are not even on their map, really. Their HQ in California was basically an empty white elephant for years, I believe most of their programmers are in other (lower-cost) countries by now.

This won't last much longer for the SF Bay Area. The climate has changed already and average temperatures are rising. The place where I live used to be foggy. It hasn't been like that for over 7 years now. It's much worse in the southern part of the Bay Area. Air conditioning is starting to be requirement.

It will get warmer in the bay area, but unbearably hot in Austin. Temperatures are rising there too rapidly:

"Austin Makes Top 10 List Of U.S. Cities With The Greatest Increase In Hot Days" -> https://www.keranews.org/2019-08-22/austin-makes-top-10-list...

Not just temperature but also humidity, isn't Austin unbearably humid in the summer?

re: the nature access - to add to what others have said about this ... I suggest you get out and explore Texas state parks. There's a lot of things I don't like about Texas (I don't live there, but spent a few months there a few years ago), but wow, the state park system is just amazing. So many incredible places, and with frequently pleasant winter weather meaning that they are still enjoyable in February.

My favorite are the river parks in New Braunfels and there are a lot of other beautiful areas that all pale in comparison to California.

>Now imagine 10 years time of increased global warming.

Wow, 0.1 degrees more, that will really tip the scales

You realize this is BS, right? That's an average.

I live around Oakland. The number of days, in the last decade where I wished I had AC went up 10x. I literally had days where I camped out in my basement. With a fan blowing on me. That never happened a decade or more ago. Ever.