If true, we'd also expect to see mass closures of eng offices in places like Tokyo, Shanghai or Mumbai due to their "lack of diversity."

1) It's hot for any skin color, compared to most anywhere else in the country. Not everyone enjoys staying indoors for half the year (I have lived in TX.) Folks might move from coastal California and then learn that lesson the hard way.

2) If you are a woman, or woman adjacent, then the fact that religious extremists now set reproductive law might affect the desire to live in the state, if one has a choice.

https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/cities/austin/yearly-day...

I personally just drank a lot of water for lunch rides (I'd take a gallon for a ride) and electrolytes. Favorite time to ride, trails were empty.

You are basically agreeing that you are stuck indoors for many months of the year, during day time.

Also, this last year, which was many people's introduction to the heat, it was much worse than just a couple months.

https://www.kxan.com/weather/weather-blog/austin-records-hot...

John Carmack is a famous transplant here who has never wanted to move since. It's also a few degrees cooler than Austin - though with all the new pavement the urban heat island effect might even that out.

Home prices are dropping like a rock. And commute times were hell a decade ago.

I think the bigger issue is that these firms bet big on real estate and then the pandemic suddenly clued people in that remote work was possible and now instead of admitting they made a mistake are blaming the issue “on Austin.”

Also: to speak to the diversity part. Read up on Austin’s 1928 plan to intentionally segregate the city. Austin is still one of the most racially segregated. In an interesting turn of events Houston (due to its lack of zoning laws making redlining hard to impossible) is the most racially diverse city in the nation. Amazing what impact a bunch of people a hundred years ago can have on a place even after they are dead and their laws changed.

In a nation that includes, amongst other cities, New York City, this is extremely unlikely.

New York was famously segregated by Robert Moses. It’s up there on the list due to being a welcoming and diverse destination today, but those policies of the past can be felt today, long after they are gone.

It's worth taking a look at their methodology and how they're measuring diversity. Notably, NYC ranks much higher than Houston for cultural diversity (#5 vs #28 for Houston).

But the fact that Houston is even in the list in the first place is the interesting part. Whether it beats NYC or not is sorta not the most important part of my comment.

It seems the Forrest might have been missed for the trees. (I don’t feel like you understood or validated what I said, whether you disagree with the precise methodology or not)

Something seems to be working well enough for most TXn's though.

When my parents came to this country, they chose to live in a Virginia county that was so red a Democrat wouldn’t even run for the Congressional seat in some cycles. They could’ve moved next door to liberal Maryland, but they didn’t. I’ve never gotten a satisfactory explanation for that.

In many cases, yes, it basically just means this. That's even a reasonable de facto definition for that term as it's used today, in any appearance without further qualification ("diversity of thought" e.g.)

More even than just the Sama-Bajau and Minangkabau.

Who'd have thought, hey?

If tech is mostly "bro dudes", they're definitely not moving away from Austin due to "diversity or abortion rights". They moved to escape the CA state taxes & the politics of the area they left.

The article is trying to support an economic thesis with social / identity politic reasoning.

Also known as "journalists just making shit up and passing their agenda off as facts."