Austin and San Antonio Compared

Mr. Beat compares and contrasts Austin, Texas, and San Antonio, Texas, two of the fastest-growing major cities in the United States.

Produced by Matt Beat. All images and video by Matt Beat, used under fair use guidelines, or found in the public domain. Music by @ElectricNeedleRoom, @OtisMacMusic, and @Dyalla.

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#austin #sanantonio #geography

Austin and San Antonio

Two of the biggest cities not only in Texas, but in the entire United States, and both are just 75 miles, or 121 kilometers, apart…about an hour and a half drive.

Both are also two of the fast-growing major cities in the country, and they are growing so fast that we could one day live to see them merge into each other to form a megacity.

San Antonio has the third largest metropolitan area in Texas and 24th in the country, while Austin has the fourth largest metropolitan area in Texas and 28th in the country. Austin is likely the fastest growing metro in the United States, though, and its population could catch up to San Antonio’s soon.

Hopefully by the end of this here video, you’ll know exactly which one you prefer. First, let’s look at what they have in common.

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:51 Let's look at what they have in common.
05:24 Differences
07:24 Some history
13:07 Advantages
17:16 Let's wrap this up
18:16 Outro
18:18 Thank you

[iammrbeat]

Which two cities should I compare for this series next?
🌎🌍🌏🌐

[CenTexMex]

"San Antonio is the largest American city without a public rail system" probably the most Texas thing in this video.

[josetamez]

I've lived in San Antonio my whole life and everything you said about it was pretty much spot on. All the one important thing you forgot to mention when comparing both cities, it is very important to San Antonians that everyone knows we have better tacos than Austin.

[jv]

As someone who lives only like 10 miles from Austin and frequently goes to both Austin and San Antonio, I can confidently say that San Antonio is significantly more chill and welcoming. I35 in Austin is like being stuck in a whataburger line at 4pm on Christmas day

[christophera.kreusel]

San Antonio's Greenway system absolutely deserves recognition. Multi-use paths following several watersheds mirror the feel of the downtown Riverwalk (minus the tourists), and with a newly completed connection through Eisenhower Park in the north, we have access to probably 50+ miles of trail that runs through some amazing parks including Phil Hardberger with its Voelcker Homestead and land bridge over the parkway. The Missions in South San Antonio are also accessible via the trail! Another little SA water fact: we have one of the largest recycled "purple pipe" water systems in the country, which provides irrigation for the Riverwalk, golf courses, etc.

[NikkyElso]

If you've ever been to Texas you'll know how appropriate and relevant to the content an ad for a personal injury attorney actually is.

[jovialbivouacker]

I have lived in both cities for many years. San Antonio has more universities than Austin, and has a much better urban bus system. Whereas Austin has the Light Rail, it is not utilized as much as the bus system in San Antonio. SA also has one of three medical education and research systems in Texas. In fact, I had to return to SA to get a transplant that was only possible in Dallas, Houston or San Antonio. I love Austin, but it was becoming prohibitively expensive to live there as a single teacher. Thanks for the video.

[dreary_giraffe]

as a san antonio guy, HOW COULD YOU FORGET FIESTA ?!?

[nelsonsoto]

I remember being a little kid in 2005 and seeing the Austin skyline. It's almost unrecognizable now. But I'm glad more people realize how awesome our city is.

[Dodge]

they are like two parallel universes. San Antonio is a standard regional commercial center for South Texas and Austin is plugged directly into the global economy and seems to almost exist in the virtual cloud rather than in the actual physical world. San Antonio is middle class families, many with deep roots in South Texas and Austin is ambitious worldly people who have come from all over the world.

[ahubb]

Having lived a few years in both San Antonio and Austin, it still blows my mind how big of a gap the cost of living is between the two. I have several friends that live alone in San Antonio, but I don't know anyone in Austin that doesn't have a roommate.

[CosmicKangaroo]

Austin is my hometown and I grew up there and the amount of growth it has undergone since I moved away in 2013 is insane.

[dansheffield]

Really good, well thought out video. Being a long term resident of both cities I have just a couple minor criticisms:

1) Austin has been undergoing huge cultural shifts due to the massive inward migration of wealthy people that have been priced out of California... something that is driving the most divergence between the two cities culturally. This point is not emphasized enough i think

2) the fact that Austin has a soccer team is not comparable at all to the San Antonio Spurs, which is one of the most successful sports franchises, and boasts an EXTREMELY loyal fan base unlike any i have seen

3) Not enough love for San Antonio being THE hub for tex-mex. We invented chili, margaritas, the enchiladas most of yall know and Love, and nachos. Its more than

Other than that, great and accurate insight into two cities i consider home👍

[coyotelong]

I feel like San Antonio is one of those cities that most Americans don’t even realize how big it is

Austin as well

[ChristianRRL]

This is awesome! I've lived in Austin for the past 6 years and it's a little bit surreal to see Mr. Beat do a video about two of my favorite cities in Texas. One thing, I don't think I heard a mention of ACL (Austin City Limits) music festival. And also, if we're talking about Austin AND San Antonio I would have also mentioned something about Wurstfest (German-style Octoberfest in between Austin & San Antonio).

[KoiKoy]

Notes from someone who has traveled between both cities dozens of times per year for the past 25 years:
Population - Austin's population is growing crazy amounts, but they have no highway infrastructure to support it and have little to no suburb development to accommodate it. That's why the population in Austin is decreasing at a steady rate as well as growing. Anyone who used to live in Austin and used to pay $500-$700 in rent 15 years ago are now asked to pay $2000 for a less than desirable apartment. Anyone who didn't already own a home can't afford them anymore as nearly the entire market in Austin is in the millions. Drive out 45 minutes to find homes in the high hundreds of thousands. Austin is still cool (although the "weird" aspect of it has certainly changed to a new kind of weird"), but it will certainly hit a roadblock not too far from now that reduces expansion dramatically.
While Austin faces road and housing development issues, San Antonio faces a lack of entertainment and nightlife. The city has been a family centered city for so long, people has less desire to move to it because it's more boring. That said, the population of San Antonio is 2.4mil as opposed to the 2.1mil of Austin, and San Antonio still has loads of affordable housing. Apartments prices have skyrocketed, but enough housing has stayed down in the high hundreds to low thousands that locals don't have too much trouble finding decent places to live. Houses in the downtown area are in the millions, but you can still find a significant amount of move in ready houses for sale in that area in the low hundred thousands. Additionally, San Antonio has robust, developed suburban areas as well as undeveloped suburban areas waiting for people to move in. This means people can find large, brand new homes with the same commute time they'd find in Austin for $250, 000-$600, 000. They continue to develop housing even though the city has not hit the population necessary for people to start moving out to those further suburban areas. Like I said, the entertainment industry is not there yet. With the lack of a bolsterous entertainment industry, there's a lack of corporate investment, and with a lack of corporate investment, there's a lack of super high paying jobs, and with a lack of super high paying jobs, people would rather move to Austin/Houston/Dallas than San Antonio. Still, that's much easier to develop for San Antonio than road and housing infrastructure is for Austin. It can be done in real time in SA, but Austin is already decades behind where they need to be and will struggle hard to catch up and keep their population growing.
Traffic - Austin traffic is so incredibly worse than San Antonio's for this reason. While San Antonio is so spread, out it has a robust highway system. All get backed up during rush hour (don't all major city's streets?), but they're easily cruisable at top speeds throughout the entire rest of the day (RIP 1604, maybe when you're done with construction in 2050). These two things mean that San Antonio traffic is well distributed and constantly moving. Austin on the other hand has a few highways (some are called loops even though they don't loop...) but really everyone uses either tollways, I-35, or MoPac (highway 1). MoPac was traffic free before Austin's massive investment from California, but now is bustling. I-35, though, is by far the most used highway that just about everyone has trouble avoiding, and it.. is... NIGHTMARE. It can literally take you 2 hours to get from the north side of Austin to the south side of Austin if you're taking I-35 during rush hour, and that's not an exaggeration. Traffic on I-35 gets so backed up in Austin that I preferred to drive in LA, and it's impossible to get to Austin's most populated parts of town without taking I-35 for at least some stretch of time.
You can get from the south eastern part of San Antonio to the north western border in an hour, which is significantly longer of a distance and significantly shorter a duration.
Tha leads into - public transit: San Antonio's the worst city in Texas when it comes to public transit, but Texas is terrible in general. Austin has a train line that everyone hates and hardly connects to anything and that has been voted against expansion over and over, but they have a boulsterous bus system. San Antonio's bus system is receiving a pretty decent amount of investment but still needs a lot of development to be considered good, let alone comparable. The train system being planning in part with Japan Rail, has no future at the moment. Texas does not have the rights to build that train yet, and it doesn't look like they'll ever get them. Famously, Governor Abbott reached out to Japan Rail authorities saying that he is definitely still planning on building the train system with them, but due to how large of a stretch that affirmation was, he was called out by other government officials and had to withdraw that statement. Not only that, but when the train began planning close to two decades ago, the plan included Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. Now it only includes Dallas and Houston, with possible expansion to Austin later and possible expansion to San Antonio after that. With how anti-train Texas is and always has been, I highly doubt we'll be seeing train connect San Antonio and Austin within the next century.

[Coloradorivr]

Its honestly happy to see San Antone get some growth tbh. Been here for almost 18 years and always happy to visit downtown. Also, the mention of the Hill Country made me smile. Good video btw!

[raidersfanallday]

Moved to San Antonio 5 years ago and was the best decision. I love the cost of living and love that it’s a big city with all the great amenities but still a hometown feel

[Froggiethatguy]

Grew up in San Antonio currently live in Austin both have changed a lot in my life

[WorldStage_Decoder]

I’m from San Antonio originally and in my opinion is a decent size city with little to no progression. I’ve been in the Salt Lake City metro area for years and love it! It’s clean, and the city is very proactive when it comes to traffic, weather, crime…etc