I keep hearing that Austin is relatively progressive. Is that true? [lifeinsider.me]
I lived there back in the late '70s, when it was only about one-quarter its current size. Back then, it was kind of like the Berkeley of the Southwest. Nowadays, it is more 'millenial'. In the '70s, if you wanted to live in a Yurt, or Teepee, or Geodesic dome, on the city's outskirts, you could. If you wanted to go skinny-dipping at 'Hippy Hollow', you could. Nowadays, I think there are laws against that stuff.
The University of Texass is there and it is the capital and it is progressive. But it has also gotten popular so housing and crowding is high. Also, if you don't mind the heat and all the nutty conservative politicians it might do.
As an Atheist, Austin would be my choice in Texas. I am originally from Houston. My only concern is It has been 35 years since I lived in Texas the predjudice culture and of course all the Religion.
The show, 'The Atheist Experience' is made there. There are a bajillion clips of it on youtube.
It's the most progressive city in Texas.
Houston is known for its diversity and has been called the most diverse city in the U.S. (https://patch.com/texas/houston/houston-named-most-diverse-city-u-s-recent-survey ).
What glennlab said is very true. It's like night and day when you compare metropolitan areas to rural ones.
Austin is possibly the most progressive city in Texas. Most of the major cities in Texas are progressive, it is the rural and smaller cities and towns that give Texas its conservative reputation. gerrymandering has insured that these rural areas maintain an out sized influence in the state.
Iowa has the same problem. The conservative rural areas end up getting to run everything in the state government because they still have outsized influence. But that is going to change in the next decade or so because those areas are pretty much populated by old folks who will die in that time period and then the more progressive cites will get to run things, because the rural areas will be so depopulated by then that in statewide elections they will no longer have that much power anymore.