Meanwhile, Texas is not a low-tax, low-service state, as is commonly held. It’s a high-tax, low-service state: we may have no income tax, but at least one study found that we have one of the ten highest total tax burdens in the nation, with property taxes making up most of the gap. The quality of state services, however, has not improved commensurate with the growth of state budgets. Older Texans feel squeezed in cities where they’ve lived for decades. Younger Texans go to too-often substandard schools, receive substandard health care, and then can’t afford homes in the cities of their birth. Texas politics has increasingly focused on managing the resulting resentment, and the easiest way to do so is to blame outsiders.

So utterly true.

All that said, property values in Austin and the population of Austin are both still significantly higher than they were in 2020. All this talk of an “exodus” from Austin is as much hyperbole as a “Texas miracle.” Travis County lost something like net 1,000 residents over the last year (after yearly 5 digit increases for many years) while neighboring MSA counties continue to grow. Oh, and Austin startups were only able to raise several billion dollars in venture capital last year, such a pittance!