Primer on Georgetown, TX.

May 12, 2013 12:56 PM

We currently live in north central Austin (78758, in that giant middle class 70s tract development to the east of the Domain). We are looking to move, and aquantances of ours have a house for sale in old town Georgetown. The house is a perfect fit for us (older, bigger, better shape, oodles of charm, hardwood floors) as is the neighborhood (extremely walkable, kid-safe, families, parks, schools very close), but all we know about Georgetown is a few visits to Monument Cafe over the years, and the occasional visit to downtown. How is life in Georgetown?

For the purposes of this question I'd rather not focus on the fact that my commute would be so very fugly - I work in downtown Austin. I'm more looking for Georgetown specific anecdata than I am 'Georgetown as Austin feeder'.

posted by dirtdirt to Society & Culture (5 answers total)

I've had friends out in that area, and I can report their findings - and I lived in northeastish Round Rock when I moved to the area, and even that had its... um, charms.

Georgetown itself is fairly rural, and has some modern rural problems - namely, meth and the crime around drug dealing. My friend who lived out there investigated the schools and was pretty horrified by the drug and gang issues. I don't remember your exact kid situation, but that'd be a major concern. There's also just not that much out there, social-life-wise, unless you have a ready-made social circle. It's tough to get anyone who isn't already in the northeast suburbs to make the trek - even with ideal traffic conditions on 35 it's a minimum 45 minutes from my Central Austin house to IKEA, and that's the very south edge of Georgetown.

The other thing that was an absolute dealbreaker for me (it might not be for you) was the politics. It's a red, red, red state out there, the police are unfriendly, if you're a pot smoker expect zero slack if you get caught, and God help you if you're anything but straight and white and have any run-ins with officials. That was why we moved to Austin proper, despite both of us working at Dell. 100% worth it, would move again. It's distinctly unpleasant to always be the weirdest person in the supermarket.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:28 PM on May 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was going to comment about the police too. That's the first thing I thought of that isn't obvious.
posted by grouse at 2:39 PM on May 12, 2013

My anecdata is 20 years old now, so I'm not sure how helpful it'll be, but when I was a teenager in Georgetown, it felt more like all the other small Texas towns we'd lived in and less like a suburb of a state capitol and major cultural center. If you're used to life in Austin, even north-north Austin, you may find Georgetown boring and lonely.

On preview, I agree with restless_nomad: my family was very conservative and religious -- my dad was a Southern Baptist preacher -- and they were a little too progressive for Georgetown.
posted by bradf at 2:39 PM on May 12, 2013

Nthing Wilco cops being TERRIBLE. My parents are about to move back to Travis County from Wilco and are delighted to be away from the local police -- and they're straight, white, middle-class, retirement-aged folks who drive nice cars. If you drive an old or crappy car, expect to get pulled over a lot -- there's a definite Driving While Poor bias, in addition to the standard Driving While Black/Brown.

A client who lives in Georgetown was really disenchanted with the town because, he said, they roll the sidewalks up before 9 pm. It's apparently pretty boring up there.
posted by katemonster at 3:01 PM on May 12, 2013

I have relatives in G'town. You don't want to live there unless you like living in a speed trap. G'town, according to my relatives, used to make a lot of money off of Travis County speeders.

It is definitely red, red, red. If you've grown accustomed to the laissez faire of Austin, you will not appreciate Wilco.
posted by jdfan at 7:00 PM on May 16, 2013