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Originally Posted by vettech2112
...I have a friend currently living in Boerne who is from Houston and he has almost nothing negative to say about SA area (more than either of us can say about Houston!) and, being a hiker, I recognize that SA area gives me a better "jumping off point" than Houston. Not to mention that I've fallen in love with the Hill Country. I love the canyons and high places. I love the smell of sagebrush. There's something almost comfortable about it for some reason - like the smell of "home".
I'd also like to hear from you locals what you like/dislike about your city.
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I've lived here since my early childhoood; Justin's lived here all his life. We have travelled all over Texas, as well as Arkansas, Colorado, Tennessee and North Carolina. While there might be other places we'd love to settle, San Antonio is home to us. Like you, the primary appeal is S.A.'s proximity to the Hill Country, as well as its reasonable distance from the coast (close enough to visit for a weekend, far enough away as to not worry *too* much if a hurricane parks along the Texas Gulf Coast.
Weather in the summer I have never gotten used to, but there are hotter and more humid places to live (Houston's more humid, by far.) The city itself is rich with history and beautiful places and structures: the beautiful Spanish missions (San Juan, San Jose, the Alamo), the Riverwalk, the San Antonio Botanical Gardens and McNay Art Institute, the parks within an hour's drive or less, and the wonderful Hill Country towns: Bandera, Kerrville, Fredericksburg, and many more.
My only negative impressions of the city are its traffic and roadway issues (poor planning, poor maintenance on many non-highway streets), which to be honest a Houstonian may find inconsequential. (Houston traffic
terrifies me... and I did spend 6 years in California! Granted, I was a child, but I remember the endless views of highway lanes, the traffic-jams to go to a park or shopping...)
We have a wealth of restaurants, movie theatres, more shopping centers (large and small) than seems possible, good schools particularly on the Northeast side of town (I'm a product of the Northside school district, and Justin's a product of Harlandale ISD, so we personally feel their schools aren't half bad, either...
) There are city, community and county parks interspersed throughout the city, many of which you won't find on WildTexas.com since they're so small and don't have much information online for them (yet).
We have hazy/smoggy days ocassionally, but nothing like the pall you'll see over Dallas/Fort. Worth or even Houston. I had childhood asthma, and San Antono's air didn't kill me (the pollen and molds sure tried to, though!) I have allergies, but I've found I'm allergic to green & growing things no matter where I live or travel. I'm just built that way.
Economically, we're not as prosperous or as "advanced" as I would like, but there are some high tech and large corporations here, as well as a large U.S. military presence thanks to our many military bases. I've worked at USAA and at Randolph Air Force Base here in San Antonio. The medical sector is, perhaps second only to the military, the backbone of our economy. We have a state-of-the art medical center and some new hospitals (like the one nearest me, Northeast Baptist Hospital). We have cancer care hospitals, the State Hospital on the Southside of town, the Brooke-Army Medical Center burn unit... and much more. For veterinarians, we have the state's best Feline Only veterinary clinic (Alamo Feline Clinic).
We have a wonderful and diverse culture and, for the most part, a very safe city. I've never been robbed, attacked or victimized. Theft happens everywhere, so I don't need to look far to have examples -- Justin had a tire stolen, his parents had their old house burglarized, vehicles get stolen or vandalized in some areas of town more than others, and so forth. Happens everywhere across the USA, but I wouldn't say it happens more here than any other city our size.
Gotta run, but that's it for starters....