AUSTIN -- You can call it the capital city, a Texas jewel, the live music capital of the world. When it comes to Austin, its reputation speaks for itself.
"The lakes, the beautiful rolling hills, it's almost like you're in Europe," said one Austin resident.
"It's laid back and I think that you always get a good vibe when you come to Austin," added another.
These are all great things, but not good enough for Forbes magazine. Their ranking of 50 coolest cities put Houston on top and Austin was ranked at number 19, behind Dallas, San Antonio, and Fort Worth.
"Nineteen?! Ok yeah that's not cool," exclaimed David Sneed who just moved to Austin.
"Really!? no one likes Houston," said long-time Austinite Katie Krause.
According to the article, someone must like Houston.
Last year, 50,000 people moved to the city boasting an average age of 33.
Forbes ranking came by measuring bars and restaurants per capita, diversity, and economic growth. This is the same Forbes that put Austin as the best city for jobs and number 8 for stretching a paycheck, just a few weeks ago.
"Cool isn't sort of a property that you can associate a number with," said U.T. Mathematics professor Charles Radin. "For the sciences you use numbers and it's important if you don't have real accuracy, you can't send a guy to the moon. But you don't put a number on how pretty the Mona Lisa is, there's just no reason to. Houston just isn't cooler than Austin, I mean except maybe in temperature."
Even that's debatable.
What isn't debateable is Austin's identity. A place growing by the day whose citizens embrace the weirdness, but more importantly whose citizens embrace their city.
"I think we need to represent," said Sneed. "We need more shine on our city, we go hard over here!"
Who knows, maybe being uncool means fewer drivers to fight in traffic.
One can only hope.
For a look at the full rankings click here.
