Whether you're a newcomer to the city or an Austin native, most people agree that we're a pretty friendly bunch around these parts. How friendly? Turns out we're getting Netflix-and-chill-close with our co-workers. At least according to Time Out's City Life Index, a global survey charting the most exciting cities in the world right now. We ranked 32 cities on criteria including food, drink, culture, local neighborhoods, friendliness, affordability, happiness and whether people were proud to live in their city, then distilled it all into some fascinating finds about Austin (and the rest of the world)—which came in at a cool #13.
One category where we came in at #1? File this under a giant "duh": When asked to pick among dozens of dishes, Austin, more than any other city, said that they would rather eat tacos for the rest of their life. We're suds-happy, too: 20% of us would rather drink craft beer than wine or cocktails. Good thing we've got plenty of craft beer bars around these parts. And even though LA might claim they're the food truck capital, we actually order more from our roving restaurants: 65% in the last month compared to 57% in LA.
When it comes to dating, you'd think our small town feel might give us an advantage. But only 61% of Austinites went on a date within the last month compared to 63% in both Washington, D.C. and Chicago. When we do find our match, it's usually at work; more people in Austin have workplace relationships than anywhere else in the United States. That's a lot of, ahem, after-hours meetings.
We own homes more than any other U.S. city surveyed (41% of us, to be exact), and we are more annoyed by tourists than any other group of people. What can we say? We know how to spot a transplant. When it comes to going out, 48% agreed that downtown Austin is the best neighborhood for having fun. And speaking of fun, we see live music 1.5 times more than New Yorkers, probably because our live music venues are so incredible.
When given the opportunity to hop in a time machine and live in Austin's past, present or future, 53% said they would rather go back and live in the past—tied only with San Francisco. It's interesting to note that such tech-driven cities long for the past more than others.
Check out more fascinating stats from the survey here, and see the full list of ranked cities below—fodder for your next vacation, perhaps?
1 Chicago
2 Porto
3 New York
4 Melbourne
5 London
6 Madrid
7 Manchester
8 Lisbon
9 Philadelphia
10 Barcelona
11 Edinburgh
12 Tel Aviv
13 Austin
14 Paris
15 Mexico City
16 Shanghai
17 San Francisco
18 Berlin
19 Tokyo
20 Los Angeles
21 Zürich
22 Beijing
23 Washington, D.C.
24 Bangkok
25 Moscow
26 Hong Kong
27 Miami
28 Sydney
29 Geneva
30 Boston
31 Singapore
32 Istanbul