You haven’t seen the landscape around Austin, obviously. It is in the edge of the Texas Hill country and is actually quite lovely. But ruined by the people who live in Austin
Yes, they did ruin it-When I was in college, we used to drive to Austin from home in near-West Texas on a Saturday, just to go to Hippie Hollow/Barton Springs to see the mostly-naked people smoking weed and sunning by the creek-we’d drink beer with them, maybe smoke some weed, find a neat place to get some barbecue ribs, go home. It was a cool, weird place, but it has been ruined for years-I won’t even go there to see friends any more...