After I made plans to move to Madison, I kept hearing how much Madison was like Austin. For those of you not from not familiar with the great city on Lady Bird Lake, you're missing out. All the live music you can handle, more bars than some small european countries, killer barbecue and texmex, texas university, the Texas State Capitol; you get the idea. And that doesn't even include the lakes, or the hiking, or the hill country just outside of town. So needless to say, Madison had a lot to live up to before I even got here.
Both have great reputations as judged by people who spend a lot more time writing about these things than I do (GQ, Mens Health and Esquire), but I wanted to at least take a stab at it on my own after the greatness Madison has shown me so far.
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| Without further ado - Texans vs. Sconnies |
Round 1: State Capitol and <more> liberal outpost than the rest of the state.
Both of these cities have there fair share of liberals (not passing judgement - just saying). But Madison? Holy hell. Blows Austin out of the water. Austin-ites don't hold a candle to some of the people up here I have met. But when compared to the rest of the state, Austin/Texas and Madison/Wisconsin is pretty close.
Don't forget though, the Texas Capitol is taller. Those 24 feet make a difference.
Round 1: Austin
Round 2: College campus
Obviously they both meet this one. But I definitely prefer UW to texas (the university, not the state).
Round 2: Madison
Round 3: Raunchy, reckless strips of bars (aka State Street vs. 6th Street)
State Street is great. A good number of good to solid bars. Pretty solid crowd. But nothing that compares to maggie mae's, blind pig, chugging monkey, barcelona, molotovs, pete's piano, dizzy rooster, thirsty nickel, logan's, J blacks, Annies and many many many more that I can't remember to list here (feel free to send me more names - I know I left a ton out).
Madison has a good number of decent bars that I've seen, and I'll be the first to admit I'm not going out and destroying bars like we used to in Austin - but I don't see a bar here that would escalate to the point where a.) my old roommate Mike would get kicked out of the bar for stealing champagne at 12:15, b.) my friend Kim Jong would end up passing out in a car, C.) my buddy DJ would pass out in the hotel hallway and be awoken by security and D.) JB would convince a female to drive him to a different city the next morning TWO HOURS AWAY just so he would stay at the bar longer. All in the same night.
This one isn't even a contest.
Round 3: Austin
Round 4: Sheer entertainment value
Austin in a landslide. SXSW, ACL, any number of bars with live music on every single night of the week - it's not even close.
Caveat - I haven't and won't be here during the summer, when apparently Madison has killer weather (think 75-80 every day) and there is a lot more to do outdoors. But I can only judge what I've seen so far.
Round 4: Austin
Round 5: Texas hill country vs. Lake Monona and Lake Mendota
Austin's Case - here, here, here, here and here.
Madison's case - here, here and here (pending summer here)
Round 5: Austin
All in all, both are great cities and I am sure I may have a different opinion if I was in Madison through the summer, but unfortanately I have plans overseas. I would compare Madison to Austin's little brother for now - good effort and definitely some good things to offer, but not quite on the same level.
If I come back for school and do a summer here, I may change my mind. But for now, I'll continue to prefer Austin.
Sorry, Madison. Don't be mad.
Hope you enjoyed it,
J
(sorry for the half ass effort. I'll do better next time)
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