California cows drive techies to Austin

It may not seem plausible at first, but the cow population in California may be one of the leading reasons people are leaving the Bay Area to move to Austin.

In a story last year by CNN Money, Austin remains the king of U.S. cities for growth.

Since 2010, Austin’s population has risen by 100,000. Put another way: more people have moved to Austin over that time span than to San Francisco and Philadelphia — combined.

Let’s back up a bit. Texas has cows. We like to refer to them as “future steaks” and we take great pride in the various types of cattle that roam our fine lands. One thing you may not know is that California has cows as well. In fact, California has 5.15M cows compared with 11.8M in Texas.

Here is a surprising statistic.

The total amount of water needed to produce one pound of beef is 1,799 gallons of water. Call it 1,800 gallons for simplicity.

Your typical cow can produce 490 pounds of beef on average. This means that the great State of California has:

5.15M cows X 490 lbs. per cow = 2.5B lbs. of beef “on the hoof”

2.5B lbs. X 1.8K gallons of water = 4.5T gallons of water have been used

The actual number is 4,542,300,000,000 gallons of water to make the meat that makes the cheese that Californians love and the steak that their doctors frown upon (save Dr. Atkins).

California needs 11T gallons to get out of their current drought. Let’s leave out the humble almond as it needs a startling 1.1 gallons of water to make it.

Since California agriculture will not stop producing cows, homeowners are now dealing with a huge water shortage. Mandatory limits on sprinklers mean that the California desert will once again touch the Pacific coastline.

Techies in the Bay Area are fed up with it because what is the use in having a multi-million dollar efficiency if you can’t look at green grass? So they up and move to the fastest growing town in the U.S. The one with the X-Games and SXSWi.

Texas received a jaw-dropping 35T gallons of water in May of 2015 thanks to rain.

This is one case where the grass is actually greener on the other side.

The onslaught of techies will continue their move to Austin. We have plenty of sub $1M homes for them to buy with no state income tax so they can save the extra 12% for things like great Texas BBQ.

All thanks to the California cow.

Thanks Bessie.