[llamaorama]

Austin, because of the student culture and also because it is just a lot closer. According to Google, from the square its 32.1 miles to downtown Austin and 50.6 to central San Antonio. San Antonio feels even farther because the area around Schertz and Converse is also a speed trap and the traffic congestion around 1604 is beginning to rival anything in Austin. Also Kyle is effectively an Austin suburb and it's city limits actually abut San Marcos's. When the blanco river land starts to be more fully developed there will be a nearly continuous urban sprawl from Austin to San Marcos that breaks to untouched rural dramatically around the village of Hunter and the Heldenfelds plant, only to pick up in New Braunfels which at the county line becomes part of the San Antonio MSA.

Here's my weird subjective opinion:

San Antonio absolutely starts in New Braunfels. That's when the military-related credit union branches and local chain mexican restaurants start lining the interstate. Bexar County officially begins when every exit has a Bill Miller's BBQ location on it. The roads start having stodgy German family names like "Wurtzburger Parkway". Once you get to 1604 because of the hills its also possible to see some of the taller suburban office buildings in Stone Oak and near the airport as well, and even the Tower of the Americas if its not too hazy.

The dividing line is that place where you can waterski in a man-made lake pulled by cables. There you can see SM's embassy suites hotel in one direction and NB's cement factory(the bigger one) in the other.

If you go the other way on 35, the sprawl feels more like Austin with billboards advertising "CENTEX RANCHO TUSCANO AT LIME KILN CREEK HOMES STARTING IN THE 200s!!!!". Naturally the name implies these lovely new McMansions come with a beautiful smog-draped vista of one of the world's largest cement manufacturing facilities. The cars on the road have honor student bumper stickers and "Cupertino Ford" plate frames. Not too far past Buda after the SH45 stack interchange the top of the Austonian is actually visible on the horizon.