I live in a very rural area in east central MS. I've got an old farmhouse and a few hundred acres around it and my family is from here, they're mostly deceased now though. Three years ago I found myself going through a divorce and my little piece of heaven is now getting a bit lonely. Peace and solitude is great, but too much of it can get to be "too much" With that in mind I bought a lot I'm planning to build on on Perdido Key outside Pensacola FL a year or so back, love the NW FL area. I'll always keep my MS place, but want a second home in a place with more to do. I've got friends around my FL place and I'm a couple hundred feet from the prettiest beach you ever saw so those were big factors. There's a lot of activity going on in the panhandle. I don't know about jobs in the area (I commute to work as a pilot), but the area seems to be booming especially in the 30A area between Destin and Panama City so that should make job hunting easier. It is definitely more "southern" than the other parts of Florida. Tampa is nice from what I've seen of it though I suspect the crime is going to be more as it's a bigger city than anything in the panhandle. My picking of the perdido key area had a lot to do with me being close to an airport that my company flies into so I can hitch a ride to work when it's time.

I recently drove through Dallas coming back from a prairie dog hunt, parts are OK as you get outside the city to the north and west, but overall it isn't a place I'd want to live. It seemed like every place I stopped was filled with hispanics sporting tattoos from head to toe. I found myself trying to figure out what mexican drug gang they belonged to. Not the type of people I want living anywhere near me.

Austin is a lot nicer than Dallas in my mind. I fly through there every now and then and have roamed the downtown quite a bit. The music scene is great there on 6th st as mentioned but I'm not sure I'd pick a place to live based on that. You can find a lively music scene anywhere along the coast from Louisiana to Florida in all the beach towns. I have heard from a lot of people that Austin's traffic is terrible and housing prices are high.

How much crime in an area is an issue that's generally easy to figure out, just look at the demographics of the area. High numbers of blacks and hispanics are going to mean high crime. With that in mind, stay away from those areas and you'll be OK. Dallas has high numbers of both so I would expect pretty high crime. With Austin I'd imagine it's kind of pocketed. Along the FL panhandle some cities like Panama City have areas with big black populations therefore high crime. It's usually isolated though, stay away from those areas and the crime should be low.

I will say that I think the woman situation is good in the FL panhandle. It seems to be a destination place to move for 30-40 year old women coming off a divorce. Chics like the beach and most secretly dream of living near one someday. When they go through a divorce many will use that see that life changing event as an opportunity to move where they've always wanted to live.

Good luck with your search