Having lived in Austin for decades now, I believe that, unfortunately, articles like this one have turned Austin into the equivalent of a meme stock.
From basically the early 90s to somewhere 2015ish or so, by far Austin's biggest draw was its affordability. Austin had a lot of desirable amenities: a rising industry in tech, the largest university in the state and an educated population to boot, geography that invites lots of things to do outside with its several lakes and Hill Country.
However, and I say this as somebody who has loved Austin enough to live here the majority of my life, Austin has always underperformed major cities in nearly every category. Our cultural institutions (theater, music, dance, museums, etc.) are all second-rate compared to major coastal cities. We just got our first major sports team with an MLS team. Our infrastructure, especially around transportation, is notoriously bad. The one thing I really agreed with in the article relates to our architecture - it really does generally suck, especially compared to places like SF or NY or Boston or Chicago.
But, since it was so much more affordable than these other cities, on balance it was worth it, and then some. Now, though, that affordability is pretty much gone (dinky suburban houses easily top a million bucks), and with the influx of folks like Musk and Joe Rogan you just feel like the hype around this town has far outstripped its reality. So you have folks writing missives like this about the elusive "soul" of Austin, where I have a feeling they're trying to convince themselves it's as "cool" as their dreams.
Also, there are some glaring inaccuracies in this article:
> A friend tells me that downtown Austin doesn’t have any building restrictions, which means there’s going to be an explosion of high-rise growth
That's BS, as Austin famously has "Capitol View Corridors" that greatly restrict height on tons of downtown lots.
From basically the early 90s to somewhere 2015ish or so, by far Austin's biggest draw was its affordability. Austin had a lot of desirable amenities: a rising industry in tech, the largest university in the state and an educated population to boot, geography that invites lots of things to do outside with its several lakes and Hill Country.
However, and I say this as somebody who has loved Austin enough to live here the majority of my life, Austin has always underperformed major cities in nearly every category. Our cultural institutions (theater, music, dance, museums, etc.) are all second-rate compared to major coastal cities. We just got our first major sports team with an MLS team. Our infrastructure, especially around transportation, is notoriously bad. The one thing I really agreed with in the article relates to our architecture - it really does generally suck, especially compared to places like SF or NY or Boston or Chicago.
But, since it was so much more affordable than these other cities, on balance it was worth it, and then some. Now, though, that affordability is pretty much gone (dinky suburban houses easily top a million bucks), and with the influx of folks like Musk and Joe Rogan you just feel like the hype around this town has far outstripped its reality. So you have folks writing missives like this about the elusive "soul" of Austin, where I have a feeling they're trying to convince themselves it's as "cool" as their dreams.
Also, there are some glaring inaccuracies in this article:
> A friend tells me that downtown Austin doesn’t have any building restrictions, which means there’s going to be an explosion of high-rise growth
That's BS, as Austin famously has "Capitol View Corridors" that greatly restrict height on tons of downtown lots.