Austin

On Thursday, November 18, I waited outside my apartment at 4 a.m. for my Lyft to arrive and take me to Love Field for a 6 a.m. flight. I had only managed about 3 hours of sleep the night before, but I felt giddy!

I was headed to Austin.

My first trip to Austin which involved more than crawling along I-35 in traffic as we passed the city on our way from Oklahoma to San Antonio was for a conference in 2006. On that trip, we visited mostly chain restaurants outside of the downtown area. We did make it to 6th Street one night, but again, our one bar stop was at Coyote Ugly, a national chain. Suffice it to say, I didn’t really experience Austin on that trip.

Two years later, I was living in Dallas and planning a business trip to Austin. As my plans were coming together, my new (at that time) friend, Paula, an Austinite, invited me to hang out with her when I arrived. She promised to show me her “funky Austin.” My immediate reaction to her comment was that someone I had only had a few conversations with understood me better than people who had known me for years!

It was on that trip that I fell in love with the Texas Capital City.

That love deepened when my friend Stewart moved to Austin in 2011. Stewart’s first professional career was in hospitality, so he set about discovering and sharing all the nuances of Austin that has made it the fastest growing large metropolitan city in the United States, according to statistics released in May 2021 by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Since 2010, the Austin metropolitan area has experienced a 34% population growth, averaging 184 new residents every day.

It’s no surprise that major companies are flocking from Silicon Valley to central Texas. Texas has lower taxes, fewer business regulations, lower cost of living (for now), and more open space to expand. Of course, the result of the explosive population growth means the cost of living is increasing. Housing costs have skyrocketed during the time I’ve lived in Texas.

I saw several t-shirts in Austin on this trip that said, “Don’t California my Texas.” Mostly the people I’ve heard complaining about the explosive population growth are people who have moved to Austin themselves or had family members move to the city. They are complaining about new people relocating to Austin while ignoring the fact that they have also contributed the rising costs.

Austin is far from perfect. Austin and Travis County infrastructure have not kept pace with the growth. The homeless population is escalating. The natural resources that have made Austin attractive are being consumed. And the traffic.

But the Austin that I fell in love with in 2008 still exists. Every trip I make to the city is better than the last. It holds so many memories of times spent with people I love while we listened to live music, experimented with new cocktail creations at speakeasys, consumed amazing food at the local restaurants and food trucks, strolled through the streets photographing the murals, peering over the Congress Avenue bridge to watch the kayakers and bats, and just enjoying being in each other’s company.

That last thought has caused me to ponder – is it the place or the people that make the experience spectacular?

All that I know is that Austin holds both for me. For as long as I am able, I will return often to this city to spend time with these friends while we frequent old haunts and discover new ones.

#grateful4atx