[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Not to beat a dead horse, but why is Austin white-hot and Louisville totally anonymous?

They have similar scenery, probably slight edge to Louisville. Both are in cheaper, low tax, business friendly states. Both are relatively liberal outliers. Louisville has way better urbanism, Austin is the state capital and its university is better. Louisville has good summers, Austin has good winters.

Also, why is Birmingham stagnant? Too black? Because it's Alabama? Birmingham has nicer scenery and urbanism than Austin. Still a relatively liberal outlier in a deep-red business friendly state with low taxes and minimal regulation. I think I'd rather live in Mountain Brook (the fancy suburb of Birmingham) than in the fancy Austin hill neighborhoods.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Austin got a head start on becoming a tech startup hub after the Bay Area boomed in the aughts. I believe Austin is third behind the Bay Area and NYC in the amount of venture capital flowing to companies based there. Around the same time that startups started to get hot there, big tech decided to make Austin the back office to Silicon Valley. Apple, Facebook, and Google all established a large presence there within the past decade.

Well, I guess I'll say it again...

$$$$$$$$


Austin:

• Big oil $$$$ from Houston and tech $$$$ from Dallas is #1 reason
• "Business-friendly" state
• Long a "tech" location (IBM, Tracor, Texas Instruments, Dell all between the 1970s and 1980s; Samsung and Apple in the 90s)
• Attractive location for young workers (college town... UT main there and TAMU nearby, indie vibe, liberal for Texas, cheap 20 years ago, natural surroundings)

Austin has been "tech" since the 1960s and 70s when IBM and Texas Instruments established operations there to build typewriters, word processors, PCs, microprocessors, and semiconductors. Add in big Houston and Dallas money over the past 40 years, and there ya go.