When I moved to Austin in 1974 the population of Travis County was 250,000. Both businesses and the local cultural scene were owned and operated by native Texans. Most of Austin today is corporately owned and managed by folks from outside the state of Texas. It matters.
It was the out-of-state Democrats, like former mayor Adler that told people to stay home during the holidays during COVID while vacationing in Cabo, that changed Austin. Austin changed from a local tech startup scene with a few big companies to being a satellite office for many companies and costs skyrocketed. Austin always pushed against transportation in and out of the city and around the city (no real loop), which pushed prices up in the city and helped create the current traffic nightmare. Cap Metro is terribly ran and the previous CEO walked off with a golden parachute and they raised the property tax rate to create a plan for a dinky light rail line that is barely faster than a bus and doesn't connect with the existing rail line or the airport for at least a decade. Austin was also pretty safe in comparison to other Texas cities up to 2021 when murders doubled and property crime became common and the DA does little on property crime.
