Range Rovers, Bottle Service, and Plastic Surgery, Is Austin Changing?

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Originally Posted by Jennibc

How do "they" intentionally get into tech to diversify? We are not a centrally planned economy. Were there incentives given to technology companies to relocate here? I thought Motorola has been here since the late seventies.

To address the original question, when we moved here in '99 there seemed to be far more luxury vehicles on the road then than I see now. Because of the dotcom bubble then, there were all sorts of twenty and thirty somethings that were wealthy on paper, but within a year, their "fortunes" were wiped out. We left in 2001 and since our move back in January of this year, it seems much less pretentious than the last time. Or it could be I am old now, so I don't really care what's going on, consequently, I just don't notice.

No, we are not mother russia circa '52, but city governments do actively create/court business sectors in many ways....

For starters, if there was no one minding the store, we would have a chaotic scenario. Cities try to create the largest tax bases possible, even if they have to defer the same while sectors get started, or TIFF districts (tax-deferred tech/industrial/office parks) get seeded/started....no tax base means no city services, and the more companies contribute to the base, the less the homeowners will get hit with the same, and they get hit pretty hard in Austin as it is.

Austin has actively courted out-of-state tech companies via local chambers of commerce and city liaison groups, mostly from high-tax states such as California, much like Nevada has done, but on a far greater level. Venture cap groups have been courted to do business out here as well. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Austin has also greatly sold the city via PR memes, fluff or not, through the national media for years as well, per Q of L issues.

Someone very much is minding the store here, AND creating future scanarios/growth plans as we speak....and that's a very good thing.

A city without dreams, hopes, plans, or imagination, and organizations active in creating, smoothing, guiding, and generating growth wouldn't be worth a damn!

[hoffdano]

When I moved here in 1984 Austin already had Motorola, IBM, Tracor, Tandem, Fairchild, and Texas Instruments. There were other less well known software and hardware companies. Austin probably didn't have to do much to spawn this early tech economy. Tech companies in search of talent often come to cities with a large college engineering program.

The transformation was well underway.