Pound for pound, does Austin outcompete other sunbelt cities in terms of wealth? (map, place)
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People in this thread, if you are going to argue against Austin, at least do it in relation to what OP asked. If you are going to argue about Austin having a smaller GDP or less total wealth or something of that nature, post that in another thread or make your own.
Austin is way up of the rest of the cities in Texas as far as per capita high-income salaries are concerned. If you’re going to talk about some thing that isn’t based on for capital, it doesn’t affect the OP‘s post.
That's kinda silly. That question is not up for discussion. All you would have to do is look it up and answer in one post, end of thread.
If you don't like discussion why are you on City Data?
Further, the title of the thread is does Austin out-compete other sunbelt cities in terms of wealth. Per capita income is not synonymous with wealth. That's totally limited reasoning... oh let me start a thread about which has the higher pr capita income when you can just look up that one Stat? Really closed minded way of looking at things.
If discussion bothers you so much, then again you are in the wrong place.
Last edited by atadytic19; 10-01-2022 at 12:42 PM..
Well lookie here, the OP is furthering the discussion,
I wonder if I can respond without offending the Austin contingent from Houston.
Quote:
Originally Posted by meep
This is pretty insightful post. No real flaw in your reasoning, maybe super pro Austin people will have rebuttal… but appears valid and sound.
However, I will say Houston, Dallas and Atlanta had the disadvantage to start out with poorer communities. I feel like the new tech cities like Austin and Seattle were really small, but only grew with talented and well adjusted communities. I would say an Austin of 4.5 million will pass Atlanta. Then pass Houston and Dallas with a little more people as far as incomes go.
Let’s just be blunt, Austin will never have to account for large swathes of poorer minority communities the way the others due to its place in history. Other southern cities attracted more humble communities due to relative affordability, that’s unavailable in Austin.
I say this as relatively pro black poster who wants Atlanta to win everything. I’m objective enough to see where Austin excels.
I agree with you that Austin is new but I wouldn't put Seattle in the same boat. I tend to use 1950 as a bench mark for seasoned large metros.
By 1950 Seattle had a million people.
Atlanta and Houston were just about at a million.
DC was about 1.4 M and Minneapolis was about 1.3M
Dallas and Fort Worth were separate metros back then. Dallas had about 600k and FW about 300k.
Miami and Denver was about 600k, San Antonio and Nashville about 500k.
Charlotte and Austin were about 150k. So both I consider brand spanking new, while Seattle and Atlanta were large cities before the federal highway system.
As far as large swathes of poor minorities... never say never. I agree that it doesn't have them now, but Austin didn't cross a million people until about 20 years ago. The others crossed that mark over 70 years ago. Give it another few decades and we will see. Austin went from just a State Capital, to College Town to Tech Hub all 3 require an educated populace and generally rank well on per capita income stats. Tech is the new big thing but it is being increasingly less and less localized.
Places like SF and Seattle were both major hib cities before they got a healthy rebound from tech so apart from beng Tech hubs that's where the similarities end for me.
I used Detroit earlier as an alternative path that Austin may follow. I want to clarify that I love Detroit and I hope people don't look at it as always being a negative punchline. With Detroit the Automobile industry didn't die, if anything it got stronger. Problem for Detroit the wealth didn't stay localized. That's why I asked what Austin has in place to keep the engines running once the tech dollars spreads a little more.
Detroit today has a much more well rounded economy and despite it loosing stature it is still one of our heavy weigh cities.
You mention Austin passing Atlanta in terms of income by the time Austin gets to about 4.5 Million but I don't think the tech steam will get it there.
Phoenix, Riverside, Atlanta and DFW are the only non coastal metros to get that big.
Atlanta and DFW are probably both top 5 for highly diversified economies and they make up for their non coastal locations by still being major logistics players being both crossed with railways and both having super major airport hubs.
Riverside is basically a Suburb of LA so coastal by proxy and Phoenix is a suburb of California.
Unless Austin forms a really really long metro with San Antonio (picking up a lot of lower income residents in the process) I don't see it crossing 4.5M in your lifetime. The Chinese and Indians are going to own us in Tech.
Well lookie here, the OP is furthering the discussion,
I wonder if I can respond without offending the Austin contingent from Houston.
I agree with you that Austin is new but I wouldn't put Seattle in the same boat. I tend to use 1950 as a bench mark for seasoned large metros.
By 1950 Seattle had a million people.
Atlanta and Houston were just about at a million.
DC was about 1.4 M and Minneapolis was about 1.3M
Dallas and Fort Worth were separate metros back then. Dallas had about 600k and FW about 300k.
Miami and Denver was about 600k, San Antonio and Nashville about 500k.
Charlotte and Austin were about 150k. So both I consider brand spanking new, while Seattle and Atlanta were large cities before the federal highway system.
As far as large swathes of poor minorities... never say never. I agree that it doesn't have them now, but Austin didn't cross a million people until about 20 years ago. The others crossed that mark over 70 years ago. Give it another few decades and we will see. Austin went from just a State Capital, to College Town to Tech Hub all 3 require an educated populace and generally rank well on per capita income stats. Tech is the new big thing but it is being increasingly less and less localized.
Places like SF and Seattle were both major hib cities before they got a healthy rebound from tech so apart from beng Tech hubs that's where the similarities end for me.
I used Detroit earlier as an alternative path that Austin may follow. I want to clarify that I love Detroit and I hope people don't look at it as always being a negative punchline. With Detroit the Automobile industry didn't die, if anything it got stronger. Problem for Detroit the wealth didn't stay localized. That's why I asked what Austin has in place to keep the engines running once the tech dollars spreads a little more.
Detroit today has a much more well rounded economy and despite it loosing stature it is still one of our heavy weigh cities.
You mention Austin passing Atlanta in terms of income by the time Austin gets to about 4.5 Million but I don't think the tech steam will get it there.
Phoenix, Riverside, Atlanta and DFW are the only non coastal metros to get that big.
Atlanta and DFW are probably both top 5 for highly diversified economies and they make up for their non coastal locations by still being major logistics players being both crossed with railways and both having super major airport hubs.
Riverside is basically a Suburb of LA so coastal by proxy and Phoenix is a suburb of California.
Unless Austin forms a really really long metro with San Antonio (picking up a lot of lower income residents in the process) I don't see it crossing 4.5M in your lifetime. The Chinese and Indians are going to own us in Tech.
I agree with 80% of your posts, but I will say there is no reason to assume Austin will grow those large ( in the high several hundred thousands to 1 million) disenfranchised like an Atlanta or others. It benefits from a pace where migration patterns just don’t lend credence to the idea that poor ppl from any coast are fleeing there, rich Californians tend to go there.
Also, add to the fact that Texas has two much larger cheaper metro areas in Houston and Dallas, and similar sized one in SA, why would poor minorities migrate to a more expensive, much whiter Austin? Im black. Anecdotally, when someone in the circles I move in mentions Texas, it’s usually Houston… and Dallas to a lesser extent. Most minorities I know look at Austin as southern Boston in a way lol
And before someone tries to paint me as saying minorities make cities poor for some reason intrinsic to the communities, that’s clearly not how that should be read. Im just being honest about income and educational disparities between groups, a statistical fact that impacts pound for pound income in the compared cities.
I’ll leave it to the Austin folks to actually make a defense of it. Just givin my quick observation on that point.
Austin's high COL is very, very overrated. All statistics show that the COL is on par with the like of Atlanta or Nashville, basically places that saw prices skyrocketed as more people move in, but still cheap compare to CA or Northeast (except maybe Philly, but nice areas around Philly is not cheap either).
Sure, it is more expensive than DFW or Houston, but overall it is not to the point of unaffordable, not even close.
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Bottom line for Austin - yes, economy is booming, people keep moving there, it definitely has wealth, and is definitely on par with DFW or Houston or Atlanta when you do per capita calculation. ATX will be behind if you use raw number, of course, as Houston/DFW/Atlanta are simply much larger. What Austin doesn't quite have is actually a large swath of areas with relatively low income population - be it southern Atlanta metro or southern Dallas (or even some of the older suburbs) or Houston outside of I-10 west corridor (and part of Heights) and of course suburbs like Woodlands/southern Katy/Sugar Land/part of Clear Lake area. The last part does make Austin seems wealthier overall.
(Yes, I know about East Austin or areas near 183/Lamar...those areas are paradise compare to the worst part of Houston/Atlanta/DFW)
Eh. I disagree. Austin is considerably more expensive than Atlanta, both in the core areas and also the suburbs. I've lived in both. DFW is also slightly more expensive than Atlanta as well.
I agree with 80% of your posts, but I will say there is no reason to assume Austin will grow those large ( in the high several hundred thousands to 1 million) disenfranchised like an Atlanta or others. It benefits from a pace where migration patterns just don’t lend credence to the idea that poor ppl from any coast are fleeing there, rich Californians tend to go there.
Also, add to the fact that Texas has two much larger cheaper metro areas in Houston and Dallas, and similar sized one in SA, why would poor minorities migrate to a more expensive, much whiter Austin? Im black. Anecdotally, when someone in the circles I move in mentions Texas, it’s usually Houston… and Dallas to a lesser extent. Most minorities I know look at Austin as southern Boston in a way lol
And before someone tries to paint me as saying minorities make cities poor for some reason intrinsic to the communities, that’s clearly not how that should be read. Im just being honest about income and educational disparities between groups, a statistical fact that impacts pound for pound income in the compared cities.
I’ll leave it to the Austin folks to actually make a defense of it. Just givin my quick observation on that point.
I understand what you are saying, but cities don't start poor and then more people move in.
Cities go through boom and bust cycles and people move around leaving certain areas depreciating and blighted.
Take Detroit for example. It wasn't a poor city during its boom. It was competing with LA during its rise.
The wealthy subsequently moved to the burbs and the city's value plummeted.
Atlanta, Houston, Dallas etc didn't build for the poor. They were all where Austin was before, but they have since gone through bust cycles that result in poverty, they have all greatly expanded their boundaries picking up rural areas, the wealthy moved out of the inner city to Newer suburbs, generational poverty also comes into play. Going all the way back to slavery.
My point is you can't say Austin will never have large swarths of poor people. Tech may no longer be good to Austin in coming decades, per capita incomes will decrease while general population increases, the wealthy may be tired of current areas and move to newly developed areas of the city. So is not a matter of Austin is currently too expensive for low income individuals.
The problem with explosive growth is it results in explosive building. Guess what happens to all these apartments in 15-20 years? They get old and people don't want to pay prime dollar for outdated apartments when there have been countless new ones built since.
Also, there is also the reverse. Inner city areas that have been really delapidated get new life through gentrification. If someone had told me 20 years ago that the 3rd ward area of Houston would be seeing new life I would have laughed at the thought.
No one knows what these cities will look like in the future. Never say never.
Austin actually has amazing minority growth, it's only shielded from the massive growth because it has a strong and growing White base. White folk grew 20.7% from 2010-2020. Black folk grew 25.7%, Hispanic grew 35.2% and Asian's grew a whopping 97%.
I wouldn't be surprised if 2030 showed Austin to be 44% White, 31% Hispanic, 10% Asian and 6% Black and 8% other, largely Mixed race.
Sure...using San Jose excluding the fact that to most people except MSA geeks, it's basically part of SF Bay Area.
The best comparison if you insist on West Coast to ATX is actually Portland OR anyway - which ATX has a leg up as Portland doesn't have a state flagship university in the smack middle of the city. Similar metro size, similar starts as "tech center" (both are semiconductor manufacturing center) only to diverge somewhat as ATX now has numerous regional office along with HQs like Tesla and Oracle, while Portland, well, they remained where Austin was about 10 years ago or so before the boom.
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Something I'm thinking about though - for the OP which metro did Seattle exactly leapfrog anyway? The metro area itself is always #3 after LA and SF, and ahead of (but close to) San Diego. Then the OP starts thinking Austin will somehow climb ahead of 4 different metro areas (Houston, DFW, Atlanta, Miami) that are literally "Tier 2" (or Tier 1.5) metro in the entire country (Tier 1 = NYC, LA, Chicago)?
Compare ATX to Raleigh...to Charlotte...yes. To Houston/DFW/Atlanta/Miami? Those are a different beast!
Yea, Portland is definitely the best comp for Austin on the west coast.. Portland has traditionally been a bit bigger but stagnated a little (at least, relatively) in the 2010s so the two cities have very similar numbers now. (I think Austin even slightly passed them in GDP?) Austin is also getting in range of Denver, though still smaller.
I think, economically, Austin already passed San Antonio, Tampa and Orlando. It's coming for Charlotte. I don't think it would ever pass DFW/Houston/Atlanta/Miami because those cities are just too big and growing quickly themselves.
Eh. I disagree. Austin is considerably more expensive than Atlanta, both in the core areas and also the suburbs. I've lived in both. DFW is also slightly more expensive than Atlanta as well.
Maybe when you lived here, but Atlanta had the highest inflation after COVID. The rents of $1000 a month and $200,000 houses are now replaced by $2500 a month and $500,000 houses.
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