Austin Has No Limits

To be clear, meanwhile, we are talking about cities specifically here, not metro areas that encompass the suburbs. The Census Bureau is specifically analyzing growth patterns in “incorporated places,” the legal entities you and I know as cities, towns, and so forth.

Source: U.S. urbanization: Big cities are booming.

I’ve heard plenty about the Austin boom including the suburbs as well, which I’m sure it is, but this data over the last decade and a half confirms that Austin itself is growing at a rate unmatched by any other U.S. urban city.

I love Austin. I’ve been in the city for 15 years and I am concerned about the growth from a sociological perspective. Austin is weird means something different to me than it did for someone who was in Austin in the 1970s, as will mean something different for those coming to the city today.

All that said, Austin has doubled in size every 20 years since it was founded, generally speaking, so I am a bit of an old man yelling at the birds to stay off my grass.