[URBAN NOTE] "How Austin Helps So Many Young Creatives Find Themselves"

[rfmcdonald]

I know plenty of Texans. I even know an ex-Austinite. I would be interesting in their opinion on Tracy Dahlby's National Geographic article.

[H]ere’s the thing about Austin, and this is where my miscast car salesman comes in. The city prides itself on its high-tech start-ups, its music and films (touted in two worldwide famous festivals each year, “South By Southwest” and “Austin City Limits”), its flamboyant politics (it’s the state capital), and its institutions of higher learning (of which is UT-Austin is the biggest).

But the city’s main industry, its 24/7 preoccupation is, for many, finding that thing inside you that makes you you.

That sounds corny, I know. Yet every year Austin, the country’s fastest-growing metropolitan area (population two million), nets some 40,000 newcomers looking for something they couldn’t find elsewhere. Sure, for some, it’s a place where there’s job, a tidy suburban home and soccer and Chuck E. Cheese’s for the kids.

Yet a high percentage of “creative types” do gravitate to Austin to become writers of songs and books, makers of artisanal cheeses or furniture, brewers of craft beer, or to start a gaming or graphic arts studio.

In four decades, Austin has grown from a sleepy university town with a state capitol to become a center of digital innovation, a place where artisan-hearted people share, in the words of veteran music journalist Joe Nick Patoski, “the geekiest, old-fashioned” dedication to craft.