Perennially hip Austin flaunts its best features
Perennially hip Austin flaunts its best features https://c-suitenetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/perennially-hip-austin-flaunts-its-best-features.jpg 657 404 C-Suite Network https://c-suitenetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/perennially-hip-austin-flaunts-its-best-features.jpg
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The Economy
Austin’s economy is officially growing at around 6% a year; in 2016, Forbes named it ‘America’s fastest growing city’. Like most of Texas, it missed both the mid-2000s real estate boom and the accompanying bust, while tech firms went right on expanding.
There’s a steady supply of new land for homebuilding, and as of early 2017 the city had nearly two-million-feet of new office space under construction. One result: an early 2017 unemployment rate of just 3.4%.
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Music
Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) is a startling collision of music, film, interactive media, culture and business. The vibe is less stereotypical Texan than black t-shirt emo; an attendee might manage projects for a digital agency by day and play in a punk band by night.
The busy music scene began around non-conformist country musicians like Willie Nelson – central to Austin’s ‘weird’ self-image – then grew to encompass folk, blues, jazz, bluegrass, tejano, zydeco, new wave, punk, and indie genres.
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The creative class
For many observers, Austin is the ‘creative class’ theory in action. 15 years ago urbanist Richard Florida argued that growth-hungry cities should work at attracting smart, creative people, as ‘weirdness, eccentricity and difference’ were essential to a city fostering technological innovation.
Austin has all that, as well as one of the US’s highest shares of…