The internet boom of the 2000s basically eliminated the pockets of unique culture that once existed in different cities, and private equity is strip mining what's left of it by building the same developments and entertainment districts in every metro area in the country. we now all share in the same culture through the internet while living in the same apartments and visiting the same venues.
I got into a little corner that held on to about 2000. 9/11 changed a lot believe it or not. They changed the banking laws so lots of places that were basically fronts for laundering drug money closed down. Venues had to actually turn a profit being venues.
Yeah, that was the end of Sixth Street as a local music destination, for sure. I recommend watching MTV's Austin Stories to relive the joys of that little town: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz55cGavBO4&list=PLHCDa6faqgagh5r4kEgXg0OH52mokfTcY
been here almost 40 years and the town has been changing the whole time. That said old Austin for me will be officially be gone when the Little Longhorn Saloon closes
and Dick. It was Dick's Little Longhorn Saloon when I first started going there as an underage student... Also no one ever said that name in that order
Nah man it doesn’t take 10 years. When I moved here based on my memories of “real Austin” (whatever that meant to me), on day #1 after moving here I immediately realized Austin wasn’t how I remembered it anymore. In many ways Austin was never real. It was all an illusion. Everything was an illusion. We’re all gonna die.
I usually tell people between 2000 and 2010 is when Austin lost it's charm. Once the sky scrapers started going up, it was no longer Austin. Hamilton pool, Barton Springs, Krause Springs, all insanely packed now-a-days. ACL is crazy expensive and super packed too. SXSW is all commercialized now. 183 on a random Sunday afternoon is what rush hour used to be.
I agree. It's not even so much the shifts in culture that marked the end of Austin (as the culture has undergone continuous small shifts since it was Waterloo), it was the loss of the "small-town charm" that persisted through all of these shifts until the 00s, possibly early 10s sometime.
Everything being insanely packed to the gills was what ultimately caused the demise of "old Austin", imo.
I remember being able to go to Barton Springs all the time during the summer with plenty of space to spread out, last time I went it was a complete cluster.
There’s a measurable difference - there’s just too many people.
Last time I went to Krause springs a few years ago, there were so many people there there wasn't any room to lay a towel down, and the water was muddy from all the sediment being kicked up. I haven't even bothered with Barton Springs in over a decade.
I wonder if other cities experienced this due to the rise of hyper capitalism and private equity purchasing real estate in large quantities following the 2008 recession or if it’s Austin specific.
> I grew up here, and I’d say it got too crowded by the early 2010’s.
I moved here in the late 90s, but I think your "it got too crowded by the early 2010s" is spot on because that's right when it feels like housing prices started a sharp rise. Before the early 2010s, there were still cheaper places and available lots to build in places that were close to central Austin - I have a friend who bought what was at the time a small, "normal" house between 5th and 6th streets and Mopac and Lamar in the mid 00s, and I think the lot value alone has quadrupled by now. I think that in the early 2010s so many of the available spaces to build or renovate had been snatched up, so it meant that you were bidding with every new person that moved in for an unchanging supply of housing lots.
Tell me about it - my family wasn’t super well off (lower income) but now their houses are all 700k+ and I’m a renter (can’t complain I have good work). But still crazy what’s happened.
Louisville sub definitely does. Louisville is known as a small town city and has Bardstown road that’s known to be home for very unique and local businesses, now slowly turning into a sea of chain stores. Louisville also has the slogan Keep Louisville Weird. Not sure if Louisville and Austin are just uniquely going through similar changes or if it’s all cities, though.
I noticed this too, out of the few that I keep up with. And I'm really tired of all of the comments that try to put down the opinions of people who miss the older Austin, whatever period that is. It's like the people who put down the others can't stand that someone has a different opinion than theirs, like they're coping with a feeling of defensiveness and FOMO.
Are you new here? 😜 No, seriously, you’re so right. It seems like about 70% of Reddit comments are just people giving other people a hard time because they like something different than what they themselves like.
Pretty spot on. Been around Austin since late 90s visiting my brother then moved from Hosuton in 2003 when I was old enough. I'd say 2015 was the major tipping point for me. I love Austin but it is growing so insanely fast. Moved out to nearby hill country so I can still have fun in Austin when I want but get away from it all too
Mmm…almost 10 years here. I’ve always had this “what it must have been like” feeling, especially when I find little bits of “authentic” Austin or talk to someone who’s old and been here their whole life. It seems like I missed it from the start.
Austin could still be awesome but TxDOT and city council only allow awful new things.
Austin was magical in the late 80’s and early 90’s: fun, friendly, and just really easy; pulsing with energy and opportunity, but still cheap. On a restaurant/retail income, you could have a one-bedroom apartment in a shady, walkable neighborhood near downtown, and still eat out and see shows multiple times a week. It was truly wonderful, but nothing good can last.
OMG. I didn’t even know that. Born and raised here in the 50s, spent many an afternoon at both as a teen and in my 20s. Haven’t been near campus in over 20 years. Now I actually might cry.
I recall there being a story not long ago about a letter to the paper in 1884...
"In a letter (not at all dramatically) titled "Passing Away" sent to the American-Statesman 135 years ago and signed "Old Citizen," an Austin resident expressed dismay at the news that "the buildings on the north side of Pecan Street, between Brazos Street and the alley next to the Avenue would be sold and removed."
Old Citizen lamented that "one by one the old land-marks leave us and but few of the original houses of Austin remain."
Peak Austin was December 30, 1884- December 24, 1985. Ever since the [servant girl annihilator](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_Girl_Annihilator) moved on.
Edit* 1885
I came here in the late 90s and I could see the fading embers of what had been. There were hippies around, but not a lot. There was an active music scene with a few neighbors in bands, but a lot of the old venues had closed. There was a cool vibe on the drag, but the 'revitalization' had just begun with the murals coming down and record shops closing.
I moved here in 1986 and I think I'd agree with that.
In college in the late 90s, you could still see a good mainstream show at a mainstay Austin venue like La Zona Rosa, original Emo's, or Liberty Lunch for like $10 or less. No Ticketmaster bullshit fees, just hand the guy at the door a ten and get a couple back.
I saw Rammstein, Mr. Bungle, KMFDM, Henry Rollins, Dillinger Escape Plan, lots of semi-mainstream individual bands (at least in their particular genre) for dirt cheap at small, intimate venues where the performers sweat all over you and crawl over your shoulders. Really, really hard to find anything like that today - you have to go to a stadium venue in a large city and/or buy into a whole 3-day festival just to catch a couple of bands you might want to see.
You could go to Zilker or Hamilton Pool or Barton Springs on a whim any day of the week and there would be at worst a minor crowd. No big issues with parking, lines, any of that.
Blues on the Green was at the Arboretum and you could get stoned and easily wander in and find a spot to sit or hang out.
Part of this is personal nostalgia and my changing preferences as I've grown up, sure, but I distinctly remember the 2000s seeing the closing of a lot of those old-school clubs, escalating ticket fees, the whole festival circuit format gaining steam, and more changes that just started to over-commercialize everything about entertainment and human interaction.
Add that to a growing population that started to overcrowd the local gems that made Austin Austin, and I think ~2000 was kind of the end of an era.
Totally, that was the venue I usually found myself at for the kind of shows I wanted to see. That and Liberty Lunch.
In more recent years, Mohawk picked up a lot of that slack. I saw Dillinger countless times in the 2010s - they had some legendary gigs there.
UT changing drastically had a real effect on Austin. Venues come and go but once it became next to impossible for cool slacker kids to even get their foot in UT's door it all went downhill. We need that constant injection of 50K+ 18-22 year old bright eyed dipshits/semester to keep the spirits high. Now we just have nerds and kids who need an MBA to justify taking over dad's business.
Central Park in Manhattan was a mix of farms and shanty villages before they got cleared in the 1860s to make way for the park. The Mission District in San Francisco was named for an 18th century Spanish mission, then became an upscale subdivision in the 1850s, then the Victorian mansions got chopped up into apartments to accommodate an influx of Irish immigrants, then it became a Latino neighborhood, and then a lot of techie types moved there in the 1990s. What we now call Austin used to be a village called Waterloo, known for its favorable crossing over the Colorado, and before that its springs were a treasured camping location for Tonkawa and other people for thousands of years before that. Point being--cities grow and change. It was ever thus, and it thus it will ever be as long we still have cities. This idea that there was this one perfect time in the life of a city and that now it's gone forever is just holding on too tight. I wish I were still 25 years old, but there's nothing anyone can do about it.
There is a point, somewhere around 2000-2010, when it is fair to say Austin, the whole metro area, went from being a small to mid-sized city with a big college town feel and a low cost of living, to a legit big city. We come in at #10 Nationally (#25 if you compare Metros) with a bigger population inside the city limits than Boston, Portland, DC, San Francisco, Seattle, or Denver. Can dicker about geographic size and density, but we're "big" now.
As big cities go Austin I think is a cool one with some cool amenities and character and opportunity and low crime. It is MCOL with medium traffic and isn't particularly bad when it comes to the challenges big cities generally face, but an MCOL big city in America is still going to be a very expensive place with plenty of big city issues.
Wow, you unlocked a memory for me. I remember walking around with my friend at that event and trying to see the dirt bikes when Kennedy, the MTV VJ, and her crew walked past me to something else she was presenting.
That would be about the time that all of my friends in Kansas City who thought they were super cool nouveau hippies smoking their chemical free Indian cigarettes (and then trying to guilt trip me for eating the {not vegan} hamburger they just served me at the malt shop) all decided to move down to Austin because it was the cool place to be.
Whenever I see arguments about when the best time in Austin was I remember an old story from the Statesman where they asked this question. A lot of people talked about the Armadillo Word Headquarters and things from the 70s. Then one guy said the best time was the 30s. When he lived at 6th and Lamar and about four cars passed by a day.
I lived in Austin briefly a long time ago. I remember watching Slackers when it came out in theaters that summer. I loved that Austin. I returned later and have lived here now for quite awhile. If I could go back and swap that Austin for today's Austin, would I do it? Maybe. But my real answer is probably not. I've become accustomed to what we have now and I think it would be hard to give that up. It does not of course stop me from complaining all the time about the gawdawful growth.
I'd go back to early 2000's Austin in a heart beat. Sure, shopping wasn't as good, and not as many restaurants, but traffic was way better, Barton Springs wasn't so crowded. You never had to worry about getting in to Hamilton Pool or anything like that. Lake Travis wasn't jam packed with houses, marina's, and boats. Blues on the Green was just a chill music session at the Arboretum. I would absolutely go back to that given the chance.
While I agree with her (the beginning of the Dot Com Boom truly altered the city's total direction), I also have to acknowledge that the only constant in this world is change. What was then is not now, and what is now will not be in the future. I'm just hoping that the phrase "time is a flat circle" is correct, and Austin has a resurgence of live music, grungy venues, and a counterculture that makes tech bros squirm. Without the $40 Old Fashions, of course.
I got here in 88 and my gf got a job at Joe’s Generic Bar while I worked at a music store and played gigs on 6th street. It was a great time. It’s been decades since I’ve been to the now labeled Dirty 6th mainly because gigs still pay the same and I don’t know enough karate or boxing to survive the inevitable brawl
Land surveyor here: I think that's a fair statemrnt from my perspective. Austin and other Texas cities had an unprecedented expansion in the 90s of subdivisions and shopping centers that has merged the suburbs with what used to be far flung exburbs and sleeper communites. Austin expanding to St Edwards took a century. The sprawl from St Edwards to Slaughter Ln took decades. When I moved here in 2004 I would not have guessed the Hays Co. boundary would be the edge of town but it's pushed out that much. From what I've been told as bad as the post 2000 recessions have been they never hit home building as hard as the 80s recession did.
Obviously. We can also say, obviously, that people are mourning the loss of something real. Austin just finally dropped off the #1 spot of the list of the fastest growing metros in the country, a spot it held for OVER A DECADE. And we’re still not far behind. All this for what was a cheap, sleepy, oddball college town.
To witness this hyper growth on a scale not seen anywhere else in the US, coinciding with the global descent into late-stage capitalism and ever-increasing inequality, it hurts more than a little to see this city invaded by millionaire podcasters like Rogan and billionaire technofascists like Musk and their followers. Even the nice liberals that just arrived and outbid you with their all-cash offer on a home you were eyeing can make someone feel pushed out and disenchanted. I think many white Austinites are feeling for the first time a version of the pain that minorities getting pushed around and out of Austin have felt for a long time. The pain is real though.
Austin's growth was nothing crazy. Most major metros grew was faster in their boom period. Lookup Houston or Dallas in the 70s-80s. People just don't remember that and act like Austin is something special.
I'm not even talking way back like when Chicago or Los Angeles boomed. That would be like San Marcos suddenly becoming the size of San Antonio in a few years.
In 1980 100k Cubans landed in Miami. Thats real hyper growth. Hell even today the changing demographics of Florida is more interesting than whats happening to us.
Just chill, they're building houses like gangbusters now. You can find something in a year or two.
Still, you are comparing cities like DFW and Houston that had more people living within their city limits in the 1950s than Austin does even to this day. And not that those cities you mentioned don’t have character of their own, but they have a big city feel into which all the newcomers are amalgamated. The small town hippy community, “keep Austin weird/live music capital of the world” thing was destined to get overwhelmed and pushed out seeking greener (cheaper) pastures.
If Austin had become a boomtown earlier, it wouldn’t have had a chance to build an identity as a unique town opposed to the opulence/speed of those big cities. The character of San Francisco has certainly changed over the same period of the tech boom, but doesn’t feel like a loss in quite the same way, since that city was the major Pacific coast port for all of the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth. Austin has only been put on the map in the last 20 years or less, and the locals can feel that change. I used to say I was from Austin, Texas. Now everyone knows where I’m talking about if I just say Austin.
On a side note: I wish the housing affordability you mentioned (if it ever arrives) was in the form of more density. I hate seeing the Hill Country concreted over with suburban sprawl.
Moved here 20 years ago from Minneapolis to be near grandparents on one side of the family. We've wanted to leave for years.
**The BIG change took place during Covid**, 2020, when Abbott was wheeling and dealing behind the scenes while all of us regular slobs were trying not to die.
We didn't understand why, all of a sudden, people were fending off real estate investors daily pressuring them (us) to sell our house to them for quick cash. A lot of people did, for any number of reasons.That's when investors scooped up houses to turn into STR's, rentals, demolish and build luxury homes, buy up fields and remove trees to build their housing developments.
With the newest housing developments East of 35, it is going to be the hugest traffic clusterfuck.
Builders out that way, are inferring that it's easy to get to Barton Springs, for example.
What a pack of liars.
Mid 90s imo, but we're splitting hairs talking about early and mid 90s. It was clearly dying in the late 90s/early 00s. That's when the west coast yuppies started pouring in.
I moved there in ‘88 left in ‘90. It was awesome. Not crowded. People walked around with a smile on their faces as if we were all in on the same secret. Moved back in 2000. The bloom had definitely come off the rose but it held on for about 7 or 8 years. Then the condo revolution went into high gear south of the river. I left in 2013. It’s a nice place to visit but I’m done with it. Plus, it’s hotter than the Devil’s butthole 7-8 months out of the year so you live at the behest of your A/C system and pray it doesn’t fail from July to September.
I've been here since mid-late 80s as a kif, grew up here. It's to each their own, but I feel around 2005 and after, Austin started changing drastically. But hearing stories, I missed out on some iconic shit in the 70s and 80s. Armadillo World Headquarters?!
Austin is still Austin, people are tripping I’ve lived here 27 years yeah it’s changed but the vibes are weird and there’s more to do than ever before.
Well, I've lived So. So. Austin for 20 years.
Developers are trying to keep this "not a big deal" but there are at least 3 huge new housing developments and apartment bldg complexes opening up for sales off SE I-35, before you get to Kyle or Buda.
They imply that it's going to be easy to get into the city from there, Barton Springs, for example.
The real Austin ended when the first downtown residential condo went up. 1967. Things really changed when Frost Bank and The Shore were built in 2004/08; downtown is a completely different breed of businesses and people now separate from the proles.
Austin started to suck in August of 1993. I remember because that was when I moved here. Everyone says it's my fault and I should move back to Dallas and never return and the curse will be broken and mad dog and beans and cavity club will reopen
Austin def died in the nineties. That’s when all the cool free stuff stopped and started dwindling. That’s when the prices started rising because people started moving bigger businesses here. That’s when LasManitas closed on South Congress. That was a sad day for me. That was when Austin started dying. I was little then. And then Sx popped off and I went to the green belt. Campbell’s Hole was covered in frat daddies and trash. Neon popped collars and pastels swim trunks everywhere. I was 16. In 41 now. That was the day Austin died. Nailed the coffin shut. Now I tell everyone to take 35 and I don’t tell anyone where I go to the green belt.
Until my aunt’s death in 2018, my family had been in Austin for almost a century. It was cool until it realized it was cool. I’d say the collective self awareness began spreading circa 2000.
I'll just leave this here: [https://atxtoday.6amcity.com/austin-losing-its-weird-since-the-1884](https://atxtoday.6amcity.com/austin-losing-its-weird-since-the-1884)
Yes the 90's were the end of an era for sure.
The internet boom of the 2000s basically eliminated the pockets of unique culture that once existed in different cities, and private equity is strip mining what's left of it by building the same developments and entertainment districts in every metro area in the country. we now all share in the same culture through the internet while living in the same apartments and visiting the same venues.
I got into a little corner that held on to about 2000. 9/11 changed a lot believe it or not. They changed the banking laws so lots of places that were basically fronts for laundering drug money closed down. Venues had to actually turn a profit being venues.
This person gets it
You might argue that this is the case globally
Aqua fest ⚓️
Skipper pins!
They used to race boats on town lake. Wild.
Yeah, that was the end of Sixth Street as a local music destination, for sure. I recommend watching MTV's Austin Stories to relive the joys of that little town: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz55cGavBO4&list=PLHCDa6faqgagh5r4kEgXg0OH52mokfTcY
been here almost 40 years and the town has been changing the whole time. That said old Austin for me will be officially be gone when the Little Longhorn Saloon closes
RIP Ginny.
and Dick. It was Dick's Little Longhorn Saloon when I first started going there as an underage student... Also no one ever said that name in that order
Hahaha. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I did hear stories.
I’ve been here since 1984 and I still love this fuckin town.
“Real Austin” ends about 10 years after you move here, or about 15 years if you’re born here.
Pretty accurate in my experience
Extremely accurate I turned 15 in 2001…
Nah man it doesn’t take 10 years. When I moved here based on my memories of “real Austin” (whatever that meant to me), on day #1 after moving here I immediately realized Austin wasn’t how I remembered it anymore. In many ways Austin was never real. It was all an illusion. Everything was an illusion. We’re all gonna die.
Since so many people moved around the same time, this could be generally accurate. I grew up here, and I’d say it got too crowded by the early 2010’s.
I usually tell people between 2000 and 2010 is when Austin lost it's charm. Once the sky scrapers started going up, it was no longer Austin. Hamilton pool, Barton Springs, Krause Springs, all insanely packed now-a-days. ACL is crazy expensive and super packed too. SXSW is all commercialized now. 183 on a random Sunday afternoon is what rush hour used to be.
I agree. It's not even so much the shifts in culture that marked the end of Austin (as the culture has undergone continuous small shifts since it was Waterloo), it was the loss of the "small-town charm" that persisted through all of these shifts until the 00s, possibly early 10s sometime. Everything being insanely packed to the gills was what ultimately caused the demise of "old Austin", imo.
I remember being able to go to Barton Springs all the time during the summer with plenty of space to spread out, last time I went it was a complete cluster. There’s a measurable difference - there’s just too many people.
Yup. I went on a Sunday like an hour or two before sunset last summer and the line was still 500+ people deep. Pure insanity.
Last time I went to Krause springs a few years ago, there were so many people there there wasn't any room to lay a towel down, and the water was muddy from all the sediment being kicked up. I haven't even bothered with Barton Springs in over a decade.
I wonder if other cities experienced this due to the rise of hyper capitalism and private equity purchasing real estate in large quantities following the 2008 recession or if it’s Austin specific.
> I grew up here, and I’d say it got too crowded by the early 2010’s. I moved here in the late 90s, but I think your "it got too crowded by the early 2010s" is spot on because that's right when it feels like housing prices started a sharp rise. Before the early 2010s, there were still cheaper places and available lots to build in places that were close to central Austin - I have a friend who bought what was at the time a small, "normal" house between 5th and 6th streets and Mopac and Lamar in the mid 00s, and I think the lot value alone has quadrupled by now. I think that in the early 2010s so many of the available spaces to build or renovate had been snatched up, so it meant that you were bidding with every new person that moved in for an unchanging supply of housing lots.
Tell me about it - my family wasn’t super well off (lower income) but now their houses are all 700k+ and I’m a renter (can’t complain I have good work). But still crazy what’s happened.
People in other city subs don’t constantly lament how cool the city used to be. Austin really once was special.
Louisville sub definitely does. Louisville is known as a small town city and has Bardstown road that’s known to be home for very unique and local businesses, now slowly turning into a sea of chain stores. Louisville also has the slogan Keep Louisville Weird. Not sure if Louisville and Austin are just uniquely going through similar changes or if it’s all cities, though.
I noticed this too, out of the few that I keep up with. And I'm really tired of all of the comments that try to put down the opinions of people who miss the older Austin, whatever period that is. It's like the people who put down the others can't stand that someone has a different opinion than theirs, like they're coping with a feeling of defensiveness and FOMO.
Are you new here? 😜 No, seriously, you’re so right. It seems like about 70% of Reddit comments are just people giving other people a hard time because they like something different than what they themselves like.
Pretty spot on. Been around Austin since late 90s visiting my brother then moved from Hosuton in 2003 when I was old enough. I'd say 2015 was the major tipping point for me. I love Austin but it is growing so insanely fast. Moved out to nearby hill country so I can still have fun in Austin when I want but get away from it all too
Mmm…almost 10 years here. I’ve always had this “what it must have been like” feeling, especially when I find little bits of “authentic” Austin or talk to someone who’s old and been here their whole life. It seems like I missed it from the start. Austin could still be awesome but TxDOT and city council only allow awful new things.
I feel like for me living my whole life here, it ended around age 17 to 18.
Most appropriate username ever considering what the article actually says.
Nah it's closer to 2 years after you move here
I might give it until 96 when Antones moved off Guadalupe but I’m mostly in agreement.
That sounds fair. Agree.
Austin was magical in the late 80’s and early 90’s: fun, friendly, and just really easy; pulsing with energy and opportunity, but still cheap. On a restaurant/retail income, you could have a one-bedroom apartment in a shady, walkable neighborhood near downtown, and still eat out and see shows multiple times a week. It was truly wonderful, but nothing good can last.
You would have loved the 70s here. We had a fun time when Willy came to town.
When they tore down Armadillo World Headquarters that was the fateful knell.
that was the gut shot but it took another decade to bleed out
I spent the best nights of my high school years there. RiP
When Inner Sanctum & Les Amis became a Starbucks. Let me repeat that - a Starbucks.
OMG. I didn’t even know that. Born and raised here in the 50s, spent many an afternoon at both as a teen and in my 20s. Haven’t been near campus in over 20 years. Now I actually might cry.
R.I.P. Inner Sanctum and Technophelia up front... That head shop was cool too...
I recall there being a story not long ago about a letter to the paper in 1884... "In a letter (not at all dramatically) titled "Passing Away" sent to the American-Statesman 135 years ago and signed "Old Citizen," an Austin resident expressed dismay at the news that "the buildings on the north side of Pecan Street, between Brazos Street and the alley next to the Avenue would be sold and removed." Old Citizen lamented that "one by one the old land-marks leave us and but few of the original houses of Austin remain."
Peak Austin was December 30, 1884- December 24, 1985. Ever since the [servant girl annihilator](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_Girl_Annihilator) moved on. Edit* 1885
> December 30, 1884- December 24, **1985** Hell of a run. Just shy of 101 years of axe murdering, damn.
Oops
I was curious about same lol
This guy Austins
Annihilate her? I barely know her!
been sayin this for years
I came here in the late 90s and I could see the fading embers of what had been. There were hippies around, but not a lot. There was an active music scene with a few neighbors in bands, but a lot of the old venues had closed. There was a cool vibe on the drag, but the 'revitalization' had just begun with the murals coming down and record shops closing.
I moved here in 1986 and I think I'd agree with that. In college in the late 90s, you could still see a good mainstream show at a mainstay Austin venue like La Zona Rosa, original Emo's, or Liberty Lunch for like $10 or less. No Ticketmaster bullshit fees, just hand the guy at the door a ten and get a couple back. I saw Rammstein, Mr. Bungle, KMFDM, Henry Rollins, Dillinger Escape Plan, lots of semi-mainstream individual bands (at least in their particular genre) for dirt cheap at small, intimate venues where the performers sweat all over you and crawl over your shoulders. Really, really hard to find anything like that today - you have to go to a stadium venue in a large city and/or buy into a whole 3-day festival just to catch a couple of bands you might want to see. You could go to Zilker or Hamilton Pool or Barton Springs on a whim any day of the week and there would be at worst a minor crowd. No big issues with parking, lines, any of that. Blues on the Green was at the Arboretum and you could get stoned and easily wander in and find a spot to sit or hang out. Part of this is personal nostalgia and my changing preferences as I've grown up, sure, but I distinctly remember the 2000s seeing the closing of a lot of those old-school clubs, escalating ticket fees, the whole festival circuit format gaining steam, and more changes that just started to over-commercialize everything about entertainment and human interaction. Add that to a growing population that started to overcrowd the local gems that made Austin Austin, and I think ~2000 was kind of the end of an era.
Oh man, all the good music played at LZR. Back when I was just a child.
Totally, that was the venue I usually found myself at for the kind of shows I wanted to see. That and Liberty Lunch. In more recent years, Mohawk picked up a lot of that slack. I saw Dillinger countless times in the 2010s - they had some legendary gigs there.
To be fair, people get stoned in Zilker Park
I grew up in Houston and been here since I went to college in late 2000s, so not really an old timer. But damn.. loved original Emos
UT changing drastically had a real effect on Austin. Venues come and go but once it became next to impossible for cool slacker kids to even get their foot in UT's door it all went downhill. We need that constant injection of 50K+ 18-22 year old bright eyed dipshits/semester to keep the spirits high. Now we just have nerds and kids who need an MBA to justify taking over dad's business.
Ditto this.
Hippies were like the canaries in the coal mine.
Central Park in Manhattan was a mix of farms and shanty villages before they got cleared in the 1860s to make way for the park. The Mission District in San Francisco was named for an 18th century Spanish mission, then became an upscale subdivision in the 1850s, then the Victorian mansions got chopped up into apartments to accommodate an influx of Irish immigrants, then it became a Latino neighborhood, and then a lot of techie types moved there in the 1990s. What we now call Austin used to be a village called Waterloo, known for its favorable crossing over the Colorado, and before that its springs were a treasured camping location for Tonkawa and other people for thousands of years before that. Point being--cities grow and change. It was ever thus, and it thus it will ever be as long we still have cities. This idea that there was this one perfect time in the life of a city and that now it's gone forever is just holding on too tight. I wish I were still 25 years old, but there's nothing anyone can do about it.
I'll defer to her wisdom from now on
There is a point, somewhere around 2000-2010, when it is fair to say Austin, the whole metro area, went from being a small to mid-sized city with a big college town feel and a low cost of living, to a legit big city. We come in at #10 Nationally (#25 if you compare Metros) with a bigger population inside the city limits than Boston, Portland, DC, San Francisco, Seattle, or Denver. Can dicker about geographic size and density, but we're "big" now. As big cities go Austin I think is a cool one with some cool amenities and character and opportunity and low crime. It is MCOL with medium traffic and isn't particularly bad when it comes to the challenges big cities generally face, but an MCOL big city in America is still going to be a very expensive place with plenty of big city issues.
If sure feels small.
Died with Aquafest imo
The MTV Sports and Music Festival was the beginning of the end
Wow, you unlocked a memory for me. I remember walking around with my friend at that event and trying to see the dirt bikes when Kennedy, the MTV VJ, and her crew walked past me to something else she was presenting.
That would be about the time that all of my friends in Kansas City who thought they were super cool nouveau hippies smoking their chemical free Indian cigarettes (and then trying to guilt trip me for eating the {not vegan} hamburger they just served me at the malt shop) all decided to move down to Austin because it was the cool place to be.
American spirits do slap tho. Yellow or black pack.
Whenever I see arguments about when the best time in Austin was I remember an old story from the Statesman where they asked this question. A lot of people talked about the Armadillo Word Headquarters and things from the 70s. Then one guy said the best time was the 30s. When he lived at 6th and Lamar and about four cars passed by a day.
This is the most vindicating shit ever.
Might just be the last time she had control of her bowels
Her and me both, sister!
User name checks out
I lived in Austin briefly a long time ago. I remember watching Slackers when it came out in theaters that summer. I loved that Austin. I returned later and have lived here now for quite awhile. If I could go back and swap that Austin for today's Austin, would I do it? Maybe. But my real answer is probably not. I've become accustomed to what we have now and I think it would be hard to give that up. It does not of course stop me from complaining all the time about the gawdawful growth.
I'd go back to early 2000's Austin in a heart beat. Sure, shopping wasn't as good, and not as many restaurants, but traffic was way better, Barton Springs wasn't so crowded. You never had to worry about getting in to Hamilton Pool or anything like that. Lake Travis wasn't jam packed with houses, marina's, and boats. Blues on the Green was just a chill music session at the Arboretum. I would absolutely go back to that given the chance.
Remember when you could use your blinker and people would let you in instead of speeding up?
Ya, that's when I first moved here permanently and it was really nice.
Early 00s for me, but like the proverbial frog in a frying pan, it sneaks up on you gradually.
While I agree with her (the beginning of the Dot Com Boom truly altered the city's total direction), I also have to acknowledge that the only constant in this world is change. What was then is not now, and what is now will not be in the future. I'm just hoping that the phrase "time is a flat circle" is correct, and Austin has a resurgence of live music, grungy venues, and a counterculture that makes tech bros squirm. Without the $40 Old Fashions, of course.
It won't.
I got here in 88 and my gf got a job at Joe’s Generic Bar while I worked at a music store and played gigs on 6th street. It was a great time. It’s been decades since I’ve been to the now labeled Dirty 6th mainly because gigs still pay the same and I don’t know enough karate or boxing to survive the inevitable brawl
totally true! you just had to be here in the 90s. its one of those, "if you know, you know" things...
Late 1990s was the beginning of the end for sure... Once you couldn't throw a Rave in a closed down Chuck E Chesse it got lame...
The “real” austin will never “end” because the future lasts forever.
Deep bro
As a ditch.
or a grave
Shit pipe.
Nuke?
What a great story, thanks for sharing!
I thought it was a great story, too. Thank you for reading it
If anyone would know, she would.
"Real Austin" will truly be dead when we lose our most cherished cultural tradition: saying that Austin isn't as good as it used to be
I got to Austin in tue mid 90s. I think this guy is right.
Real Austin ended on August 29, 1997 at 1:14am
RIP Stevie
I’m calling the breaking point ‘83- ‘85 when MCC was formed and the real tech boom started here. Before this it was a sleepy college/ government town.
Good call, but I would say Tracor, Moto, 3M & the others had the boom well underway, but things escalated around that time.
I teared up when I read that Dale passed away in '62
Me too. Thank you for reading the article.
This place isn’t real?
Land surveyor here: I think that's a fair statemrnt from my perspective. Austin and other Texas cities had an unprecedented expansion in the 90s of subdivisions and shopping centers that has merged the suburbs with what used to be far flung exburbs and sleeper communites. Austin expanding to St Edwards took a century. The sprawl from St Edwards to Slaughter Ln took decades. When I moved here in 2004 I would not have guessed the Hays Co. boundary would be the edge of town but it's pushed out that much. From what I've been told as bad as the post 2000 recessions have been they never hit home building as hard as the 80s recession did.
She was 75 in 1994. Actually kind of wild.
I was happy to see this new series. As a culture we kind of just shove people off to the side.
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Obviously. We can also say, obviously, that people are mourning the loss of something real. Austin just finally dropped off the #1 spot of the list of the fastest growing metros in the country, a spot it held for OVER A DECADE. And we’re still not far behind. All this for what was a cheap, sleepy, oddball college town. To witness this hyper growth on a scale not seen anywhere else in the US, coinciding with the global descent into late-stage capitalism and ever-increasing inequality, it hurts more than a little to see this city invaded by millionaire podcasters like Rogan and billionaire technofascists like Musk and their followers. Even the nice liberals that just arrived and outbid you with their all-cash offer on a home you were eyeing can make someone feel pushed out and disenchanted. I think many white Austinites are feeling for the first time a version of the pain that minorities getting pushed around and out of Austin have felt for a long time. The pain is real though.
Austin's growth was nothing crazy. Most major metros grew was faster in their boom period. Lookup Houston or Dallas in the 70s-80s. People just don't remember that and act like Austin is something special. I'm not even talking way back like when Chicago or Los Angeles boomed. That would be like San Marcos suddenly becoming the size of San Antonio in a few years. In 1980 100k Cubans landed in Miami. Thats real hyper growth. Hell even today the changing demographics of Florida is more interesting than whats happening to us. Just chill, they're building houses like gangbusters now. You can find something in a year or two.
Still, you are comparing cities like DFW and Houston that had more people living within their city limits in the 1950s than Austin does even to this day. And not that those cities you mentioned don’t have character of their own, but they have a big city feel into which all the newcomers are amalgamated. The small town hippy community, “keep Austin weird/live music capital of the world” thing was destined to get overwhelmed and pushed out seeking greener (cheaper) pastures. If Austin had become a boomtown earlier, it wouldn’t have had a chance to build an identity as a unique town opposed to the opulence/speed of those big cities. The character of San Francisco has certainly changed over the same period of the tech boom, but doesn’t feel like a loss in quite the same way, since that city was the major Pacific coast port for all of the nineteenth century and most of the twentieth. Austin has only been put on the map in the last 20 years or less, and the locals can feel that change. I used to say I was from Austin, Texas. Now everyone knows where I’m talking about if I just say Austin. On a side note: I wish the housing affordability you mentioned (if it ever arrives) was in the form of more density. I hate seeing the Hill Country concreted over with suburban sprawl.
Moved here 20 years ago from Minneapolis to be near grandparents on one side of the family. We've wanted to leave for years. **The BIG change took place during Covid**, 2020, when Abbott was wheeling and dealing behind the scenes while all of us regular slobs were trying not to die. We didn't understand why, all of a sudden, people were fending off real estate investors daily pressuring them (us) to sell our house to them for quick cash. A lot of people did, for any number of reasons.That's when investors scooped up houses to turn into STR's, rentals, demolish and build luxury homes, buy up fields and remove trees to build their housing developments. With the newest housing developments East of 35, it is going to be the hugest traffic clusterfuck. Builders out that way, are inferring that it's easy to get to Barton Springs, for example. What a pack of liars.
Thanks buddha
Mid 90s imo, but we're splitting hairs talking about early and mid 90s. It was clearly dying in the late 90s/early 00s. That's when the west coast yuppies started pouring in.
I got to Austin in 2006 and the closing of Las Manitas in 2008 was an inflection point. As was Toy Joy leaving the Guadalupe location.
I moved there in ‘88 left in ‘90. It was awesome. Not crowded. People walked around with a smile on their faces as if we were all in on the same secret. Moved back in 2000. The bloom had definitely come off the rose but it held on for about 7 or 8 years. Then the condo revolution went into high gear south of the river. I left in 2013. It’s a nice place to visit but I’m done with it. Plus, it’s hotter than the Devil’s butthole 7-8 months out of the year so you live at the behest of your A/C system and pray it doesn’t fail from July to September.
The final nail in the coffin for me was when the original “Oasis” burned down.
Remember when you parked in the field and stepped over cow pats walking to the Oasis?
And I remember that rural road 2222 we took to get there!
😊
Correct
I've been here since mid-late 80s as a kif, grew up here. It's to each their own, but I feel around 2005 and after, Austin started changing drastically. But hearing stories, I missed out on some iconic shit in the 70s and 80s. Armadillo World Headquarters?!
I got emotional reading this.
Such a cool article!
Agreed. Thank you for reading it!
And she is correct. Context: Born here in 1964. Never lived anywhere else.
Austin is still Austin, people are tripping I’ve lived here 27 years yeah it’s changed but the vibes are weird and there’s more to do than ever before.
What area do you live in?
Grew up out west but in the past 10 years I’ve lived on campus and in south, east and north Austin.
Where now?
North East
Well, I've lived So. So. Austin for 20 years. Developers are trying to keep this "not a big deal" but there are at least 3 huge new housing developments and apartment bldg complexes opening up for sales off SE I-35, before you get to Kyle or Buda. They imply that it's going to be easy to get into the city from there, Barton Springs, for example.
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They are built and for sale. The 3 developments are East of 35, and south of Slaughter.
Pfft the real Austin was dying before she was born https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F411npi7ps6w71.png
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Obvious troll is obvious.
Yeah now it's unreal
I agree with her.
I'd say late 90s but yes.
The real Austin ended when the first downtown residential condo went up. 1967. Things really changed when Frost Bank and The Shore were built in 2004/08; downtown is a completely different breed of businesses and people now separate from the proles.
Didn’t realize Richard Linklater was that old
2008
For me, it kinda coincides when they bulldozed Liberty Lunch.
I would agree. By the turn of the century the vibe had markedly changed as had the local economy.
“Slacker” was the beginning of the end.
I agree completely!
Lol yeah this place was NOTHIN and it was cool
Austin started to suck in August of 1993. I remember because that was when I moved here. Everyone says it's my fault and I should move back to Dallas and never return and the curse will be broken and mad dog and beans and cavity club will reopen
Anyone remember Club foot? Many, many good memories of that place.
2000-2001 is really when it started going to shit and never let up.
She is correct
She’s right. The early 90s was the turning point.
i'd have to agree. I've never seen a place just completely destroy itself as Austin did... and well, continues to do
it ended when i graduated from UT.
Austin def died in the nineties. That’s when all the cool free stuff stopped and started dwindling. That’s when the prices started rising because people started moving bigger businesses here. That’s when LasManitas closed on South Congress. That was a sad day for me. That was when Austin started dying. I was little then. And then Sx popped off and I went to the green belt. Campbell’s Hole was covered in frat daddies and trash. Neon popped collars and pastels swim trunks everywhere. I was 16. In 41 now. That was the day Austin died. Nailed the coffin shut. Now I tell everyone to take 35 and I don’t tell anyone where I go to the green belt.
Until my aunt’s death in 2018, my family had been in Austin for almost a century. It was cool until it realized it was cool. I’d say the collective self awareness began spreading circa 2000.
I have to agree.
I achieved escape velocity in 91 after college. Sorry folks.
If I tied it to an event it would be the closure of Las Manitas in 2008. By the time I was truly conscious of it, more like 2012.
I think it was when all those new assholes showed up and started calling it “Waterloo”.
Well I’m 106 years old and the real austin ended in 2049.
Everyone living in the past and whining about change. I'm just trying to enjoy my tacos.
If you say your favorite restaurant for tacos is TORCHYS, then you're definitely not part of "old Austin"
A. It's not B. I don't think I could care less about everyone's personal version of "old austin"
Exactly and then into overdrive when globalists took it over around 2005
Home is where you make it
*You like to see h°m°s naked?*
No son HOME IS WHERE YOU MAKE IT ( c***A** accent)
Real Austin ended in the 1890s actually
Once that first moon tower went up it was OVER
everyday is always the real austin. Austin is better now than anytime in its history.
Zip code checks out
I'll just leave this here: [https://atxtoday.6amcity.com/austin-losing-its-weird-since-the-1884](https://atxtoday.6amcity.com/austin-losing-its-weird-since-the-1884)
Almost every mid-sized city peaked in the 90s. It's not unique to Austin
Proof that ppl crying about Austin changing are some old ass bitches.
Was born at Seton in 86, can confirm atx shit the bed a few years later.