Archive
Everything on this site,
Everything on this site,
by section
25 pieces. The sections carry the same list laid out with its photographs; this page is the plain index.
- The Steepest House-Price Fall of Any Big American CityAustin led every major American metro into the correction, and it is leading the way down.
- Gigafactory Texas Opens East of TownTesla's Del Valle plant arrived with acreage, incentives, and an employment promise — and the land market east of the airport moved before the ribbon was cut.
- Oracle Moved Its Headquarters in 2020. Here Is What Followed.A headquarters relocation that remade Austin's skyline story without necessarily remaking its job numbers.
- Apple's North Austin Campus, Announced and BuiltA $1 billion expansion Apple announced in 2018 became the most visible corporate bet on Austin's decade of growth — and arrived just before the correction.
- Taylor, Thirty-Five Miles Away, Gets a Fab and a Subsidy PackageSamsung's semiconductor plant in Williamson County is one of the largest manufacturing investments in American history — and the deal that landed it is now a closed chapter in Texas law.
- Record Downtown Vacancy, in a Skyline That Was Still Topping OutThe cranes stayed up. The tenants did not arrive.
- Apartments per Head, and the Year Rents Went the Other WayAustin built more apartments per resident than almost any major American city. The supply eventually caught up with the demand — and then some.
- The Austin Chamber's Employment Series, and What It Shows After 2023Tech's share of Austin's metro payroll peaked in the boom, then gave back ground steadily — the WARN notice record and Chamber data together trace the shape of the retreat.
- The Cap-and-Stitch Argument Over I-35A highway redesign that everyone agreed Austin needed, and almost nothing else
- Voters Approved a Rail System, and Then the Estimate Went UpAustin passed Project Connect in 2020 with a strong majority. By 2023, most of it was gone.
- The Lakes Sat Low While the City Kept GrowingThe bathtub ring around Lake Travis tells the story the growth statistics don't: a city doubling in population against a reservoir that cannot double its watershed.
- Barton Springs Closes on Bacteria Counts, and the Salamander Is Still ListedBarton Springs Pool shuts without drama — a sign goes up, the gates stay closed, and the water stays in the pool — but the numbers behind each closure trace a fault line that runs from Austin's streets through limestone and into a federal endangered-species listing that is now nearly three decades old.
- Franklin Opened as a Trailer. What the Queue Is Worth Now.A finite daily output, a line that starts before dawn, and a price that hasn't caught up with the demand — the queue is doing work that the menu can't.
- Where the Best Brisket Has Since MovedThe Texas Monthly top list once pointed to a corridor. It now points in several directions at once.
- Kreuz Market, and the Year the Family Split the Building from the BusinessFive lineages anchor the older layer of Central Texas barbecue — and the ownership record explains as much as the smoke does.
- The Texas Monthly Top 50 as a Dated ListEach edition of Texas Monthly's barbecue rankings is less a guide to where to eat and more a record of where the trade stood on a specific day.
- Post Oak, the Offset Smoker, and What Wholesale Brisket Costs NowThe math behind a brisket plate has changed more since 2019 than in the previous decade combined.
- SXSW's Defence Sponsorship, and the 2024–25 WalkoutsA music conference born in 1987 to serve Austin's local scene now navigates defence contracts, artist boycotts, and the economics that make both necessary.
- The Red River District Since 2019: A Room CountThe city trademarked "Live Music Capital of the World." The district it designated to protect live music has fewer rooms than it did in 2019.
- The Continental Club and Antone's: What Staying Open Looks LikeTwo rooms on the short list of Austin venues that opened decades ago and are still booking acts.
- ACL Festival: Twenty-Three Years in Zilker ParkA festival that outlasted the boom it helped build is still filling Zilker Park, two weekends at a time.
- Circuit of the Americas and F1 Since 2012The track outside Del Valle turned a motorsport gap into a subsidy-dependent anchor of Austin's events calendar.
- The Congress Avenue Bats, and How a Colony Became InfrastructureA crack in a rebuilt bridge let a million bats move in. Austin eventually decided that was an asset.
- The Capitol's Granite Came from Marble Falls. The Quarry Is Still There.The stone that built Texas's most recognizable building was pulled from a Hill Country hillside by men who had no choice in the matter.
- Seventeen Moonlight Towers Survive. The City Bought Them in 1895.Austin's arc-light towers predate city water, paved streets, and a grid that made any sense — and thirty-one of them still lit the city into the twentieth century.