"Keep Austin Weird" was a bumper sticker before it was a corporate slogan. It meant supporting local businesses over chains. It meant the quirky, creative, cheap city where musicians and artists thrived. Is that Austin gone?
Arguments that old Austin is dead:
- The Domain is a mall that markets itself as a neighborhood. It has a Tesla showroom, a Restoration Hardware, and zero weirdness.
- South Congress used to be thrift stores and dive bars. Now it's designer boutiques and $16 cold-pressed juice.
- Rainey Street was a neighborhood of bungalow bars. Now it's high-rise condos. Most of the bungalows are gone.
- The tech monoculture is real. Walk into any bar downtown and half the crowd works in software.
Arguments that Austin is evolving, not dying:
- The creativity moved east and south. East Austin, South Austin, and the St. Elmo district have the energy that SoCo had 15 years ago.
- The music scene adapted. Venues like Mohawk, Stubb's, Hotel Vegas, and Cheer Up Charlies are thriving. The scene is different, not dead.
- Food culture is better than ever. The diversity of cuisines is worlds beyond what Austin had in 2010.
- The weirdness is still here — it just takes more effort to find. It's in the East Side dive bars, the Hill Country outskirts, the DIY venues.
The honest take: Austin circa 2005-2015 was a specific thing — cheap, creative, offbeat, and small enough that everyone knew each other. That city is gone. What replaced it is a bigger, more expensive, more diverse, more corporate city that still has pockets of the old magic if you know where to look.
You can grieve the old Austin and enjoy the new one. Both things are true.
Source: Austin Chronicle, personal observation, 11 years of watching the city change
You can mourn what Austin was AND appreciate what it is. Both takes are valid. The people who refuse to admit anything good happened after 2015 are as annoying as the tech bros who think they improved it.