TBH I think it feels like it's starting to get a lot more "connected". For a long time, Austin was the outlier - very progressive and uniquely a tech center com

TBH I think it feels like it's starting to get a lot more "connected". For a long time, Austin was the outlier - very progressive and uniquely a tech center compared to the other cities. Over time, though, I think that has changed: 1. Pretty much all the cities in Texas are rather progressive now - like pretty much everywhere else it's an urban/rural divide now. Houston was the first city in the US with a lesbian mayor. 2. Austin is still the tech center, but I've started to see more companies (and people) move to Houston or Dallas as Austin has gotten ridiculously expensive. 3. You are correct about the wide expanses of nothingness in between the major urban/suburban areas, but I don't think that's quite critical to the author's thesis. That said, as Austin has gotten more expensive I lot of areas further out that I used to think of "nothingness" now have seen big booms. Lots of places between Austin and San Antonio in particular feel like they've exploded over the past decade. 4. One thing that I think that you're likely to miss from asking HNers is that, at least among people I know, there is much more "connectedness" among the cities between people and industries not in tech vs. those in tech. E.g. on the upper end folks I know in legal and banking travel fairly frequently between some of these cities, and on the lower end I know a bunch of Mexican immigrants that have friends and family spread out in San Antonio, Houston and Austin. The big question in my mind is climate change. I've lived in Austin for a quarter century, and while our summers are always hot, last year was a new beast entirely - relentess week after week after week of 105-110 weather. I'm doing everything I can to get out of Austin in the summer now.