The article itself is actually pretty balanced despite the "doomer" headline. As a (relatively) long time Austinite, a big part of the appeal of Austin for a l

The article itself is actually pretty balanced despite the "doomer" headline. As a (relatively) long time Austinite, a big part of the appeal of Austin for a long time was that it might not have all the amenities or infrastructure of a big metropolis like NYC, LA, SF or Chicago, but because it was so much cheaper, you could actually afford to take advantage of what the city had to offer. That tradeoff has gotten significantly worse recently. I.e. Austin never had the cultural attractions (major museums, first class theater, architecture, etc.), big league sports teams, perfect weather, great geography, etc. of various bigger cities, but it did have good "2nd tier options": Lady Bird Lake (Town Lake to us oldies), Lake Travis, great music scene, etc. These made Austin a great option if you wanted more of a career/life balance. But while Austin really started getting ridiculously unaffordable (for what it offers) I'd say starting in the early 2010s, it just got into plain stupid "meme stock" territory during the pandemic. I'm not sure if it was some combination of Elon Musk/Joe Rogan/etc., but people elsewhere got this silly hyped up vision of Austin. When I first moved to Austin I was worried none of my friends from the coasts would want to visit me, and then for the past couple years if I told people I was from Austin I'd always hear "Oh, I hear that it's such an awesome city!" which honestly was a bit weird to me. Don't get me wrong, I always really liked Austin and it has a ton to offer, but the negatives have started to outweigh the positives: it's always been crazy hot during the summer, but 2023 was insane and probably a peek of what climate change has in store; public transportation is pretty abysmal so if you don't live close in to the city you'll be stuck in horrendous traffic; but the crazy explosion in housing prices mean that anything remotely central is egregiously expensive; being a woman of reproductive age can simply be dangerous in Texas (even if you desperately want to have kids). So I think what is happening is a much, much needed correction. Austin still has a ton to offer, but not at the stupid prices of the past couple years. And if anything, housing has really started falling because there recently has been a ton of multi-family projects that have come online. I mean, say what you want about the lack of regulation in Texas, but at least we're solving our housing problem here with the only solution that really works - building more housing.