demographics – All Ablog Austin

Austin for 51st U.S. state? We have the population to back it up

We get it, we get it: Austin isn’t always like the rest of Texas. Certain folks love to call the city “the People’s Republic of Austin,” due to its liberal policy bent and undying embrace of the strange. Though we’re not likely to implement a Maoist political structure at City Hall anytime soon, comrades, the Live Music Capital of the World does actually have enough people to encourage dreams of statehood.

Austin’s population is so large that if it were a state, it would be the 45th largest in the U.S., according to a study by LawnStarter, a local lawn care service. Why grass-cutters are concerning themselves with comparative demographics, I’ll never know. Nonetheless, the company used city and U.S. Census data to count Austin’s teeming masses at 943,795 people, higher than those of Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. Poor Wyoming only has 585,501.

MORE: Map shows 24 high rises set to change Austin’s skyline

The study is quick to point out that land-wise, these beautiful states are all massive compared to ATX. If you plopped 326-square-mile Austin in the middle of Alaska (a sprawling, 656,424-square-mile snow beast), it would look like one of those little birds hitching a ride on a hippo. Even delicate, syrup-drenched Vermont is 30 times larger than Austin when it comes to area, at 9,615 square miles.

Now, there are much larger cities in the U.S. Austin is only the 11th largest, and Houston, Dallas and San Antonio all pack more people in than we do. However, the entire Austin metro area is the country’s fastest growing, and it recently hit the 2-million-people mark. Factor in our distinct cultural identity and the fact that even the European Union sees potential for us to stand on our own feet, and we could basically start shopping for our own constitution.

IN OTHER NEWS:

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Hate Austin rent prices? Online list says Leander is cheaper

We all know it’s expensive to live in Austin. One recent study suggested that it takes a yearly salary of at least $52,578 to afford a home here, something that is becoming increasingly more difficult to afford if you’re a single man or woman.

A house on Garden Street is for sale on Thursday November 19, 2015. JAY JANNER / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

But take heart, those of you who rent homes or apartments in Austin: At least you weren’t paying the area’s highest rent prices this past month. That honor goes to Leander, our neighbor to the northwest. That’s right, it was cheaper to rent a domicile in Austin than it was in Leander, at least, according to rental site Zumper.

Zumper released a report this week detailing the drop in rent prices throughout the Austin area, a swath of land that includes all the way from Georgetown to San Marcos. The report found that for the month of March, Austin had a median one-bedroom rent of $1,080 a month, while renting the same domain in Leander would set you back $1,110. Both are still much higher than the $887 state median, however.

The cheapest rent in the Austin area for March belonged to San Marcos, at $860 a month for a one-bedroom.

Read the full report here.

Is Austin home to millennial ‘slackers’? Yes, but not as much as other Texas cities

The Pew Research Center found last year that the current generation of 18-to-34-year-olds (millennials) are more likely to be currently living with their parents than to be living with a spouse or significant other, or living alone or with roommates, for the first time in 130 years.

From Flickr user Elizabeth Hahn. Used with Creative Commons license.

Apartment search site Abodo took that Pew data and found that 34.1 percent of millennials across America are still living under mom and dad’s roof. To understand why, Adobo looked at 16 metropolitan statistical areas (cities with populations over 1 million people) that exceeded the national average.

The results? Austin isn’t as much of a slacker city as you might think.

Related: I’m a millennial. I don’t need your participation trophy.

The Austin-Round Rock area landed at the bottom of Adobo’s list at No. 40, with 22.3 percent of the city’s millennials still living at home. That’s 11.8 percent below the national average. And, just 8 percent of Austin’s millennials are unemployed, compared to the 10 percent national average.

Austin millennials are also raking in more money than the national average, whether they live at home or not; those living at home took in $1,314 a month, while those living on their own or with other people took in $2,329 a month. Unsurprisingly, the housing market in Austin isn’t kind to millennials. They pay almost $200 more than the national average in median rent.

More: When it comes to this list of heavyweights, San Antonio is way ahead of Austin

The area with the highest population of millennials living at home is the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Fla. area, with 44.8 percent of that area’s millennials living at home. The largest contingent of stay-at-home-kids in Texas is in the San Antonio-New Braunfels area, at 36.2 percent.

Ranking: Austin is No. 1 ‘super cool’ city, thanks to SXSW and food

Austin is weird. Austin is the best capital city to live in, according to U.S. News and World Report. Austin’s restaurants land on many year-end “best-of” lists. Austin is one of America’s most generous cities, according to GoFundMe.

rbz-city-skyline-01

And now, a new list from Expedia ranks Austin as the “coolest U.S. city.”

The travel company ranked 21 cities, giving points based on attributes like the availability of a Lyft ride, the amount of farmer’s markets in the city, low crime rating, music/arts/food/drink festivals and population age.

Austin was the only Texas city to make the cut. It scored a 26 out of a possible 28 points by Expedia’s scale, and the company found plenty to like about the Lone Star State’s capital city.

More: Spring break destinations? New York Times recommends Austin

“The only uncool thing about Austin can be the weather, and it takes care of that with awesome watering holes (ahem, Barton Springs), cool places to crash (hotels like Kimpton Hotel Van Zandt), and killer cold treats (Lick Ice Cream, anyone?),” Austin’s description on the list reads.

Other highlights of living in Austin, according to Expedia:

A crime rating of 35 out of 100, according to Sperling’s Best Places
A great restaurant scene
South By Southwest Festival, Art City Austin and the Mexican Experience
South Congress’ shopping district (which is growing smaller by the day)

However, some parts of Austin aren’t that “cool” to the people who live here. A recent New York Times article says that “the coolness factor” that drives many startups and hip bars to build in East Austin is what’s leading to the rapid gentrification of the city’s east side.

Plus, there’s always the traffic, which any longtime Austinite will blame on the rapid influx of Californian transplants.

Austin is the nation’s best capital city to live in, according to online list

Shortly after Austin was named the “best place to live in America” by U.S. News and World Report, the city has landed atop another list of best places to live.

The Austin skyline as seen looking northwest from the Lakeshore area showing the Roy and Ann Butler Hike and Bike Trail on Lady Bird Lake August 31, 2016. RALPH BARRERA/AMERICAN-STATESMAN — The Austin skyline as seen looking northwest from the Lakeshore area showing the Roy and Ann Butler Hike and Bike Trail on Lady Bird Lake August 31, 2016.
RALPH BARRERA/AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Austin is the nation’s best state capital to live in, according to WalletHub. Their online study compared all 50 capital cities in America and graded them based off of 42 key indicators of affordability, economic strength, quality of education and health, and overall living standards.

More: Why you see so many moving trucks in Austin, according to new report

Those key indicators included things like cost of living, K–12 school-system quality and the number of attractions in the city.

Austin ranked 1st in two categories, the highest number of millennial newcomers (guilty) and lowest premature death rate; and ranked fourth for highest median household income (adjusted for cost of living) and ranked third for “most attractions.” The only two capitals to beat Austin in that last category were Honolulu and Boston, which…OK, that’s fair. One has the beach and the other’s got Fenway Park.

More: Why do readers think Austin is the best place to live – or not?

Austin also ranked 6th in the percentage of adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher. (It’s also a great place for single ladies to find a man with a Bachelor’s degree that’s marriage material, according to one study.)

Funnily enough, Austin didn’t even make the highlights on the “most affordable housing” category. Apparently, it costs a little bit of money to afford a house here, and housing becomes even less affordable when you’re single, according to a new study.

Texas ranks 15th in online list for immigrants’ economic impact

Texas ranks 15th on a recent online list measuring the impact of immigrants on state economies.

Protesters marched from Austin City Hall to the Texas State Capitol protesting Trump immigration policies on Sunday morning, Nov. 13, 2016. RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL/AMERICAN-STATESMAN — Protesters marched from Austin City Hall to the Texas State Capitol protesting Trump immigration policies on Sunday morning, Nov. 13, 2016.
RICARDO B. BRAZZIELL/AMERICAN-STATESMAN

California ranked first overall on the list, compiled by WalletHub and based off of qualities such as “median household income of foreign-born population” and “jobs generated by immigrant-owned businesses as a share of total jobs.”

More: What are sanctuary cities? Here’s a list of sanctuary cities, counties, states

Texas ranked high in several categories, like the percentage of foreign-born STEM workers out of the entire state’s population (6th) and in the share of foreign-born population and the share of foreign-born members of the workforce (both ranked 7th).

More: Abbott makes ending ‘sanctuary cities’ emergency item for state lawmakers

Mississippi ranked last in the study.

Here are Texas’ full rankings:

Immigrants’ Economic Impact on Texas (1=Biggest Impact; 25=Avg.):

18^th – Percentage of Jobs Generated by Immigrant-Owned Businesses Out of Total Jobs
6^th – Percentage of Foreign-Born STEM Workers Out of Total STEM Workers
29^th – Percentage of Fortune 500 Companies Founded by Immigrants or Their Children
24^th– Percentage of Jobs Created by Presence of International Students Out of Total Jobs
28^th – Economic Contribution of International Students per Capita
7^th – Share of Foreign-Born Workforce
7^th – Share of Foreign-Born Population

View the full list and its methodology here.

Austin metro area makes ‘most unauthorized immigrants’ ranking

The number of unauthorized immigrants in the Austin-Round Rock metro area sits around 100,000, based on 2014 American Community Survey data. This places Texas’ capital city at the bottom of a list compiled by Pew Research Center of the top 20 metro areas with the most unauthorized immigrants.

The term “unauthorized immigrants” includes both people who overstay their visas and those who enter the country illegally.

The nonpartisan fact tank notes that “individual metro areas do not differ in rank from those immediately below them.” This means there is little statistical difference between the No. 19-ranked Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, Fla., area and Austin-Round Rock.

The center analyzed 155 metro areas with foreign-born populations of at least 20,000 people.

The Pew Research Center also points out that almost 25 percent of foreign-born U.S. residents are unauthorized immigrants. In Austin, these people make up about 34 percent of the city’s immigrant population, or about 5 percent of the total population of the city.

Two other Texas metros made the list. The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metro area ranked third and is home to about 575,000 unauthorized immigrants. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area ranked fourth with 475,000 unauthorized immigrants. In both areas, these populations make up about 37 percent of the total immigrant population.

The subject of illegal immigration has reached a new level of conflict between civil rights groups and government agencies since President Donald Trump’s election. Trump has proposed building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and imposing tax on Mexican imports to pay for it. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has pressed the legislature to make ending ‘sanctuary cities’ an emergency item. The governor has also cut funding in Travis County following newly-elected Sheriff Sally Hernandez’s policy to limit the sheriff’s office’s cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Watch Austin grow up in Google Earth’s mesmerizing time-lapse photos

People in Austin complain all the time about how fast the city has grown and how much their favorite neighborhoods have changed, but you can get a satellite’s-eye view of just how much by using Google Earth Engine. The site collects aerial photography from 1984 to 2016, a period in Austin that includes the real estate boom and bust of the 1980s, the late 1990s tech boom and bust in the early 2000s, as well as the 2008 recession and subsequent economic recovery.

The view of Austin from a macro view can be a bit muddled but you can see lots of activity on the outskirts of town, like the emergence of the Texas 130 toll road on the far right.

But take a look at the neighborhoods and zoom in on certain high-growth areas and the changes are more impressive. For instance, between 1984 and 2016, the old Robert Mueller Municipal Airport was closed. Its runways were razed and replaced with a planned community of retailers and single-family homes.

mueller — Robert Mueller Airport, then Mueller development

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was simply Bergstrom Air Force Base three decades ago. The military abandoned the base but the city turned it into an international flying hub. In the time-lapse below, you can see how the city added another runway to the existing airfield and rebuilt the terminal and parking for civilian use. When a large road suddenly cuts across the map on the right, that’s the construction of the Texas 130 toll road.

Also in southwest Travis County, you find lots of farmland and rural areas that haven’t changed much at all in the past 30 years. But in the space of a few years, the Texas 130 toll road appears – seen below on the left – and then, blossoming from the green space, the Circuit of the Americas racetrack.

cota — Circuit of the Americas emerges in Elroy

Another transformation becomes evident on the other side of the county in Steiner Ranch. Here, you can see how development spilled along roadways and how houses sprouted on hilltops throughout the area.

Just a few miles north, on Lake Travis, the aerial photos show the effects of fluctuating drought conditions on the Highland Lakes. Over the past 30 years, the exposed shoreline of Lake Travis flashes like a neon sign as waters recede and return, depending on the season’s rainfall.

Try Google Earth Engine for yourself. I learned a lot just by looking up my own neighborhood in South Austin near the corner of West Slaughter and Brodie lanes:

Love ‘old Austin’? Good news: City ranked No. 2 best for senior citizens

If you’ve been around long enough to remember when Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard was 19th Street, and if your mouth still waters when you think of a flame-kissed Holiday House hamburger, the Austin of today might seem unfamiliar at times. But don’t worry — it’s still the place to be for the 65-and-over set, according to new rankings.

READ: In Georgetown league, basketball is your granny’s game

Senior care services website SeniorAdvice compiled a list of the top 10 large U.S. cities for seniors, and Austin is sitting pretty at No. 2. There’s more to the city than weirdness, according to the list:

“The city scores higher than both the state and national averages when it comes to senior-friendliness. With perks such as mild winters, low rainfall, an active outdoor community, and excellent access to healthcare, Austin is a very livable place for Texas seniors to call home.”

Other perks of living out your golden years in the capital of Texas: financial accommodation and opportunities for outdoor activities, like Lady Bird Lake and the greenbelt. However, SeniorAdvice’s suggestion that seniors can “enjoy the mild climate” is good for a knee-slap or 2,000.

To read more about the site’s criteria, delve into the arcane internet listicle science of a “SeniorScore,” and check out Austin’s detailed score breakdown, too.

Austinites who aren’t Texans: The city’s influx of out-of-staters

The Austin Downtown Alliance presents the Downtown Street Fair every Friday starting today April 1, 2016 through June 3 at 9th and Congress Ave. featuring a festival of food vendors, retailers, entertainers, artists and more. Things got off to slow start with afternoon rain showers putting a damper on the festivities that take place between 11:30a to 1pm. RALPH BARRERA/ AMERICAN-STATESMAN

You don’t often hear “Austin” as an answer when you ask someone in the city where they’re originally from. And if you’ve noticed it’s becoming even less common to hear “Texas,” you’re not imagining it.

As KUT reports, Travis County has the third most new, out-of-state residents of any county in the U.S. More than 250,000 non-Texans have packed up and relocated to Travis County between the years 2011 and 2014.

QUESTION: Austin has a big population, but is Austin a big city?

The numbers come from the IRS and were analyzed by Brian Kelsey of Austin research firm Civic Analytics, who told KUT that while the majority of Travis County transplants used to be from other parts of Texas, “based on new data that has actually flipped.” Kelsey also noted that Travis County’s small size (in comparison to counties like Dallas or Harris) means you’re more likely to run into one of these out-of-staters.

READ: Austin metro area surpasses 2 million residents

So which states are sending transplants Travis County’s way? According to KUT: “Florida tops the list of states other than Texas that sent the most citizens to the Austin area, followed by California, Georgia, New York and Illinois.”