As Austin continues to grapple with managing the growing commercial fleets of electric scooters available on its streets, other questions about urban mobility multiplied at this year’s South by Southwest Conference. In a pair of short talks on March 9 from European-based transit proponents, a move from single-passenger vehicles to bicycles and the increasingly ubiquitous […]
SXSW
Organizers of the massive annual festival that takes over the City of Austin each March. SXSW has donated to the Capital of Texas Media Foundation.
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
SXSW economic impact grows north of $350M
The economic impact of the South by Southwest festival inched across the $350 million mark in the latest analysis by Greyhill Advisors of the spring festival’s effect on the community. The $350.6 million total for the 2018 festival represented growth of just over 0.5 percentage point from the 2017 impact of $348.6 million. With a […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Parking and … other … concerns
Still hanging around… We have it to thank for our intimate knowledge of celebrities’ lunches, Capital Metro’s train delays and the president’s spontaneous thoughts, so why not also give Twitter pre-emptive credit for helping to establish a working urban cable transit system in Austin? That would at least be the will of Travis County Commissioner […]
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
Austin’s music preservation efforts draw praise. But is it enough?
The attention placed on Austin’s music community in recent years by local leaders – most especially the affordability issues and stagnant income levels of working musicians – went under the magnifying glass Tuesday at South by Southwest. Attendees of the “Austin Y’all! Sustaining a Thriving Music City” panel got to hear about the steps elected […]
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
From ‘Starbucks’ lines to ‘full-scale riot’: How cops and clubs control crowds during SXSW
The influx of 300,000 to 400,000 people to downtown Austin during South by Southwest requires an extraordinary amount of crowd control, both for event organizers and first responders. Austin’s Police Department uses a Special Response Team to patrol downtown. “It’s just a group of 120 officers who are trained and responsible for crowd management,” APD […]
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
Rising hotel and other costs fuel SXSW’s growing economic impact
A rising cost of living and high prices for hotel rooms and other tourist accommodations helped fuel a 7 percent increase to the economic impact the city of Austin felt as a result of the South by Southwest festival. That was one of the observations of SXSW Executive Director Mike Shea during a press conference […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: This week in conflict management
Fighting for privacy in the nude… During a special City Council meeting Wednesday, John Miki, one of the consultants leading the proposed overhaul of the city’s Land Development Code, described some of the community divisions over development that he encountered not long ago during a tour of the Crestview neighborhood. After noticing a recently constructed […]
Posted inPolice
Public Safety Commission has a HOT debate
As the city of Austin scrounges for money to hire more police officers, firefighters and paramedics, it shouldn’t look to the tourism industry for help. That was the message delivered to the Public Safety Commission Monday by Bill Worsham, a member of the Visitor Impact Task Force, which recently approved a report endorsing a 2 […]
Posted inCity Hall
Can Austin innovate itself out of long meetings?
Given the recent tilt toward performance art at City Council meetings – those poor eggs! – and running times that are the longest among major cities in Texas, it seems like the last thing Austin needs is more citizen participation on civic matters big and small. But changing the paradigm for how residents and stakeholders […]
Posted inAustin
Examining Austin’s “smart city” bona fides
Austin’s reputation as one of the nation’s smartest cities went under the microscope Sunday, with policy and academic experts examining the technology, educational, housing and transportation components – and the city’s shifting needs as it grows – that combine to make it a magnet for creatives. The South by Southwest panel “What Is a Smart […]
Posted inAustin
Adler: A blue Texas “all but inevitable”
It’s something of an old saw in the political world that progressive cities in otherwise red states are like “a blueberry in a bowl of tomato soup.” Austin Mayor Steve Adler and his mayoral colleagues on Friday’s “America’s Mayors: Holding The Line” panel at South by Southwest didn’t invoke that line themselves but let panel […]
Posted inAustin
Austin officials rap about Smart Cities, robot cars at SXSW
Nine months after Austin lost the federal Smart City Challenge to Columbus, Ohio, the vision of a data-enhanced urban future is still alive and well. Top officials from Mayor Steve Adler to Austin Transportation Director Robert Spillar took time during South by Southwest 2017 to publicly address the city’s efforts to leverage data collection into […]