Austin, Texas

This place is no longer home.

A pipe dream of moving to Chicago has recently overtaken me. And as it metastasizes, I am less inclined to believe it as a pipe dream but something that will happen, for better or for worse. There is a push and pull factor in wanting to move, with the push being far more aggressive than the Chicago siren song. Since my sophomore year in college, Austin has increasingly felt like a place I don’t call home. Trust my opinion as someone who is not a college expatriate from Dallas, Houston, or any other municipality; the city has changed. 

In recent years, the city has undergone a Californization and Louisization, where emigres have brought the state’s skeletons to the Lone Star, rapid commercialization that outpaces the culture’s ability to adapt. It is not coincidental that local gems are closing despite the city’s impressive growth over the last five years, and it is equally unsurprising that more people are finding themselves without homes despite the proliferation of self-driving cars.

The Austin of yonder was an infantile city unsure of its own future, a feeling reflected in the downtrodden dress of straggling musicians and academics. My Dad described it as a place of curiosity where locals complained ot the commissioner court of high-rises that dwarf the current skyscraper construction. And as someone who grew up circling the block of his Dad’s work, I agree. Locals have become increasingly inured to incessant construction. Currently, contractors are eviscerating the longstanding convention center with effectively no resistance. Locals seem to ignore, not even bat a glance at, the ugly squeaks and screeches of construction.

What we are seeing is a laying down of resistance to a higher capital order. It relates to what I said previously about interstate emigres: a stream of money has infiltrated the city, eroding its bottom line. The result of these phenomena is that locals feel spiritually homeless and seek other cityscapes as a place of refuge. This result includes me and my pipe dream of Chicago.