Downtown Austin Blog

I’m a little behind on my reading, I’ll admit.  But I find Sundays are a great day to catch up on many of the things that pass you by…..all while enjoying a mimosa or glass of wine.  Anyway, last night, wine in hand, I was reading through Austin Monthly‘s March 2009 Issue (the Music Issue) and an interview with Andy Langer piqued my interest.  Andy Langer is not only an Austin music journalism institution, as he’s covered the scene for years and years and lived in Austin for quite sometime, but he’s a national contributor to magazines like Esquire, and has traveled seemingly everywhere to see shows and meet bands.

Anyway, the interview was essentially just a bunch of quotes from Mr. Langer, and one sort of popped out as not only a strong sentiment, but also as being particularly relevant to this blog:

“Find me a place that doesn’t have cranes in the sky building expensive condos and you’ll find me a place that’s seriously depressed and probably a place where I can’t have The New York Times delivered on my doorstep.  And I think that’s probably not a place that I wanna live.”

Andy’s credentials don’t necessarily qualify him as a real estate expert, but he’s arguably got a pretty good background in social culture and the issues surrounding Austin’s social scene. And it kind of sounds like he’s saying that the cities that aren’t building and that aren’t building projects in a way that embraces urban density and development are the cities that probably don’t have or won’t have the cultural reach/appeal that most of us generally recognize being an enhancement to our quality of life.

Source:  Austin Monthly, March 2009 Issue, “Things I’ve Learned” with Andy Langer, by Paul Carruba.