Exactly. Austin so badly wants to be San Francisco. It’s disgusting. That saying “Keep Austin Weird” isn’t just cute, it’s a demand from the hairy liberal hippies!
Years ago, I used to go to Austin to see Applied Materials ( a Silicon Valley Chip Making Equipment Mfr. Even then, it didn’t seem anything like the rest of Texas. Also I had a good friend who moved from CA to Austin to work at Tracor. With the money they got out of their CA home, they built a palace “up on the hill” with the UTA professors. They helped a neighbor run for political office, but they were generally shunned by the locals because “they weren’t Texans.” The left in disgust after about 5 years ( wife said she’d had enough of Texas and Texans) and moved back to CA. Unfortunately, CA real estate had appreciated and Austin’s hadn’t, so they had to buy a tract home in Cupertino even though my friend was a VP in a big SV company.
If they want to be San Fran, they should start crapping on sidewalks and leaving used needles lying around.