Coming from "the city," aka NYC, I've harbored similar thoughts and emotions as expressed in your article for the past 9 years since landing here.

I've given up on city council meetings yet am firmly entrenched in the education/liberation of entrenched conservatism's absolutism, which has resulted in a very skewed city comparable with Silicon Valley or Portland.

Over the years, I have witnessed a "fake class" of 30 somethings offer services they had little to no experience in, lowering the quality and actual hands-on experts'. I have not chosen Austin as my go-to city for expert vendors, suppliers, or freelancers in the non-tech arena where I live. That's unfortunate because going local is a fine idea; going local doesn't always mean value. Sadly, skilled services and the restaurants (pre-Covid) are overpriced for little return.

The more color and diversity in age, nationality (Austin has a tremendous way to go to become an international city like Houston), faith, etc., the better off we'll be. However, if the majority stays uninvolved politically at the local level, if those old school Austinites remain as passive as they are, very little will change.

With tech billionaires and multi-millionaires fleeing Silicon Valley for a better tax incentive, I find it hard to believe that a "change is gonna come."