See the dramatic changes in Austin nearly 20 years apart, then and now
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- From sprouting skyscrapers to the second-largest building in the world at Tesla’s Giga Texas, Austin has changed drastically in the last 20 years.
Here's what award-winning American-Statesman photojournalist Jay Janner captured over the years. 📸 Check out our interactive story at statesman.com.
Wow… I’ve been here a long time! It’s so crazy to see how much Austin has grown! It’s now the 10th largest city in the US!
It was the 10th largest, but that honor now belongs to Jacksonville, FL. Either way, Fort Worth is going to blow past both Austin and Jacksonville in a year or less.
When you enter the big leagues amongst cities, you realize that city size is meaningless outside of taxes. It’s metro population that truly determines the size of an area.
And it’s trash!
@@thatsTylerDurden lol you sound bitter and mad bro. Nothing about austin is trash.
its the #1 trashiest city in texas now! thanks californians ❤
Austin used to be so cool and unique. Now it looks and feels like every other city of its size. Cold and corporate.
I'd say it's almost universal now
NYC, Miami, London
I hate both.
go away sosialist
That was my first thought when watching this. A lot of the colorful appeal and uniqueness vanished!
Austin was only kinda unique in comparison to most American towns. That’s a very low bar.
If you live long enough everything will change.
Couldn’t have said it better myself ^
astute observation. you must have been in special classes.
Yes but some changes are much better than others
Nothing changed for the better, just aesthetics.
Nature doesn’t change
“Luxury condos” 🤨
Hardly any rats 😂
@@467076
The largest rat I’ve ever seen was on 6th street. It must’ve been a NYC refugee.
@@AFTER_MIDNITE lmao cold blodded
$600k for a 650sq ft loft in one of the new sky rises off 6th street. It’s a paradise in Austin now, but you’ve gotta make $200k+ to live.
@@467076wow what a thrill i get to buy a rodentless place
0:43 that chick's quad separation is insane
Best comment I've read in a long time
Dayum!
Good eye
What
I can’t really tell, but it doesn’t seem like she has a ton of definition elsewhere, so seeing such a huge leg is pretty interesting. She probably does a lot of leg exercises, and walking I presume.
The Capitol Mall looks fantastic! Austin has a great downtown and it's getting more lively which is great! A lot of this growth looks really good, and economists have said the housing growth brought down rent and home prices because there is so much more supply now than there was 4 years ago.
Please don't let the downtown i35 expansion happen. They want to demolish 1,000 homes and businesses for it. We don't need more traffic going right through the middle of downtown.
The city fought the law of TXDOT and the law won
Wow. That 2010 skyline is what I know. Haven’t been back since moving away and didn’t realize it changed that much.
Great video 👍
I first went to Austin as a kid in 1979, it sure has grown up since then!
1:05 Good to see that the Daniel Johnston mural has been preserved!
Austin was a tiny little town when I was a kid growing up in San Antonio..and they passed us up pretty fast after BRAC..gave them an Airport.
SA is still bigger population wise but Austin definitely surpassed our skyline!
Wild to see so much soul evaporate in front of your eyes
What? I only see progress here, no "evaporation".
A lot of it is an improvement
I'm not from austin so I really don't have a say in the culture, but it looked like a sad city 20 years ago (the horrible roads, undeveloped land, lack of trees) so I'd say a lot of it is improvement
South Park’s SoDoSoPa irl. Happened here in Seattle, too.
😂😂😂
This might be the best comment in here lol
have you ever been to Ci-Pa-Town?
So real
Ironically enough, whole foods was founded in Austin
It’s a shame. Austin used to be a wonderful, quirky city. Now it’s just a big city with all the big city problems and very little, if any, of the quirky charm that made Austin Austin.
Yall are fucking miserable
Like what?
Boomer alert
@@alm5851 Sorry, incorrect.
@@alm5851 brainlet alert
Why are so many cities loosing color and vibrancy to be replaced with grey, depressing, monotone colors..
🏳🌈
Uniformity and rainbow agenda
@@marcusinfinity9386 You do realize that uniformity and "rainbow agenda" are the absolute opposite ends of the spectrum, right?
@@c0rnichon not in June
No, they aren’t, wannabe smart guy. “Rainbow” is simply a word to describe those who are incapable of furthering the human race via their own marriages.
The actual urban architecture favored by that crowd is a sterilized, soulless corporate design.
You’re confusing an actual color scheme with a sociopolitical term of art.
Being born and raised in Austin, seeing this is bittersweet. I tell people all the time the Austin you see now isn’t the Austin I grew up in. It’s a whole different place now I can’t even recognize it.
Looks like what's happening here in Nashville.
Oh no! I hope it doesn't go too far.
They in fact did not keep Austin weird lol. I love how at 0:26 it literally looks like "The Lofts at SoDoSoPa" from the South Park episode about gentrification 🤣
Dude my exact thought with South Park 😂
And 35 looks the same lol
Lmao bumper to bumper
Austin is like LA without the nice weather and beaches
Lmao not even.
But still all the californicators.
@@WeshopwizardCommifornians…👎👎👎
There are lots of ugly people in Austin though, unlike LA
@@cameraman655 lol tech bros are pretty right-wing mostly. They belong in Texas more than in California
I miss 2006, life was still chill.
Very much so. To be honest, even the mid-2010s feels radically different than now. I really detest the present.
Nice to see Austin both grow up and fill in... Now get that LRT system built!
I helped by giving up my space when I got the "F" out.........$38k per year property taxes on my corner lot in 78702 was more than I could bear.
@@1995texasaggie Monstrous taxes here. One never really owns their property in Texas when the threat of increasingly high property tax looms over you
@@1995texasaggie
Wow, $38k on the bad side of town! Your house was probably demolished and now there are 4 tiny cookie cutter homes on the lot that bring in $38k each.
@@LuckyCharms777 I "proofed" the property to keep needle-lovers out.....property hasn't changed yet as I still visit Dan's Hamburgers on Airport Blvd. The area had been changed to Opportunity Zone so there's no telling what it'll become.
@@1995texasaggie
Wow, I just looked at some housing prices for that area. Old unimproved homes have gone up in value 400-500% in just 12 years!!! That’s great if you want to reap a profit, but for anyone that lived there for a long time and wanted to stay, the property taxes forced them out. It’s so messed up. Politicians always complain about broken communities, but then longtime residents get forced out of their homes.
The gentrification seems very corporate. Like you can tell the people who are gentrifying it aren't Texas natives, it's just what they think "Texas" should look like. It doesn't feel like a natural development it feels forced.
You rather have nothing. A flat town with nothing but houses. Ppl like you is why we can’t nice things.
Dude the people who flocked to Austin from all over the state, like the preacher’s sons who were gay, the lesbians who didn’t want to marry men, the kids who couldn’t cut it on the farms/ranches/oil fields have all been filling up Austin for decades. You are discounting the bulk of Austin’s population
@@tvviewer4500 you can meet someone that is gay and still tell if they are from Texas. This just feels like somebody came in from a design studio from out of state and was like “make it look more Texas.”
@@tvviewer4500 what do you mean the lesbians who didn’t want to marry men? A lesbian does not like men nor are attracted to men. Why would they need to marry one?
Lol that's every city, Denver used to have an iconic skyline, now all the new skyscrapers just make it look like a blocky corporate mess. Cities are awful looking.
change is the only constant. Interesting to see all the growth and progress.
No poop, Sherlock. What rapper shared that kernel of knowledge with you that everyone else already knows? Was it Tupac? 🤡
@@LuckyCharms777wrong, it was Heraclitus
@@Sonilotos
No poop, Sherlock. You failed to grasp my point.
@@LuckyCharms777 just say shit lol
@@Sonilotos
My comments are constantly censored by RUclips so I have to moderate my language and subject matter.
I remember when the frost building was built it towered over the other buildings for a little while now it’s hard to find surrounded by skyscrapers
That clip of downtown Austin’s transformation had me gobsmacked. Like literally what happened 😮
the drive on 35 was beautiful during the 80s.. green pastures, fields with cattle ..now you sees is asphalt n car lots
Last time I was in Austin was for SXSW in 2004. It was a fun, weird city oozing with charm. Now it just looks like any other city.
What happened to KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD
Somebody bought it and slapped it on t-shirts for nostalgia only.
It's too weird.
They didn't keep it.
It became a bumper sticker
The color and old artistic flair got replaced with bland light and dark gray architecture
Wow, austin really was a quiet and simple town a long time ago
I like how the city is getting some much needed densification and development, but they at least could’ve made everything look a little more rustic and not so grey and corporate
Austin was more fun 20 years ago
Yes it was.
Absolutely!
Everything was more fun 20 years ago. Before "smartphones"
@@euphoricmonkyou know, you can choose to stop using a smartphone at any time. No one forces you to use one. Flip phones still exist.
@@BrilliantHandle Of course and I do. My point is still valid, no need to argue.
That's how you upgrade a city the right way.
Amazing at the transformation 👏
Lived there for a bit in the 80s. That was the time Austin was unique.
The “Hi, How Are You” mural hurts the most (to me) because there used to be a Thai restaurant called “Thai, How Are You” and the food was so good. 😢 Oh how the city has changed. I don’t even recognize SoCo anymore. 😕
the mural is still there… and I’m pretty sure it’s much older than any restaurant inside.
Anybody who uses terms like SoCo is an outsider to me. That’s trendy terminology introduced by carpetbaggers. It’s just as foreign as people who say uptown and midtown.
Super Thai in south lamar is just as good, for reals.
@@AFTER_MIDNITE well I also call the lake Town Lake, but I digress.
@@euphoricmonk ayyy!! Locals know the best spots! I gotta check that one out!!
Some of these changes were not that long ago, 2017, 2018, 2019 is all very recent history. But Austin has changed so much in only 5-7 years. Amazing. And I forgot how everyone still read newspapers in the 2000s and you could buy newspapers publicly at the time. I told a kid that recently and he looked at me like I was talking about living in 1935 with a kid selling papers and yelling "extra! extra! read all about it, Hitler on the move!"
So you support journalists and newspapers? You don’t deride them as fake news?
@@BrilliantHandle Dude are you high? Stop drinking and smoking crack man. I have no idea what you are talking about.
Looked better 20 years ago.
It looks like it had a sense of place that has since been removed.
Loved Austin the way it was in 1975. Now, tho.......
Yeah, well everything was better in 1975.. you could drive drunk and the cops would escort you home. The music was better than it’s ever been since. We peaked. Austin has to change
I'm not 100% certain it's the right building because it was 1997, but I'm pretty sure the last time i was in Austin, that Willy Nelson mural was a dragon mural.
R.I.P Historical Rainey District.
All to make way for soulless apartment Californians…
Half of your city is single family homes and highways that went through vibrant majority black neighborhoods lol, anyways, this is the best to solve the current housing crisis we're in, because a tiny apartment can cost you 2000-3000$, the only issue i think is the gentrification.
@@nicelol5241 there were no blacks in austin
@@eldebtor6973Austin is 8% black with more in the Suburbs wtf are you on about
@@azulaquaza4916 they were kicked out. keep Austin weird
@@eldebtor6973 Nah they're still there, literally just came from down there
Has it ever been proven that the majority of new residents in Austin are from California?
They're from all over, New York, Georgia, other parts of Texas, etc. I've seen estimates that over 50% are from within Texas and about 8% from California, the rest from elsehwere. But remember people might move first to Dallas from Califronia, then Texas, so it depends.
Only the morons
They are from all over Texas too calm down. Most are from all parts of Texas
If they aren't Californians they're still Texans that vote like Californians, hence the result
Austin is liberal like California buddy. And the people that think the Californians that are moving to Texas are liberals are dummies. All the conservatives are moving out. WHICH IS WHY THEY ARE MOVING OUT
The downtown skyline transition at 1:29 is actually quite depressing because it gives off a symbol of isolation. In the 2010 pic it shows people are outside in the park, socializing, engaging in activities, exercising and just enjoying life because this was really before social media took off in consuming everyone’s lives, and the 2024 pick shows the park completely empty like no one wants to be outside anymore and everyone’s inside buried on their phones and computers living life completely digitally and isolated
As someone who’s lived in Austin since I was born (thankfully I move the end of this year) this place started declining hard in the 2010s. It was nice in the 2000s. Already was like it is today by 2012. Glad I’m leaving this city lmao. Aint gonna miss it
Make Austin Normal!
Seriously
I like it …. Luxury the city up and fill it with beauty …. Give it class
Landed in Austin in 2003. Left for California in 2021. Saw Austin grow in front of my eyes.
Now stay
@@bryanspilner7370This person moved to California in 2021. Trust me, they are plenty wealthy enough that they can stay. Almost all of those who left California for Texas were those who couldn’t afford Californian home prices.
@@BrilliantHandleah yes. Only the poors left this proudly democratic state. I'll be sure to tell my uncle, a millionaire, that he would be better off staying here in California paying 2/3 more for housing than where he is now in Tennessee.
Go step in some human feces like we do in San Francisco. Luckily we have apps to avoid such things
@@Quicks1lvr wow! A millionaire?! So rich! Maybe the richest person in your town! Oh wait, that’s just middle class in San Francisco.
We need to terraform Austin again 😂😭😭
Imagine Austin 20 years later
Probably will be a derelict old town burning down
@@Syvern.I mean who knows btw
Nice. Damn it’s changed a lot
When I lived in Austin in the early 1980s there was a big campaign to preserve the state capital views
You can still see it from plenty of angles my guy. It’s literally the signature of congress avenue
It was part of the law until the law makers were incentivized $$$$$
@@azulaquaza4916 Damn you replied to almost every single comment in this video. Why U so mad bro?
@@azulaquaza4916You’re doing tricks on it
Well, it was bound to get obscured. It ain't worth blocking high density buildings so we can see an old building where a bunch of crooks work.
Now people are leaving because its gotten too expensive
It’s nice to see the city moving forward with some unique architecture styles. Yes people in the comments feel nostalgic about the past. Come on change is a part of a city’s growth. We should be happy that the city is at least preserving certain landmarks and still has a character to it. Soon we will be nostalgic for what exists now.
Idk how that architecture can be unique. It's all the same.
People are voicing their grievances 'cause Austin is soulless now. Sure Austin has a bigger economy now, but at the cost of it's culture. It had a very unique vibrant culture, and now it's soulless and corporate. Not all progress is good progress
Welcome to anywhere USA.
Still remember back in 2012 when I drove to Austin with a friend. Some homeless dude was trying to shake me down for $3 because that's how much a whopper costs, and he had to feed his kids. Not a kid in sight, not a McDonald's in sight, and after giving him $3, he remembered that they were actually $4...
He was the "parking manager" of that area btw. That's why he was charging me the price of a whopper.
I'm glad to say that moving back after 20 years, it's exactly the same. Except the homeless now have guns, and enough rights to execute people on the sidewalk without accountability.
And the Willie Nelson mural shows a Tesla truck driving by, that's another thing I now see almost every day in Austin. Moved here in 1989, seen these changes but this was amazing to watch. You can barely see the Capital.
1:46 GODDAMMIT I GOTTA GO CATCH MY FRIDGE
As much as people complain about Austin not being like its old self well which is no duh since it’s a million person city now. Its downtown is one of the most healthy and walkable in the country and it puts education, health and parkland front and center unlike its parking lot covered siblings in Houston and Dallas
So, it's just another generic looking mid sized city now. Lost it's uniqeness which was what made it what it was.
@@mstyles2667 Wtf is this “uniqueness loss” you’re crying about?? Congress Avenue is still there, Lady bird lake is still there, Food scene is still there, Hill country is still there, Live music is still there, 6th street is still there, Rainey, SoCo, Ann Roy & Butler, Barton Creek, The Greenbelts, Hamilton pool, ACL & SXSW are STILL THERE. It still looks and feels a lot different from any other Texan city so no it has never lost its uniqueness, just has a bigger skyline.
Austin’s downtown is only walkable for people who can afford to live there, and those people certainly aren’t native Austinite’s, or Texans for that matter. I used to live just north of campus and ride my bike across downtown for both work and play. I later had an apartment off the drag. There’s no way I’d be able to afford that now. Downtown Austin has become just another rich person’s playground.
@@LuckyCharms777 Wanna know a hard truth? If Austin had cheap housing then it would attract cheap people and it wouldn’t look anywhere as nice as it does. Is it taking you long to figure this out?
@@azulaquaza4916
Wanna know a hard truth? Central Austin used to have reasonable housing costs and it attracted students, along with the lower/middle class. The cheap people stayed where the housing was more inexpensive.
What a shame!
Brings jobs but loses character like so many other cities. 👍👎
@@johnerwin9024it's more like character development.
People used to ask me how i enjoyed living in the austin area. After some thought, i responded “it’s great if you can get near it”.
I lived in Austin 20 years ago (technically 25), and visited 3 months ago for a work conference. Everywhere I looked there were homeless people, why was that not in this video? Like compared to 25 years ago it was at Lear 100x more homeless.
Supply and demand. Demand goes up but supply doesn’t match it. Fewer people can afford that product. Therefore, more are homeless.
It's because when they gentrify, the people hanging on to the lowest rung of apartments all end up on the street. I remember seeing a family of latinos evicted on the front lawn of an apartment with all their luggage and personal items strewn about while demolition began on the back end. A year later, millennials were having a party on the balcony of new "luxury" apartments in their place.
Slowly destroying itself. Thanks city “leaders”
Same thing happened to St. Petersburg in Florida.
1:48 cyber truck lol
Turned into another soulless metropolis 😒
Austin used to be actually weird. Now it’s just become corporate.
Basically another ruined city
Is Nashville the next Austin?
If you actually go to Austin right now you will see homeless tent cities everywhere even along side nice suburbs. They had to go out of their way to not capture any of that in their shots for this video 😂
People will live in a sterile, corporate wasteland and exclaim that their metropolitan hellscape is better than other metropolitan hellscapes.
Have you seen metropolitan areas outside of the U.S.?
I love how alot of the issues people are complaining about here are caused by capitalism and big monopolistic companies and old billionaires and oligarchs just following the market flow. But when you point it out, you get accused of being a gay communist from California.
You guys just love throwing those words around
they're finally trying to fix it
Living through this was like being in a war, complete with PTSD.
Nice
the skyline looks markedly worse. those new highrises look atrocious
Austinite born and raised. It’s not Austin anymore and hasn’t been for decades, it’s whatever these people who moved here have turned it into. Change is inevitable, all the original Austinites moved away. Time for me to move on as well. Good luck with this new Austin everyone. Genuinely.
I don’t like the Frost building being hidden. 🥺
All the shit does tend to pile up in one place…
The saddest thing is how everyone is on their phone in 2024. I miss when people would actually look at you and smile on the sidewalk.
Was born there, but went out in '95 for teaching interviews and scouting. Everyone was always so kind and polite, even on the phone long distance to southern Cal, that that made a huge impression on me. Never did move my young family back to my roots (parents graduated UT), but the days of almost everyone you pass walking saying hello are long gone with the phone-staring for sure.
because you never look at your phone in public, right?
A lot of people are answering business emails, reading books, etc. they aren’t all just on Facebook getting angry over memes like you.
@@BrilliantHandleno they go on RUclips and try to convince strangers of something like you do
The thing that did it for me is when they dismantled the original TCM house on quick hill back in 1998 and now the whole area is unrecognizable in 2024.
🇺🇸🍻✨️🍻🇺🇸 Ideal growth & development cheers 2 Austin down in the lone star state!.....
Back when Austin was….TEXAN! Not the enclave of California that it has become…
Make
Austin
Texan
Again
Austin has always been weird and not Texan.. it's what makes Austin Austin. Keep crying about change.. you'll eventually realized the only constant in life is that it changes .
@@hadriangonzalez607
Except Austin isn’t weird anymore, it’s been corporatized. Go to Brownsville and spur change there. With a poverty rate of 22%, it certainly needs it more than Austin.
@@LuckyCharms777 congratulations.. you've described the end goal of every city in America since the industrial revolution.
@@hadriangonzalez607
Nope, only mid-large cities. Plenty of cities are content with being “bedroom communities”.
@@LuckyCharms777 yes I'm sure their chamber of commerce are thrilled at the idea of not increasing their cities revenue.
Blame it on Joe Rogan
1:26 people playing outside. To nobody outside 🫤
It’s a picture you dodo brain 😂 the park is still plenty like that every evening
Oh, wow
It's interesting that Austin's downtown 2 decades ago was relatively modest, before exploding and pretty much becoming like Houston. Whether or not that's a good thing is none of my business.
very true! its the business for the city and new jobs.
It’s a bad thing.
@@LuckyCharms777 Again, not my business, as I don't live there and, at this point, I'm now unlikely to move there.
@@thetexanladd
It is your business because if you live in Houston, you live in the rapidly growing Texas Triangle, which is going to change our communities forever. Dallas to San Antonio to Houston to Dallas is going to become just as congested and expensive as greater LA.
@@LuckyCharms777 I don't live in Houston, either. I'm in DFW.
If there's really no where else left to go, then why should I bother? I'm done with this convo.
Khatarnak growth 🎉
It makes me want to puke. When I got here in 2013 the city was still amazing - but long time austinites told me I missed the golden years. I can only imagine how amazing those were.
This new austin... it's terrible. The soul of Austin has been completely sucked out of it, and this is a corporate husk of what it once was. If you disagree - you're lying to yourself or ignorant of what it was before - just like I used to be. Seeing this happen to TWO different cities I've lived in now... it's disgusting. All for the almighty dollar. Nothing for the people.
“erm you just hate new things” 🤓
Why is nobody talking about the cybertruck in the thumbnail?
they ruined Austin tbh 😢
Austin is so interesting. It's uniquely Texan yet nothing like Dallas and Houston. It's a western and hilly and close to the border but not like Laredo or San Antonio. It's a weird place.
The magic has been gone since 2011-ish?
Am I the only one that gets depressed seeing all the nature and simple buildings be changed for modern stores and buildings?
That lake is destroyed now 🤮🤢
Austin use to be such a beautiful town. USE TO!!!
Austin, California
RUclips 'steps' in increments of 5 seconds. It would have been nice if this was timed for that to easily flip back and forth.
I don’t even live in Austin but replacing an outdoor graffiti gallery with soulless condos makes me so fucking mad
But why? Hardly seven people live in the entire Texas
Over 30 million but ok
Cybertruck in thumbnail
New American buildings and the culture filling them look cheap and vapid.
As opposed to what? Overcrowded Asian or Tourist wonderland Europe? Perhaps 3rd world Latin America? It’s an American city
@@azulaquaza4916as opposed to what could be. It's possible to have actually beautiful new architecture.
@@divinecomedian2 Please become an architect then and make all the “beautiful” concoctions you want. Ignore limitation rules that cities have in place to conserve the looks of their city. American cities do not exist to make you gawk at them, go to soulless Asian cities if you want that
@@azulaquaza4916Embarrassing how you have these prejudices when I know your life is so much worse than mine.
@@azulaquaza4916what is your idea of “soul”? Driving through a strictly-regulated housing development where all homes look the same in your Ford truck and the run over some neighborhood kids on your way to the Dollar General?
😢