Austin Texas - Jewel of the Southwest

Austin is the capital city of Texas and is also the county seat of Travis County. It's located in the center of Texas, and is the 16th biggest city in all of the United States of America. It's also the fourth largest city in the whole of Texas. The largest city in a state is not usually chosen as the legislative capital of the state because it is the economic capital, and in case of attack, it's essential for the economic capital to remain standing if the legislative capital falls, or vis versa.

Austin, Texas has a population of 743,074 as of 2007, and was labeled as the third fastest growing city in the United States from 2000 to 2006.

Austin, Texas was settled in 1830, and the first founded village was named Waterloo, and set on the Colorado River. Before settlement, the area of Austin/Waterloo was home to many nomadic Native American tribes, such as the Lipan Apaches, the Comanches, and the Tonkawa. When Texas gained its independence and became the Republic of Texas, the vice president, Mirabeau Lamar, visited Waterloo. When Lamar was named as the president of the Republic of Texas, Waterloo was chosen as its capital and renamed Austin after Stephen F. Austin, one of the leaders and heroes of the Republic of Texas. By about 1840, the population of Austin was 850 people, and Lamar's people brought 200 workers to help build up the new city.

However, when Sam Houston became president of the Republic, he tried to move the capital to Washington, and the population of Austin began shrinking until it neared a mere 200 people. Though outsiders believed that the city would die out, the people of Austin stubbornly kept the national archives inside Austin despite Houston's attempts to move them to Washington. Finally, when Anson Jones became president of Texas in 1844, he held a state-wide convention at Austin where they discussed whether Texas wanted to join the United States. When the annexation became official, Austin was once again named as the capitol. The city grew larger and larger with the construction of the state capitol in Austin in 1888 (at that time the 7th largest building in the world) and the founding of the University of Texas. During the Great Depression, Austin was sadly slowed in growth, but quickly picked it up and emerged ahead of many other large cities as a center for business investment and technology. Now, many corporations make their home in Austin and operate from this wonderful city.

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Austin is considered one of the best cities in the entire United States because of its citizens and safety. In 2006, it was voted as the number one big best city to live by the Money magazine. MSN called it the Greenest City in America because of its great environmental policies, garbage collection processes, and goal to keep the city clean and green. CNN Headline News says that Austin is the city with the second best citizen personalities in the entire United States because people are kind, friendly, and always willing to lend a hand; the personality is described as relaxed and happy. Travel Channel called Austin the #1 best college town because of its safety, personality, atmosphere, and weather. In the United States, Austin has the fifth lowest crime rate of all large cities; each year, only 3 people are murder per hundred thousand. Residents of Austin are generally comprised of professors, students, politicians, musicians, state employees, lobbyists, white and blue collar workers, and technology workers. Austin is often known as the "live music capital of the world", because of the great number of musicians, bands, and orchestras that thrive there. Additionally, it has been nicknamed the Silicon Hills because of the many computer and high-tech corporations housed there.

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Austin is about 258 square miles in total surface area, and was founded to be right next to the Colorado River. Three artificial lakes are located inside of Austin, and there are few natural lakes because of the dry weather. Mount Bonnell, one of the popular scenic attractions of Austin, is about 780 feet above sea level and is a natural limestone foundation that rises over Lake Austin.

Austin's climate is humid and subtropical, meaning that the summer is very hot and the winters are quite warm and cozy. Most of the rain occurs in the spring and fall, but there really isn't much of it, though sometimes in the springtime there are enormous and severe thunderstorms in the area. The sun is usually visible from the city, and entirely cloudy days are very rare. The summer is extremely hot and very humid, resulting in a wet, sticky, and muggy feeling in the air. In September, 2000, the highest temperature in the summertime was 115 degrees F, which is the highest temperature the weather has ever reached in Austin.

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The two largest industries in Austin are the defense and technology sectors, which are never at a shortage of workers because of the thousands of engineering and computer science graduates from the University of Austin every year. Housing costs in Austin aren't terrible; they're lower than those in Silicon Valley on the West Coast, but significantly higher than those in rural areas surrounding Austin (which is quite normal in large cities).

The 1990s dot-com boom and bust great affected the Austin economy, since so many technology corporations are housed there. There was a bit of a depression after the dot-com bust in Austin, and many were out of jobs, but recovery was quick when the internet boom caught on and companies stabilized. The largest companies in Austin are the Seton Healthcare Network, IBM, Dell, Freescale Semiconductor, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, eBay/Paypal, and Google. Despite the enormous amount of huge commercial companies, Austin also has a nice, independent small-business section, represented by the Austin Independent Business Alliance, which fights the domination of large corporations and supports small private businesses.

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