page_title: History of Austin, Texas
section_title: 1990 to present
hierarchical_section_title: History of Austin, Texas / 20th century / 1990 to present
caption_attribution_description: English: Austin skyline, from atop the parking garage at 6th &amp; Lamar.
context_page_description: The recorded history of Austin, Texas, began in the 1830s when Anglo-American settlers arrived in Central Texas. In 1837 settlers founded the village of Waterloo on the banks of the Colorado River, the first permanent settlement in the area. By 1839, Waterloo would adopt the name Austin and become the capital of the Republic of Texas.
  Austin's history has also been largely tied to state politics and in the late 19th century, the establishment of the University of Texas made Austin a regional center for higher education, as well as a hub for state government. In the 20th century, Austin's music scene had earned the city the nickname "Live Music Capital of the World." With a population of over 800,000 inhabitants in 2010, Austin is experiencing a population boom. During the 2000s Austin was the third fastest-growing large city in the nation.
context_section_description: In the 1990s, the boom resumed with the influx and growth of a large technology industry. Initially, the technology industry was centered around larger, established companies such as IBM, but in the late 1990s, Austin gained the additional reputation of being a center of the dot-com boom and subsequent dot-com bust. Austin is also known for game development, filmmaking, and popular music. On May 23, 1999, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport served its first passengers, replacing Robert Mueller Municipal Airport. In 2000, Austin became the center of an intense media focus as the headquarters of presidential candidate and Texas Governor George W. Bush. The headquarters of his main opponent, Al Gore, were in Nashville, thus re-creating the old country music rivalry between the two cities.
  Also in the 2000 election, Austinites narrowly rejected a light rail proposal put forward by Capital Metro. In 2004, however, they approved a commuter rail service from Leander to downtown along existing rail lines. Capital MetroRail service finally began service in 2010.
  In 2004, the Frost Bank Tower opened in the downtown business district along Congress Avenue. At 515 feet (157 m), it was the tallest building in Austin by a wide margin, and was also the first high rise to be built after September 11, 2001. Several other high-rise downtown projects, most residential or mixed-use, were underway in the downtown area at the time, dramatically changing the appearance of downtown Austin, and placing a new emphasis on downtown living and development.
  In 2006, the first sections of Austin's first toll road network opened. The toll roads were extolled as a solution to underfunded highway projects, but also decried by opposition groups who felt the tolls amounted in some cases to a double tax.
  In March 2018, a series of four explosions centered in Austin, killed two civilians and injuring another five.
  Presently, Austin continues to rise in popularity and experience rapid growth. Young people in particular have flooded the city, drawn in part by its relatively strong economy, its reputation of liberal politics and alternative culture in Middle America, and its relatively low housing costs compared to the coastal regions of the country. The sudden growth has brought up several issues for the city, including urban sprawl, as well as balancing the need for new infrastructure with environmental protection. Most recently, the city has pushed for smart growth, mostly in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, spurring the development of new condominiums in the area and altering the city's skyline. While Smart Growth has been successful in revitalizing downtown and the surrounding central city neighborhoods housing development has not kept pace with demand driven by rapid and sustained employment growth which has resulted in higher housing costs.
caption: Downtown high-rises viewed from the west
exif: {"Image Make": "EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY", "Image Model": "KODAK DX4900 ZOOM DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "230", "Image YResolution": "230", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.0.3", "Image DateTime": "2006:02:11 23:53:22", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.4.4", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "282", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "230", "Thumbnail YResolution": "230", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1710", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3510", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/180", "EXIF FNumber": "67/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2003:12:14 15:19:26", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2003:12:14 15:19:26", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "15/2", "EXIF ApertureValue": "11/2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "7/2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "117/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2448", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1632", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "100", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}