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| A summary of Austin, Texas |
Austin is the capital of Texas, a state of the United States of America. With a 2000 population of 656,562 and a metro population of over 1 million people, Austin is the fourth largest city in Texas (behind Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio), and the 16th largest in the U.S. It is the county seat of Travis County.
Austin is located in Central Texas. It was first named Waterloo but was renamed in honor of Stephen F. Austin. Its original name is referenced in establishments such as Waterloo Ice House and Waterloo Records.
Austin is also the home of the University of Texas at Austin, the "flagship campus" of The University of Texas System.
Like Madison, Wisconsin, Austin has been a heady mix of educators and their students, politicians and lobbyists. It is also the self-proclaimed "live music capital of the world", with a vibrant live music scene centered around many clubs on 6th Street and a yearly music festival known as South by Southwest.
Austin's biggest employers include the State of Texas, The University of Texas at Austin, Dell Computers, Motorola, and IBM. The region is known as Silicon Hills. There has been a lot of rapid development with the construction driving the city towards the north and the south.
The University of Texas has an outstanding Radio, Television, and Film (RTF) department and, largely because of this, Austin has been the location of a number of movies, including Spy Kids, Dazed and Confused, Office Space and Slackers. Austin is home to several famous directors such as Robert Rodriguez. Austin hosts the annual Austin Film Festival as well as the South by Southwest Festival which draw films of many different types from all over the world.
Austin is situated on the Colorado River, with 3 lakes within the city limits: Town Lake, Lake Austin, and Lake Travis. The city is also situated on the Balcones Fault, which runs the same route as Interstate Highway 35, Austin's main north-south artery. The eastern part of the city is flat while the western part and western suburbs consist of beautiful rolling hills. These unfortunately make the city vulnerable to flash floods. To control run-off and generate hydroelectric power, Austin has a series of dams run by the Lower Colorado River Authority.
Politics: Austin is administered by a non-partisan council of seven members, each of them elected by the entire city, and by an elected mayor. Under a tradition known as the "gentleman's agreement" which has existed since the 1970s, one of the council seats is contested only by an African-American while another council seat is contested only by a Hispanic. Political parties are not a major influence on city politics, and the main political actors within Austin are interest groups like the pro-environmental Save Our Springs Alliance.
The political controversy that dominated the 1990s was the conflict between environmentalists strong in the city center and advocates of more urban growth who tend to live in the suburbs. This conflict has been less heated in the last several years as the idea of smart growth has become popular.
Austin is served by the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
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