Super Cities

The Austin Boom

The best of times, the worst of times.

Dispatch State Capacity 1 min read Brendan Hart
The Austin Boom

For decades, Austin prided itself on being weird – but now it ranks among the most productive cities in the US.

High growth

  • Since 2010, the GDP of Greater Austin has nearly doubled.
  • Since 2010, Austin's economic growth has been nearly three times the national average.
  • Austin's population has grown by 36 percent since 2010.[1]
  • Venture funding has increased fivefold since 2016.
  • A pandemic winner: Austin's GDP rose nearly 20% from 2020 to 2022.
  • Median household income in Austin has increased by more than 50 percent from 2010 to 2020.

High cost

  • Since 2010, home prices in Austin have increased at nearly twice the national average.
  • Median home valuations rose nearly 70 percent in some of Austin's best school districts from 2021 to 2022.
  • In Austin, Latino and Black residents are twice as likely to be living in poverty as white Austinites.
  • Austin has Texas’s highest per capita rate of people experiencing homelessness.

  1. This change represents the highest growth of any major metropolitan area in the country. ↩︎

Brendan Hart

About the Author

Brendan Hart

Brendan Hart is an economist, entrepreneur, and executive advisor with two decades of experience building organizations and leading transformation across technology, defense, human capital, and government. USMC. Dartmouth. UVA-Darden.