Economist to Austin City Council: The Good News Is Also the Bad News

[TexasTowelie]

Austin's economic boom is expected to continue surging through 2019, according to an Austin economist who presented his forecast to City Council last week.

But John Hockenyos of Texas Perspective Inc., an economic and public policy consulting firm, also cautioned that the kind of economic growth the city is expected to achieve cannot be sustained without continued substantial population growth.

“If we're going to keep this up — and it’s debatable whether that’s desirable or not — at this pace we’re going to have lots and lots of people continue to move here,” he said. “So far that hasn’t been a problem; others might say that is the problem.”

Hockenyos’ projections forecasted a surge of growth in tourism, hotel occupancy, the housing market, multi-family residences, jobs, and manufacturing.

More at http://www.austinpost.org/article/austin-growth-expected-continue-inexorably .

[DhhD]

1. Texas, the new Bangladesh, population of 1,074 people per square Km.

https://mygoldenbengal.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/inequality-in-bangladesh/

http://countryeconomy.com/demography/population/bangladesh

[hobbit709]

2. All the boom has done is make housing unaffordable for most people here.

Preboom wages and postboom prices are not a good combination.
All the new housing condos going up are going to average $1500+ per bedroom. Meanwhile working class wages are staying under $10/hr.

And where are all these people working? All the manufacturing that used to be in Austin is gone. TI-long gone, IBM-long gone, Motorola-long gone, Even Dell doesn't build any computers here any more.