A Tale of Six Cities
Forty years of urban Texas, as told through the archives of Texas Monthly.
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In the midst of the frenzy, the old Austin dream died. The city started growing faster than it ever had. Many of the old politicians didn’t recognize it, but there was a new electorate in Austin, and the newcomers didn’t share the dream of first love at Barton Springs, cold beer at Scholz’s, and picnics under the pecans. . . . Ten years ago FM 2222 was where the boondocks began, and the only people anyone knew living north of it were dope dealers. Now it was Main Street for high-tech migrants who had moved to Austin to work for IBM, Tracor, and Texas Instruments.
Gary Cartwright, “High Noon at the Circle C,” May 1984
For years the prevailing myth of Dallas has been that it has no reason for being—no river, no port, no natural resource—and only the inspired leadership of the city fathers has kept the town alive. Even if that were true once, it’s not any longer. Today Dallas has every reason for being. It’s a regional hub for commerce and transportation, home to numerous businesses, seventh-largest city in the country. It’s not all going to just blow away.
Gregory Curtis, Behind the Lines, August 1984
When the bust first took hold, in the spring of 1982, it seemed a furtive secret, the city a stunned organism that didn’t even have the vocabulary to talk about it. But as the intoxicating cash flow dried up, the reality sank in, and out went the city’s self-satisfied identity. For the first time practically since the Allen brothers, Houston began questioning its most basic assumptions. Was it just possible that Houston’s economy was too dependent on oil? That Houston might have to shine its shoes and go courting business that had nothing to do with energy? That the freeways had become a mite too crowded, that the lack of parks was disgraceful, that the sewer hookups were a mess? Was it even possible that the no-zoning-no-controls-unlimited-growth-anything-goes gospel had actually contributed to the bust?
Alison Cook and Peter Elkind, “Is This All There Is?” December 1984
The mayor’s view reflects a tradition of placidity among El Paso’s wealthy—a tradition that is slowly changing as bank mergers and the influx of national retail chains, maquiladoras, and airlines dilute the power of El Paso’s most-influential families. “The mayor is being dragged kicking and screaming from the eighteenth century into the nineteenth,” says Thomas Lee, a business consultant who calls himself the town Cassandra.
Tina Rosenberg, “The Prophets,” February 1987
[Henry] Cisneros’ obsession with retrofitting San Antonio as a high-tech capital is fueled by his nightmare vision of the city as a place where Mexican Americans were kept down by low-paying industry, a backwater resistant to ambition and stagnant with unshared power. Some of his critics, though, contend that he has gotten carried away, that in his quest for research parks and tourist attractions and sports stadiums he has lost touch with the essential rhythms and needs of the city.
Stephen Harrigan, “The Time of His Life,” September 1987
In hindsight, it seems clear that San Antonio never really conceived of itself as being as large as Cisneros did and that the past eight years of frenzy were an aberration. Yet in its soul, San Antonio isn’t a retirement community either. The basic citywide crucible that created a need for a leader like Cisneros is still there. The city still has a large minority community, a business community that is divided between the genteel old-timers and the hustling newcomers, and a pool of young professionals who are attracted to the town’s rich, multifaceted nature. Until a leader emerges who can sell the city on both a vision and a comfortable pace, San Antonio will remain stuck in the past.
Jan Jarboe, “Back to the Past,” April 1990
At first, Mayor Lee Cooke tried to keep order by asking the audience not to applaud, but finally he gave up, recognizing that the [hearing] had turned into theater. Midnight passed. Another member of Earth First! opened a backpack and dumped out golf balls he had collected from Barton Creek. A man in a green shirt led the audience in cheers of “Hold that line.” It was impossible to imagine this sort of thing occurring in Houston or Dallas. “Barton Springs is a sacred area,” said a woman in white shorts and a purple blouse. “I use it personally for my own religious experience.”
Paul Burka, “The Battle for Barton Springs,” August 1990
The Third Decade (1993–2002)
The boom is back—and weirder than ever.
By 1993 the magazine had moved to a large suite of offices on the top floor of the Austin Centre building at Seventh and Brazos and employed more than one hundred people, including sales reps in locales as far-flung as San Francisco, Toronto, and Mexico City. Circulation had hit 300,000, and in 1999 Levy sold the magazine to Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications, though he remained publisher. In 2000 Curtis turned the editorial reins over to a new editor, Evan Smith. Now as slick-looking as Vanity Fair or Esquire, the magazine was a reflection of the state’s rising self-confidence.
Of all the symbols of modern Houston—the oil derrick, the building crane, the designer skyscraper—the breast is the most unlikely. The ultimate emblem of femininity—it yields, it nurtures, it entices—the breast would appear to have no more than decorative use in a place that has always been known as a man’s town of big deals and big deeds, where self-invention has achieved the status of religion. Houston, it has always seemed safe to say, isn’t soft on anything.
But whether locals recognize it or not, Houston is in the grips of one enormous breast fixation. . . . In Houston, you see, the breast that has invigorated the economy is not real but man-made, one that perfectly reflects the city’s obsession with sex and commerce, technology and individuality.
Mimi Swartz, “Silicone City,” August 1995
You might say that the strong reaction to the [new San Antonio Public Library] has as much to do with social trends as architectural ones. What Santa Anna couldn’t do at the Battle of the Alamo—and what Henry Cisneros didn’t do in his ten years as mayor—[Ricardo] Legorreta did with his design: He affirmed San Antonio’s past as a proud Mexican village.
Jan Russell, “Seeing Red,” November 1995
I am well aware that no Texas city is ridiculed the way Dallas is. Everybody makes fun of our ostentatious love of big hair, glittery clothes, and expensive restaurants; our great mansions with no front porches; our blinking, phallic Reunion Tower; our bad television shows (the most recent being Walker, Texas Ranger); our professional football team; and of course, our professional football cheerleaders. If [my daughter] turns out to be a blonde, my wife and I will have to sit her down and solemnly inform her that even if she ends up teaching at Harvard, it won’t matter; she will forever be labeled a blond Dallas bimbo by the rest of the country.
Skip Hollandsworth, “Babes in the ’Hoods,” April 1997
To out-of-towners especially, Austin’s leisurely pace, cheap beer, and ample barbecue seemed like paradise. The city welcomed SXSW’s tourism dollars, while Austinites welcomed the music; locals have always had the opportunity to participate in the conference by paying a modest price for a wristband that gets them in to all the clubs. All things must pass, however, and in the past few years SXSW has lost its homey innocence. . . . The conference never fails to inspire a certain amount of defensiveness and sarcasm from the locals. Take the Wannabes. The Austin band, which has played at eight SXSWs, had T-shirts printed for this year’s gig. They read “Don’t Move Here.”
Jason Cohen, “5,707 Schmoozers, 750 Bands, 29 Musical Cars, and 250 Gallons of Cream Gravy,” May 1997
Downtown Fort Worth has become Texas’ liveliest urban environment. The redbrick streets are lined with restaurants, nightclubs, and shops, most of them new. There are twenty movie screens, four live-theater venues, and four exhibit spaces. There’s a corner deli. The streets are jammed on weekends, and they bustle with activity from Monday through Friday. “Last week, I took my wife to the movies, and it took us forty-five minutes to find a place to park,” a cabdriver told me, beaming with pride. “It’s just like New York City.”
Joe Nick Patoski, “Wowtown!” April 1998
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