Austin’s Limits

Nowhere in America, it can be convincingly argued, is there a better assortment of live music and both fine and funky dining options than in Austin, the capital city of Texas.

Even without the famous ten-day “South by Southwest” festival each March and “Austin City Limits”  over two weekends every October, Austin would be on the world’s music map.

Among Austin’s dining destinations are what is claimed to be the largest number of food trucks of any city its size in the USA — more than 1,000 operating every day — serving everything from breakfast burritos, burgers and barbecue to migas, pizza and cupcakes.

Outnumbering food trucks in Austin by maybe a 30 to 1 ratio are metal shipping containers strewn across the city.  Sometimes these containers are as brightly painted as the food trucks, but usually they are as attractive as a rusted railroad box car, and about the same size. They are found in public and private parking lots and in back yards and vacant lots of  many businesses and neighborhoods throughout the city. Intrigued, I set off to discover  what the purpose of these eyesores might be.

I found that a few containers had two or three sides removed to provide homeowners cantina-style outdoor living. In other places brightly colored containers have been converted to “tiny houses” for Austin’s booming house-sharing franchises like Airbnb. But in most places, it appears that containers provide the storage space which Austin business and home owners need because their buildings lack basements.

I also learned that some containers provide secure storage for the tools of trade for building or remodeling homes at a record-setting pace for the nation’s fastest growing large city. Now the nation’s 11th largest city, Austin shows signs of growing faster than its expansion can be managed and monitored. Major roads are congested with traffic and construction; neighborhood streets are clogged with garbage and recycling bins as well as parked cars which can no longer be accommodated on thousands of narrow lots where two two-story buildings have replaced a single one-story house; and old or new, many houses lack garages.

Nevertheless, music, food, especially friendly people, and wonderful weather (outside of the oppressive summer months) will continue to attract tourists and transplants to what many people consider to be the most livable and forgivable of all Texas cities. Austin’s population increased by more than a third over the past decade, and shows no signs of slowing.

JER