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On Barton Springs and S. Lamar, workers dug deep to fix the issue in the road this week. (Laura Figi/Austonia)
As Austin's "icepocalypse" melts into the rearview mirror, though day-to-day life has mostly resumed, the city has a long, arduous recovery process ahead. It seems as though no area was immune to the damage inflicted by the historic winter storm.
Apartment complexes struggled, pipes broke, churches flooded and people were displaced from their homes, jobs and families for nearly a week.
Though much of downtown was less affected during the storm, Gables West Avenue sustained major damage to the clubhouse.
Zilker Elementary School was surrounded by a perimeter of fallen branches and leaves due to the storm on Thursday. (Laura Figi/Austonia)
Early into the storm, Gables West Avenue had at least two pipes break.(Laura Figi/Austonia)
Plants are in a dire state—most regional plants are not meant to be exposed to such extreme weather.(Laura Figi/Austonia)
Although the Retreat apartment complex on South Lamar has had its essentials restored, leasing manager Emma Riggins said every building in the complex had some sort of pipe freeze or burst.(Laura Figi/Austonia)
An entire building at the Retreat was blocked off due to damage.(Laura Figi/Austonia)
Joe, a landscaper working on the property, said all areas of Austin got hit hard by tree damage. He estimates it will take about a month to clean up the whole city.(Laura Figi/Austonia)
Pearl Lantana Leasing Agent Lisa Messenger said, "it's been the storm of the century" for the complex, which has brought in repair companies from out of state to fix the complex.(Laura Figi/Austonia)
The complex is still having issues fixing pipes and getting hot water to some residents, but 444 out of 500 apartments are back in working order as of Friday.(Laura Figi/Austonia)
Marble Falls Church of Christ estimates that after the building flooded, the repair costs will be above $600,000. (Photo courtesy of Greg Neill)
Preaching minister Greg Neill said he was amazed at how the community came together to help the church take care of damage. (Photo courtesy of Greg Neill)
The road to recovery is long but thankfully, the worst is over.
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Popular
Miami and Austin are going head-to-head for tech transplants. (Pexels)
California expats and industry experts say Austin remains the bigger draw for Californians, especially those in the tech sector, but warn that this advantage could shift to Miami if the city doesn't address the policy challenges that prompted the migration in the first place: housing affordability.
"If Austin doesn't accommodate this influx, I think all the talent will come to Miami," said Peter Yared, a tech entrepreneur who moved to Miami from San Francisco in September. "I think Miami's going to be the one that sucks it all up."
Push factors
Both Texas and Florida promise business-friendly state tax policies, and their governors tout the relocations of companies such as Tesla and Oracle from California. But Darien Shanske, a law professor at the University of California Davis whose specialties include taxation, said this is a red herring because corporate taxes are based on where sales occur rather than headquarter locations.
This is not to say other state policies are irrelevant. "The area in which California regulatory policy has been, in my opinion, not a complete failure but problematic … is housing policy," Shanske said. Austin and Miami can offer "not cheap, just cheaper" housing than what is available in Silicon Valley. Plus, both cities are developing a critical mass of talent, which further draws Californians in. "If you're a software engineer, you want to live near other software engineers," he added.
But not every Californian is motivated to move. "San Francisco is a fantastic place to live if you can afford it," said Brandy Aven, a professor of entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. As a result, it's more common for what she called the labor—engineers, programmers and even company founders—to relocate to cities such as Austin and Miami than the monied venture capitalists. Burgeoning tech cities may find that they need to develop homegrown investor networks to support local ventures in the absence of Californian transplants, but she believes this is doable.
Pull factors
Paul O'Brien, CEO of the Austin-based MediaTech Ventures and a startup veteran, moved to Austin from California in 2009, during the Great Recession. "I'm a firm believer that the world has been seeking an alternative to Silicon Valley for a long time," he said, pointing to Austin as the natural heir for myriad reasons.
Austin has regional appeal as the epicenter of three of the country's largest cities—Houston, Dallas and San Antonio—and their respective industry niches. Tech entrepreneurs could cater to the local consumer goods industry or Houston's oil and gas sector. Plus the city has cultural appeal, thanks to the Red River District and South by Southwest, which made it attractive to job seekers. "The whole reason everyone moved to Silicon Valley is opportunity," O'Brien said. "The whole reason people are now looking beyond Silicon Valley to somewhere else is opportunity."
It's less clear what Miami's key industries are, O'Brien said, but the city offers other selling points, including the mayor's buy-in and "a tremendous depth of wealth" to support a technology and startup ecosystem.
Although Yared didn't consider moving to Austin, he is aware of its appeal to engineers, especially now that their hero, Elon Musk, has moved there, shunning California. "Austin has a lock on tech," he said, but Miami draws a different crowd, including financiers from New York. This parallel migration, coupled with the city's more outwardly pro-growth building policies, gives him hope that Miami could supplant Austin in the coming years. "In the end, communities get to choose what they want," he said.
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