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Michael Dell, Kendra Scott and Whitney Wolfe Herd are among entrepreneurs based in Austin. (Dell/Kendra Scott/Bumble)
Austin ranks 11th among 75 international cities and sixth among U.S. cities, according to a new index from the e-commerce support platform Oberlo, which considered categories from infrastructure to financing.
Austin's ranking varied widely across categories. It outperformed in access to global markets (fourth overall), support systems available for female founders (seventh) and government COVID relief (seventh), according to the index. It underperformed in areas of human tech capital (19th), unemployment benefits (31st) and logistics infrastructure (32nd).
The top-ranked city in the world is London, which received a perfect score on the index. The U.S. cities that came in ahead of Austin include New York in second place, San Francisco in third, Los Angeles in sixth, Boston in eighth and Chicago in 10th.
(Oberlo)
Austin ranked second among U.S. metros in the 2017 Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurship, which has since been retired. At the time, entrepreneurs made up 0.51% of the adult population—or one out of every 200 people.
And the city ranks sixth among large U.S. metros in terms of new business formation per capita, according to the Austin Chamber. There were 3.5 employer firms with less than two years in business per 1,000 population in 2017, the latest year for which data is available, compared to 2.6 nationally.
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The 2020 census was plagued by the pandemic and politics at the state and federal level. But Austin outperformed other cities across Texas in terms of its self-response rate. (Stock photo)
1. There may have been an undercount.
Texas gained two congressional seats as a result of population growth tallied during the 2020 census, more than any other state in the country, but the state was widely projected to gain a third.
Along with the pandemic and a lack of state investment in census outreach, the former Trump administration's attempt to add a citizenship question may have contributed to an undercount. "There was a lot of damage done with just that early confusion," Wheeler said.
Regional data will be released in late September, which will provide more insight into where an undercount may have occurred. But there are already indications that a gap occurred. The census tracts with the lowest self-response rate in the city of Austin are mostly concentrated on the East side.
Additionally, nearly 0.9% of Texas addresses remained unresolved—meaning members of those households did not respond to the questionnaire or census takers who followed up in person, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This is a 71% increase compared to the 2010 census, when 0.52% of Texas addresses remained unresolved.
2. Even a small undercount could have large financial repercussions for Austin.
The city of Austin 2020 population estimate is 995,484. Assuming this is an undercount of 0.9%—which would be at the low-risk end of the spectrum, according to a 2019 report by the Urban Institute—it would leave 9,041 Austin residents uncounted.
For every person uncounted, the community loses $1,500 in annual federal funding, Wheeler said. So this gap would cost the community $135.6 million—in Medicaid funding, Title I school grants and public transit programming—over the next decade.
Although such federal funding has constraints in terms of what it can be used for, such dollars could help offset the costs of programs like:
- The $3.85 billion in local funding required over the next 15 years for Project Connect.
- The $168 million estimated investment required to fund a new city plan to house 3,000 homeless people in three years.
- A $12 million proposal to transform the local early childcare system.
(Capital Metro)3. Austin's racial and ethnic groups are growing at unequal rates.
Between 2010 and 2020, the city of Austin's overall population grew by nearly 26%, according to census data. But this growth varied across racial and ethnic groups.
The city's Black or African American population grew at about the same rate between 2010 and 2019, the latest year for which such data is available. The non-Hispanic White and Hispanic or Latino populations grew at slightly lower rates—22.8% and 19.5%, respectively—over the same period. But the city's Asian population skyrocketed, growing by more than 50% over the last decade.
4. Austin outperformed other large Texas cities in counting its population.
Although the state of Texas saw its self-response rate ranking fall to 39th place in 2020 from 25th in 2010, Austin-Travis County improved its performance over the same period. In fact, it was the only large city-county pair in Texas to beat its 2010 self-response rate, City Demographer Lila Valencia said Tuesday. "I'm really optimistic for Travis County and Austin," she said, attributing the improvement to local investment in the counting process.
(Pexels)
5. It's not too soon to start thinking about the 2030 census.
John Lawler, 2020 census program manager for Austin-Travis County, laid out a number of things the city and county could do in the meantime to improve accuracy, including:
- Staffing up earlier to improve local outreach efforts
- Building on relationships with grassroots community organizations, which proved critical in reaching hard-to-count populations
- Jointly funding an organizing entity that improves civic participation overall, and not just during census years
"Frankly, we should start tomorrow planning for the census in 2030," he said.
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Austin is one of the leading Heartland metros when it comes to foreign-born population growth, according to a new report from the Arkansas-based think tank Heartland Forward. (Shutterstock)
The Arkansas-based think tank studied foreign-born population growth in the American Heartland—a 20-state region that stretches from the Appalachians to the Rockies. The area has seen its share of the foreign-born population rise from 23.5% in 2010 to 31.1% in 2019 and may be supplanting historic immigration hubs such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The 20-state Heartland region stretches from the Appalachians to the Rockies. (Heartland Forward)
Heartland metros such as Austin offer relatively low costs of living, economic opportunity and a spirit of friendliness, in contrast to the region's profile as "a hotbed of nativist and xenophobic attitudes." This demographic trend is good news, according to Heartland Forward, because it:
- Lessens pressure on overcrowded areas
- Reverses the population loss and rapid aging previously seen across the Heartland
- Helps fill gaps in the U.S. labor market and fuel economic growth
Texas is one outlier among Heartland states in that its population has been steadily growing for decades. More recently, this growth has been mostly driven by an increase in the state's Hispanic population, which grew by more than 2 million people between 2010 and 2020, according to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau last June.
(Heartland Forward)
The Heartland's largest metropolitan areas, which include Austin, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, stand to benefit most from this immigration wave. The influx of foreign-born residents helps fill gaps in the region's labor market, from the blue-collar manufacturing sector to big tech.
The report cites a recent Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis study, which found that as many as half of all manufacturing workers in Texas are foreign-born. It also points to the pandemic migration of Bay Area tech companies to Heartland metros, including Austin. The Texas capital offers a relatively affordable cost of living and a rapidly growing economy, which appeals to corporations, workers and entrepreneurs.
Foreign-born population growth may also attract another desirable contingent to Heartland metros: millennials. Austin already ranks highly among 25- to -40-year olds, in part thanks to the diversity it offers.
These demographic shifts may lead to changing attitudes in Heartland states, which are increasingly dependent on population growth for economic success. "The reduction in immigration caused by policy changes and the pandemic hit many Heartland industries with severe labor shortages, from restaurants to farms, factories and hospitals," according to the report.
Heartland Forward argues it is critical that Heartland metros help immigrants integrate through better access to municipal services, English language training and job opportunities. If they do so, the region could reverse decades of decline and return to the enterprising hubs they once were.
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