Apple’s new billion-dollar campus expected to accelerate Austin gentrification

Apple “announced this month it’s opening new offices in Austin, investing $1 billion and bringing as many as 15,000 jobs to a city that was already the fastest growing in the nation for three years running — with a thriving music and arts scene, an established technology industry, a rising national profile and a booming real estate market,” Rachel Adams-Heard reports for Bloomberg. “While Apple’s announcement lacked the months-long drama of Amazon.com Inc.’s search for a second headquarters, the news is triggering the same fears of soaring rents and home prices that Amazon’s decision sparked in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City and to a lesser extent in Northern Virginia.”
“But Austin is different. It’s already a tech hub — home to more than 6,000 Apple employees, about 13,000 Dell Technologies Inc. workers and another 3,000-plus at Oracle Corp. and Amazon combined,” Adams-Heard reports. “Austin’s population surged almost 20 percent from 2010 to 2017, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. The most recent figure puts Austin’s population at just shy of 1 million people — a stretch for a town with just two major north-to-south highways.”
“Probably the only thing you’ll hear residents complain about more than traffic is how much rents have gone up. The median rent in Austin has climbed more than 30 percent over the past eight years, according to Zillow, compared with a more-modest 15 percent increase across the rest of the country,” Adams-Heard reports. “‘Austin, as any city, is always changing, and with change comes challenges,’ said David Pruitt, Central Texas district manager for Coldwell Banker United Realtors, who’s lived in Austin since he enrolled at the University of Texas in 1981. ‘At the end of the day, I don’t think growth is bad. I think it’s an opportunity, actually.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Go read the full article at the increasingly anti-Apple Bloomberg and note the pervasive negative slant that runs throughout the article that’s not as apparent from the above excerpts.
Oh, no, Austin is booming! Perish the thought.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s gets $41 million in incentives for new Austin campus – December 18, 2018
Apple shows how to select new tech hub locations with class – December 14, 2018
What Apple’s new U.S. job additions tell us about their future product plans – December 14, 2018
Apple to build new $1 billion, 133-acre campus in Austin and add jobs across America – December 13, 2018