Quote:
Originally Posted by Schertz1
I disagree. The size of DT has little to do with it; Killeen barely has a DT. Round Rock has grown because of Dell, not because of Austin. I will go further and say, "Austin owes much of it's growth to Dell". Williamson County is much larger than Hays County. But before Dell came along, I think It was the other way around. During the 80's, South Austin along IH35 was a high growth area, but after Dell that stopped.
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Hays:
1970-27,642
1980-40,594
1990-65,614
2000-97,589
2008*-149,476
http://recenter.tamu.edu/data/popc/pc48209.htm
Williamson
1970-37,305
1980-76,521
1990-139,551
2000-249,967
2008*-394,193
http://recenter.tamu.edu/data/popc/pc48491.htm
*-estimates
Hays County growth has far from slowed since the 80s. As a matter of fact, it has accelerated since 2000.
Williamson County has been bigger than Hays County for a
long time.
Of course Round Rock grew because of Dell, although it wouldn't have grown to be over 100,000 people due to a single company. Stating that the majority of Austin's growth has been attributed to Dell is a really silly comment. Dell employs ~16,000 people in Greater Austin, out of a labor market employing ~800,000. When Dell was just a relatively minor player in the PC market, Austin was already the center of a metro of a million people.
Lastly, South Austin is still a rapidly growing part of the city, and has far from stopped growing.