Some personal news

I've got some personal news to share. In a few months I'll be leaving Austin. My family is relocating to the Philadelphia area. However, I'm going to keep writing APN and at the very least make quarterly trips back to Austin to try to keep in touch with sources and the city itself.

Why are we moving? The short answer is my wife. For many years Jen has longed for less heat, less driving, and less right-wing authoritarianism. The fact that I started a business that was inextricably linked to Austin probably explains why we ended up staying here so long, but she didn't want to stay here forever and I agreed that if we were going to move, we should move while our kiddo is still young. I moved three times as a kid –– at 4, 10, and 14 –– and the two latter moves were tough.

There's a lot I'm going to miss about this town, especially the great friends I've made. I grew up in several different places (Mexico, Pittsburgh, France, New Jersey) and the decade I spent in Austin is the longest I’ve ever remained in place. I did at one point think I'd live here forever and eventually have the authority to talk about how Austin used to be. I'll also miss my beautiful neighborhood and house in South Austin. Speaking of my house, it's on the market! Please buy it! I would love to sell to an APN reader.

But I’m also excited by some things coming out of the move. Most notably, for the first time since leaving home at 18, I’ll be close to my parents, who live 90 minutes away in north Jersey. I’m really looking forward to my daughter being able to see her grandparents on a regular basis. I didn't have that experience a kid and I'd really like her to have it.

I'm also excited about keeping Austin a part of my life, both by monitoring it from a distance and by making trips down here every few months. It will be interesting to watch two very different cities evolve in the coming years. I think my decision to keep the newsletter going and maintain a relationship with the city has significantly mitigated the grief I would otherwise feel about leaving.

I'm actually not the first Austin journalist to write about the city from elsewhere. For a while now Ken Martin of the Austin Bulldog has been living in Arkansas.

The bottom line is there obviously a cost to not living in the place you're writing about. There is no better way to connect with people than face-to-face, and it won't be as easy to do that in the future. There are nuances to local politics and policymaking that I will miss out on by not being at City Hall as much.

But this is also prompting me to take advantage of the next few months to meet with as many people as possible to fortify my source network. And I plan on using my periodic trips back to Austin to meet with existing and new sources. I'm particularly interested in having off-the-record conversations with people who work at the city, Cap Metro or the Austin Transit Partnership –– if you are in one of those buckets, please reach out to me if I haven't reached out to you already!

I hope you believe the information and insight I continue to provide about Austin is valuable enough to earn your support. If you one day determine that I am woefully out of touch, it's of course your right to take your business and attention elsewhere.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support. I started this newsletter six years ago from scratch while frantically juggling several other freelance writing jobs and preparing for imminent fatherhood. I certainly haven't gotten rich off it, but it's allowed me to make a decent living doing what I love. I'm incredibly lucky, not just for your business, but the bond I've developed with many of you. Remember: you can always respond directly to these emails with your thoughts on anything!

One thing I have been meaning to do is to hold low-key events (coffee/happy hour etc) to meet up with readers. If I don't get around to doing this before I leave it might be something I consider for one of my trips back. It would be a good way to reconnect and it would be a good chance for you to meet other politically-minded Austinites. If you happen to be someone who has thoughts or expertise about organizing such things, please let me know!

Where I'm moving

We plan on moving to Ambler, a borough of about 6,500 right outside Philly. It's a relatively urban suburb, with a big mix of housing & commerce and a train into downtown –– or Center City, as it’s known in Philly. The borough's economic diversity demonstrate the benefits of having a wide range of housing types. We plan on renting, at least initially, and I'm glad there are a variety of options at different price points: apartments, row homes, duplexes, etc.

Funny thing about Philly –– I haven’t spent much time there at all, and yet I feel a strong connection to it because it's where my dad grew up, as did many generations before him. I’ve been a Phillies fan my whole life. Once upon a time I was also an Eagles fan but I lost interest in the NFL many years ago...I can already feel the pull of the Iggles bandwagon, though.

I certainly don't plan to subject you to lots of news about Philly in the future, but I do think there will be some interesting parallels and contrasts to highlight from time to time. As I've said before, I think in Austin our policy conversations are often stunted by a lack of perspective on how things are done in other major cities around the country and world.

I'm excited to get a glimpse of how another major American city approaches the issues that I've been writing about in Austin for a decade now and I think you'll find some of the observations useful. It will certainly be different to observe a city where people are frustrated by a lack of development and economic growth in poor neighborhoods. Or where high-capacity public transit is taken for granted, perhaps to its detriment. Where ward bosses are still a thing.

It will also be interesting to follow the politics of Ambler, which appears to be walking a line between retaining the intimacy of a small town and embracing the opportunities of growth. Sound familiar? The regional transit agency, SEPTA, is actually in the planning process of turning the parking lots surrounding the 170-year-old train station into a mixed-use development. I imagine I'll have some opinions about it.