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Question of the Decade: Is Austin Losing Its Soul? Part 2

By Michael Barnes | Thursday, December 31, 2009, 02:07 PM

Boom No. 2: Wealth. The dot.com rage of the 1990s introduced another entirely new factor: Previously unimaginable wealth.

It was easy enough pretending Austin was an egalitarian oasis when low-paid university and state workers were considered the lucky ones, their jobs comparatively safe even during the biggest busts, like the Great Depression (or so my grandmother and Austinite of that era, Val Keating, always said). But billion-dollar fortunes not only shook the social status quo, they exacerbated ethnic and racial tensions always near the surface of American society.

Luckily, the new Austin wealthy, while not always wise, were not 19th-century robber barons ordering the National Guard to mow down striking factory workers. So when they turned to philanthropy — not out of guilt, but good sense — almost everyone welcomed it.

Almost overnight, hundreds of locally-seeded nonprofits sprouted. Leaders, like Michael and Susan Dell, concentrated on local or regional charities; while others, such as Donna and Philip Berber, sought out distant global challenges to overcome; and still others, like Ernest and Sarah Butler, Joe and Teresa Long, or James Armstrong and Larry Connelly turned their attention to education and the arts.

Even inveterate social levelers agreed this was good for Austin’s soul.

More to come …

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