How did the city of Austin come about?
Matthews: Around 1840, Austin was called Waterloo. It was identified as a good location for the capital, and they started building the capital here in 1860s. The city was established in 1890s. It was able to put in a dam on the river to end the flooding, and the dam provided the electricity. The city owned the electric utility, and it has managed to hold on to it all these years. We are in a unique position: we own our airport, our electric utility; it puts us in a favored situation. In the 70s, there was an effort to bring the high-tech companies here. We got Symantec to move here, which was the federally-funded consortium for high-tech companies and that brought a lot of other high-tech companies here. That’s about the only industry that we have here. The community changed a lot when the manufacturing for high-tech came in. It really increased the growth rate in the city. In the last few years we have really grown and I think that’s going to continue. SustainLane: How has growth affe
