Weird, local, and proud of it
Austin has spent decades trying to stay weird on purpose, which is a strange thing for a city to organize around and a stranger thing to pull off. The slogan started in 2000 as an offhand remark by a local librarian supporting independent businesses, and it hardened into something close to civic policy as the tech money arrived. The Sixth Street and Red River corridors pack in more live music venues per capita than almost anywhere in the country, and South by Southwest pulls the global creative industry into town every spring. Under the Congress Avenue Bridge, roughly a million and a half Mexican free-tailed bats roost each summer — an unintended consequence of a 1980 renovation that left crevices exactly the right width. The city campaigned to have them removed before deciding they were an attraction. Breakfast tacos remain nonnegotiable.
