Austin-based writer Lawrence Wright pens a personal journey shadowing the characters that made Austin into a big city. The city is not for everyone, nor is it what it used to be. When I think of the world’s great cities, I think of how epiphanic and transitory they become for young people. When I used to think of Texas, I feared retirement and a palliative phase of life, similar to what happens in Florida. The new Austin is becoming nothing like the old Texas. More chronicled in Wright’s essay: link