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by mathgeek 923 days ago
It’s paraphrasing from the Techcrunch source mentioned in other comments:

> The summers are brutal — 2023’s was the hottest on record with 78 days of triple-digit temperatures. The startup scene, some argue, is lackluster. And funding — especially for midsize companies — can be hard to come by. A perceived lack of diversity is also an issue.

2 comments

TechCrunch has the same problem of never again referencing this perceived diversity issue. They don't make clear what kind of diversity, who perceives it as missing, or if the perceived lack of diversity matches reality.

Edit: ignore this! I didn't read the original TechCrunch article closely enough, it is mentioned later in the article as corrected in a following comment

No, that article goes on:

> "The cost of living, especially housing, has made it more challenging for middle-class professionals — especially people of color — to buy into the market, which hurts startups that have to compete with the Googles and Teslas for talent,” said Spearman, who is Black. “The monoculture speaks more to the income disparity that is pricing out musicians, artists and hospitality workers who are so essential to the creative culture that makes Austin a great market for startup founders in the first place"

This is just an anecdote, not a meaningful statement. Housing has gotten expensive everywhere in the past few years.

From 2010 to 2020, the latino population grew by 35%, the black population grew by 26% and the asian population grew by 96%.

https://www.austinchamber.com/economic-development/austin-pr...

Thanks I just meant that the article did address it.

The ad for Austin you posted cites census statistics from 4 years ago, which are more meaningful, but not the topic, and they still show the city as majority white.

It cites 2020 statistics, which are 3 years old, the city has not changed so dramatically in the past 3 years, it's just agitative hyperbole. Most important is that census stats are the most accurate stats.

Most of the United States is majority white, being a country founded by white people, this should not be a shocking fact nor a point of contention.

I didn't write the article, their point is that aspects of it (like the housing market) have changed in that specific period, not the period the ad you linked to discusses
Oh thank you for this, I skimmed the related TechCrunch article and must have missed this, and a search for "diversity" only hit on the original mention.

I stand corrected!

It wasn't the hottest on record. In 2011, Austin had more than 100 days with triple digit temps:

https://www.citizen.org/news/austin-tx-100-degree-days-final...