Silicon Mountains?

This surprising place should be ‘the next Austin,’ says Bloomberg columnist

The formerly sleepy — and always gorgeous — region of Northwest Arkansas could be the next Austin.

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For years, cities around the country have competed for the banner of “the next Austin.”

In hopes of replicating Austin’s astounding success as a much-admired economic hub, fans of places like Chattanooga, Tennessee; Asheville, North Carolina; Tampa, Florida; and Raleigh, North Carolina, have touted their cities as the next incarnation of Austin.

Now, there’s a new entrant in “the next Austin” sweepstakes — a candidate that you might never have imagined. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Conor Sen, founder of Atlanta-based Peachtree Creek Investments, makes the case for the mountainous Northwest Arkansas region to be the Austin-in-waiting.

As home to corporate behemoth Walmart and the University of Arkansas, and awash in philanthropy money (mostly from Walmart heirs), Northwest Arkansas deserves consideration for the title of “the next Austin,” Sen argues in an online column. He says the region — primarily comprising Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas; Bentonville, home of Walmart; and Springdale and Rogers — is an ideal destination for folks who feel they’ve been priced out of Austin.

Sen notes that among the 110 U.S. metro areas with more than 500,000 residents, the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metro area ranked fifth for population growth in the 2010s. Around 550,000 people live in the metro area.

The primary driver of the region’s growth is Walmart, the retail behemoth. The company, which posted revenue of $141 billion in its most recent budget year, is building a new corporate campus on roughly 350 acres in Bentonville. More than 14,000 people work at Walmart’s headquarters. Walmart has called Bentonville home since 1971.

“Bentonville has been transformed in recent years from a small Arkansas town to a thriving, increasingly upscale community,” Alan Ellstrand, associate dean of the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, told CNN Business in 2019.

Aside from Walmart itself, the Bentonville area boasts outposts of Walmart vendors such as Campbell Soup, Hershey, and Procter & Gamble. And the retailer has spurred the region’s ascendance as an emerging tech hub.

In addition, Tyson Foods’ headquarters is in nearby Springdale. Tyson Foods posted sales of a little over $47 billion in its 2021 budget year. Just up the road from Tyson Foods’ HQ, in Lowell, sits the headquarters of transportation giant J.B. Hunt. In 2020, the company rang up revenue of nearly $9.65 billion.

A little south of Springdale is Fayetteville, home to the University of Arkansas and a collaborator in a recent campaign to lure Austin transplants to Northwest Arkansas. The school’s fall 2021 enrollment exceeds 29,000. In September, U.S. News & World Report placed the university at No. 78 among the country’s top public colleges and universities. The school contributes more than $2.2 billion to the Arkansas economy.

As for amenities in Northwest Arkansas, you can’t overlook the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, situated on 120 acres of prime Ozarks property. Fort Worth billionaire Alice Walton, a Walmart heir, founded the museum in 2011. In the pre-COVID year of 2019, the museum attracted a record-breaking 700,000 visitors. The Bentonville-based Walton Family Foundation has donated more than $1 billion to the museum.

In his column, Sen cites a string of facts and figures — including some of the ones mentioned here — to back up his contention that Northwest Arkansas reigns as the next Austin.

“The underlying driver in all this is that a lot of second-tier metro areas got a lot more expensive over the past two years and aren’t the bargains they used to be,” Sen writes. “New places will gain traction as metros like Austin and Boise struggle with their own affordability problems. At the same time, the continued growth in Texas will slowly but surely create its own spillover dynamics to other metro areas, just as growth on the West Coast spilled over to Austin.”

“Northwest Arkansas might not be on the radar of many coastal people,” he adds, “but it’s the most likely candidate to be the prime beneficiary of these trends.”

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San Antonio leads Texas on ending horse-drawn carriage rides by 2030

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Horses will no longer pull carriages on the streets of downtown San Antonio.

San Antonio has pulled off something that the rest of Texas has yet to do, but it didn't come without some contentious conversations. City Council has unanimously voted (with one abstention) to phase out the use of horse-drawn carriages over the next five years. That means by January 1, 2030, there will be none on the streets at all; instead, there will be electric carriages.

These plans have been in the making since 2022 — if not always at the same level of intensity — when District 2 Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez and District 3 Councilmember Phyllis Viagran wrote up some concerns about the horses' wellbeing. A special session at the end of October 2024 hinted to San Antonians that the end for this practice was neigh — sorry, nigh — and the final vote was made on December 12. In addition to accepting the plan, it extended its timeframe by two years.

The initial proposal included worries about the horses' exposure to traffic and pollution, as well how their presence might exacerbate those issues for the environment at large by slowing traffic. It also raised concerns about the effects of standing or walking on hard surfaces for too long, or spending time in extreme weather.

At the December 12 meeting, San Antonians gave impassioned speeches about animal welfare — both to call attention to the need for better conditions and to defend the reputations and jobs of current horse drivers — but it wasn't the first time the council heard from the public about the issue.

In a prior city survey, 50,476 respondents weighed in. Of those respondents, 51.98 percent said they liked the idea to "Transition horse-drawn carriages to electric carriages and pedicabs and ban horse drawn carriages completely." There were alternative solutions listed, but respondents were less drawn to them.

A cultural divide emerged in the data and continued in the December meeting: some people avoided the carriages because they worried about the treatment of the horses, while others enjoyed them because of their historical echoes and living legacy. Many speakers in favor of the plan used this to form their argument, raising questions about history versus progress.

More tangible objections to the plan hinged on the businesses — specifically five companies — and jobs that would be lost, which was the main factor behind extending the adjustment period.

Discussions about the particulars of the electric vehicles are still to come, as confirmed in the discussion near the end of the meeting. Councilmember Jalen McKee-Rodriguez addressed concerns about what would happen to the horses, mentioning the Brady Hunter Foundation as a future partner in finding them rescue homes.

Some council members also brought up rhetorical questions about animal exploitation by groups like Sea World, the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, military and police forces, and even various groups in the Fiesta parade, although these did not come with a formal motion to pick the issues up.

This decision could have a ripple effect on other Texas cities. Dallas has recently considered a similar ban, but it appears to have stalled; Austin's attempts at a ban have been unsuccessful, but according to the Austin-American Statesman, only one operator is permitted to bring horses downtown. She declines to do so because the long hours are unfair to her and the horses. Houston does have horse-drawn carriages, and there seems to be little conversation about banning them.

Cities like Chicago and Salt Lake City have led the charge in the United States with some of the most prominent successful bans. Other cities around the world with bans include Brussels and Guadalajara, which both switched to electric models. Bans that have been around for years, like Guadalajara's and Prague's, still aren't out of the woods — people are still pushing back on the decision, so it sounds like San Antonio still has much work cut out for it.

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