McCracken starts the video clip by saying: “If you lived in St. Louis in 1904, you thought you were in the center of the universe” as it hosted events like the World’s Fair. Today, he says, “entire sections of St. Louis’ urban core have been abandoned for decades . . There’s a warning to cities all over the country in St. Louis’ story. Just because you have a great present or a bright past is no guarantee of a better future.”
He notes that the semiconductor industry, once the backbone of Austin’s economy, is faltering as those jobs move overseas. “How do we move forward instead of simply standing still and beginning a St. Louis-style decline?” he asks.
Then he hammers home his campaign theme of creating and recruiting jobs in clean energy, bio tech, and digital media.
One commenter on the Web site of a St. Louis TV station offered this: “Hey ‘Brewster,’ you have no right to talk about a terrific city like St. Louis with a goofy name like that. St. Louis may not be perfect, but you know what’s awesome about it? You’re not in it.”
And Austin mayoral candidate Lee Leffingwell sent a St. Louis TV reporter this message: “St. Louis is a terrific city and I don’t believe it deserves to be compared unfavorably to any other city,” he said. “There are lots of things about St. Louis that other cities, including Austin, ought to be jealous of.”
Colin Rowan, a spokesman for McCracken, said the video “is a legitimate historic case study of what happens when a city sits still. I know everyone’s protective of their hometown. Leaders there should be commended for their efforts to revitalize the city. But the point remains, they did have to revitalize,” Rowan said. “Brewster doesn’t want Austin’s leaders in 50 years to have to revitalize Austin. He wants to chart a proactive course to strengthen our economy now.”
Yeah, and it’s funny to see reporters trying to rile up regionalist outrage over this. Reporters want to hype the story and act offended because they know it will get attention, but the irony is that the more attention they bring to the issue, the more it helps McCracken. He’s going to get a ton of free press about this, and then when residents of Austin look at what he actually said they’ll say, “yeah, that’s true, why is everyone so offended?”
I moved to Austin from STL last year. I hadn’t heard one word about this “outrage” until a friend from STL pointed it out to me. It seems only the St. Louisans are fussed about it.
Austin relies too much for its economy on high-tech. I think McCracken’s point is that STL relied on manufacturing, and that made it an awesome city, and it got cocky and thought life would remain that way forever. Austin is in kind of the same position — people are flooding in here, everybody thinks it’s a great town, but it’s overreliant on one industry just like STL was. McCracken’s main platform is the need to further diversify Austin’s economy.