In 1997, we were trying to plan a move back to Austin from Boston. I attended the Boston / Austin Software Job Fair, an event where Austin's Chamber of Commerce and a roster of local employers flew up to New England and set up in a Waltham hotel on a frigid February night. Their mission: to persuade cold, tired tech workers to move to Texas. The event had an associated promotion video which was given to me on a VHS tape.
I recently pulled this tape out of the attic and digitized it. Here it is, all sixteen glorious minutes:
Want the full-quality original? It's preserved at the Internet Archive.
Production values in 1997
Today, a city pitching itself to tech workers would cut a 45-second drone reel, set it to a licensed indie track, and serve it vertically between two other videos you didn't ask for. In 1997, you got a tape, and you watched the whole thing, because what else were you going to do with it? (Recognizing that the answer might be to record Buffy The Vampire Slayer over it, in a pinch.)
The video opens with interviews of transplants, pints in hand, at Copper Tank Brewery in Austin (once described as "an earnest little brewery amongst fad bars"). Nobody is lit. Nobody is mic'd particularly well. When comparing Boston to Austin, they mince no words:
"I could drop dead on the sidewalk. Believe me, nobody would bother to help me." — a former Bostonian, on the difference in friendliness
Then, at 3:25, the video shifts into The Austin Spirit: Your Video Guide to the Austin Area, a full Chamber of Commerce promo, with a narrator, sunset skyline shots, and a montage of people having fun outdoors. It is very, very earnest:
"Barbecue, barbecue, and more barbecue. Well, that's what we eat in Austin, right? Well, who wouldn't when the barbecue is magnifico?"
At the end, the viewer is treated to nearly four minutes of voiced-over sponsor cards: Apple ("The Power to Be Your Best"), IBM ("please call our employment line, 823-0414"), Eaton (The Implant Company), Southwestern Bell, four radio stations, and five real estate agencies (one of which invites you to visit their office theater to "view the entire Austin MLS on CD-ROM"). Half of them list a fax number.
Maybe I'm just lost in a nostalgic fog, but I find it completely charming.
What they were selling
Strip away the production and the pitch is the same one people still make: jobs, no state income tax, a house you could actually afford (well...), and weather that lets you golf in January.
Just before the Chamber promo begins, the video spells it out:
"My top three reasons for moving to Austin from Boston were what I viewed as unprecedented high technology job opportunities, no state income tax, and the opportunity to own a home that was beyond my wildest dreams in the Northeast."
One of the transplants says what they miss least about Boston is "the winter and the traffic." Ah, the days before the rise of EvilMopac.
Another speaker makes the case for leaving with a jab at the T:
"There's plenty of room for you all, so get out of Boston, stop waiting for the T to break down again and strand you on your way to work, and come on down to a place that's nice to live."
Plenty of room for you all. I guess? Let me just say to all of those Bostonians-turned-Austinites: I'm glad you bought your nice house here, but I'm sorry we didn't warn you about allergies, ozone action days, 5-month summers, and falling lake levels.
How much Austin has changed
Watching it now is a little like opening a time capsule:
- AISD in 1997 is touted as "the best urban school district in Texas." Um.
- The lake has a different name. The Stevie Ray Vaughan statue is on the shores of "Town Lake." It's been Lady Bird Lake since 2007, though many of us "old-timers" still slip up.
- The hospital has a different name. The video brags about the Children's Hospital at Brackenridge, which Dell Children's replaced in 2007.
- The skyline is barely recognizable. I wish someone would build an animation of 40 years of the Austin skyline. If you know of one, let me know!
- The Austin metro has doubled in size. By 2000, the Austin metro population was around 1.2 million. It is now over 2.6 million. We no longer have plenty of room, but people keep on coming!
- "A house beyond your wildest dreams..." In 1997, the median home sale price was $112,600 ($236K in 2026 dollars). In 2026: $412,000, a 75% increase adjusted for inflation. Honestly not as bad as I thought. From some quick research, Boston real estate has gone up even more in the intervening years, so yeah. Still winning that battle.
Some of it hasn't changed. "Live music capital of the world" is still on the welcome signs, and Barton Springs is still cold.
"All the pieces are in place"
Near the end, in the segment on tech companies, the narrator delivers the line that aged best of all:
"Today, Austin is a major technology center, home to many of the most exciting companies in business... Our economy is unequivocally one of the strongest and most vibrant in the nation. All the pieces are in place for exponential growth."
Yep.
I hope you enjoyed this little blast from the past. In the Austin area and have weird VHS tapes but no way to digitize them? Drop me a line.
The tape was produced around 1996–97, apparently for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, with Horizon Film & Video. I'm sharing it as a piece of local history, and the original digitization is preserved at the Internet Archive. If you were involved in making it, I'd love to hear from you.