Sidley Austin LLP
Sidley Austin
Headquarters	Chicago, Illinois
No. of offices	17 Worldwide [1]
No. of attorneys	1650+ [1]
No. of employees	about 3,600
Major practice areas	General practice
Revenue	$1.42 billion USD (2011)[2]
Date founded	1866
Founder	Norman Williams and John Leverett Thompson
Company type	Limited liability partnership
Website
www.sidley.com

Sidley Austin LLP, formerly known as Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP, is one of the oldest law firms in the world. It is the sixth-largest U.S.-based corporate law firm with more than 1,650 lawyers,^[1] annual revenues of more than one billion dollars, and offices in 18 cities worldwide, with the most recent addition of Houston, Texas in February 2012.^[3] It is a full-service law firm, with broad experience in transaction and litigation matters. Its original predecessor firm was founded in 1866 and had former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, then the widow of President Abraham Lincoln, among its earliest clients. The firm was formed as the result of the merger of two firms: the Chicago-based Sidley & Austin, founded in 1866, and the New York-based Brown & Wood, founded in 1914. The merger was completed in May 2001. The firm's headquarters is at One South Dearborn in the Chicago Loop, Chicago.^[4]

As of 2011, it was the 12th largest law firm in the world (and 8th in the US) by revenue.^[5] In 2010 and 2011, Sidley received the most First-Tier National Rankings in the Best Law Firms Survey by US News and World Report.^[6] The 2011 US News Survey also named Sidley as the "Law Firm of the Year" in Corporate Law and Securities Regulation.

History[link]

Origins in Chicago[link]

The firm that was to become Sidley Austin was formed in Chicago in 1866 by Norman Williams and John Leverett Thompson as the partnership of Williams & Thompson. One of the nascent firm's first clients was the Pullman Company, the manufacturer of specialty sleeping railway cars. Other early clients included Western Union Telegraph Company, which moved its Midwest headquarters from Cleveland to Chicago in 1869. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the firm represented numerous insurance companies including Equitable Life Assurance Society. In the late 19th century, Williams & Thompson counseled several utility and railroad companies expanding in the West, Sidley joined the firm after having earned an LLB from Union College of Law and a further M.A. from Harvard Law School. By 1913, the firm's name was changed to Holt, Cutting & Sidley, although Sidley would be the guiding personality for the Chicago firm through the 20th century. Three years later—the firm then 50 years old—had four partners, four clerks (associates) and ten staff employees with gross income of around $100,000 (roughly $1.9 million in 2008 dollars).

Buffeted by the Great Depression, the firm experienced a dramatic fall in revenues until the New Deal on the 1930s reinvigorated the capital markets. The firm represented Halsey, Stuart & Co., a Chicago-based underwriter in one of the first transactions under the Securities Act of 1933. In 1944, the name was changed to Sidley, Austin, Burgess & Harper and shortened to Sidley & Austin in 1967.

Towards a national firm[link]

After the Second World War, Sidley & Austin began expanding beyond its Chicago roots as many of its clients entered new markets. In 1963, its Washington, D.C. branch was established which would soon become an important player in that city's legal market through its representation of the American Medical Association, American Bar Association and the International Minerals & Chemical Corporation. The firm developed strengths in antitrust and the representation of clients in front of the Federal Trade Commission.

Sidley & Austin was among many law firms stung by the Savings & Loan Crisis and was forced to pay $7.5 million to settle legal malpractice claims stemming from its representation of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. Such legal work was profiled in the book by Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith, No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America.

Expansion and consolidation[link]

Sidley & Austin expanded tremendously in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1972, the firm merged with the 50 lawyers of Chicago firm Leibman, Williams, Bennett, Baird & Minow. Offices were established in London, Los Angeles, Singapore and New York in short order.

In 2001, the firm merged with Brown & Wood, a New York-based law firm established in 1914 with 400 attorneys additional domestic offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles and overseas branches in London, Beijing and Hong Kong (where it practiced English law in addition to U.S. law). Brown & Wood was known for its securities, structured finance and securitization practices. Brown & Wood had offices in the World Trade Center. The firm was known as Sidley Austin Brown & Wood until the name was rebranded as Sidley Austin in 2006.

Appellate Practice Group[link]

In 1985, the late partner, Rex E. Lee, a former U.S. Solicitor General, formed Sidley Austin's national Appellate Practice Group to represent clients in all appellate courts including the United States Supreme Court, the federal courts of appeals, and state appellate and supreme courts. The group is currently led by Carter Phillps, who is the managing partner of the Washington D.C. office.^[7]

The Appellate Group has argued several landmark cases before the Supreme Court including U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (constitutionality of state-imposed term limits on members of Congress), Missouri v. Jenkins (proper role of federal courts in imposing desegregation remedies), and United States v. Lopez (Commerce Clause challenge to a federal statute prohibiting the possession of firearms within 1,000 feet of a school).^[8][9] Directly or indirectly, Sidley Austin plays a role in 40 percent of the cases the Supreme Court hears every term. Over the last 25 years, its lawyers have argued 96 high court cases.^[10]

Rankings and recognition[link]

The firm frequently appears at the top of various industry rankings. In 2005, the BTI Consulting Group named Sidley to its Client Service Hall of Fame—one of only two law firms to rank in BTI's Client Service Top 10 for five consecutive years—and Sidley was named No. 1 Power Elite Firm for 2005. The firm also showed up in 14 categories on The American Lawyer's Corporate Scorecard, landing in the No. 1 spot for its roles as issuer's counsel in equities offered by U.S. corporations, issuers' and underwriters' counsel for investment grade debt, and underwriters' counsel for REIT debt. Other recent honors include the 2005 Catalyst Award, conferred in recognition of the firm's impressive initiatives to retain and promote women attorneys, and its second consecutive year as No. 1 in the rankings by Thomson Financial for top issuer counsel and manager counsel for U.S. debt and equity-related activity.^[11]

The firm is particularly known for its securities practice^[12] and its international trade practice,^[13] both of which have consistently ranked first in the respective specialty rankings of Chambers and Partners. The trade group currently represents the Airbus/European Communities side in the ongoing WTO dispute with Boeing/US. The group was recently named Global WTO Law Firm of the Year ^[14] and ranks first, before Wilmer Hale and Steptoe & Johnson, in the European Legal 500 ranking.^[15] Its appellate and US Supreme Court practice is also particularly well-known and has been featured in USA Today, BusinessWeek, the American Lawyer, the Legal Times, and the National Law Journal.^[16]

In 2008 Sidley Austin was awarded Deal of the Year - Debt Market Deal of the Year at the 2008 ALB Hong Kong Law Awards.^[17] In 2011 Sidley Austin was named Competition and Regulatory Team of the year at the Lawyer awards in London ref www.thelawyer.com/1008278.article

Sidley Austin during 9/11/01[link]

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 personally affected the employees of Sidley Austin. Prior to the merger creating Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, which took place just four months before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, the head office of Brown & Wood was in the World Trade Center, while Sidley & Austin was located in offices on Third Avenue. Out of 600 employees who worked in the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks, one perished, a switch board operator named Rosemary Smith. ^{[18] [19]}

Sidley Austin reopened its New York office on Monday, September 17, 2001 in the old Sidley & Austin office on Third Avenue that it had planned on closing on September 16. Instead, it leased four additional floors in that location, in a deal completed less than three hours after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Sidley Austin later opened its permanent new office in the Equitable Center building on Seventh Avenue in July 2002.^[18]

Name changes[link]

In the 1920s, the firm was named Cutting, Moore & Sidley. Following a number of changes, it was known as Sidley & Austin for many years until it merged with the New York capital markets firm Brown & Wood in the 1990s. Its name was changed to Sidley Austin LLP on January 1, 2006.

Notable alumni[link]

• James L. Connaughton Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) under President George W. Bush was a partner in Sidley Austin's Environmental Practice Group, covering a wide range of environmental policy issues.
• Christopher DeMuth, former president of the American Enterprise Institute, worked at the firm in the 1970s.
• Bernardine Dohrn, the former Weatherman leader.
• Alan Gura, litigator, represented Dick Heller in the United States Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller.
• Mike Lee, son of Rex E. Lee and current United States Senator from Utah.
• Rex E. Lee, former Solicitor General of the United States.^[20]
• Chris Lu, Cabinet Secretary and assistant to the President of the United States
• Newton Minow, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, was a partner in the Chicago office from 1965–1991 and continues to serve as senior counsel to the firm.
• U.S. President Barack Obama was a summer associate in the Chicago office, but never joined the firm as a full-time associate. He met his wife, Michelle Obama (who was an associate at Sidley Austin at the time), while he was a summer associate at the firm.^[21]
• David Otunga, graduate of Harvard Law School and presently a professional wrestler working with World Wrestling Entertainment.^[22]
• Daniel M. Price was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs by former U.S. President George W. Bush. In this role, Mr. Price served as the principal advisor to the President on international economic issues and was responsible for coordinating U.S. Administration policy on international trade and investment, foreign assistance to developing countries, and the international aspects of energy security and climate change. In 2009, he returned as a senior partner for global issues to the firm's Washington, D.C. office.^[23]
• David S. Tatel, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, began his legal career at Sidley Austin.
• John D. Zeglis, the former Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Wireless, was an associate (1973–1978) and partner (1978–1984) in the Chicago office, where he spent a significant amount of time helping AT&T navigate through the Federal Communications Commission's orders to breakup the company, before leaving to join AT&T as a corporate vice president.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• See this firm's profile on Martindale.com
• LawPeriscope profile

Austin
—  State Capital  —
City of Austin
Downtown skyline as seen from Lady Bird Lake
Official seal of Austin Seal
Nickname(s): Live Music Capital of the World, Silicon Hills[1]
Location in the state of Texas
Austin Location in the United States of America
Coordinates: 30°15′N 97°45′W / 30.25°N 97.75°W / 30.25; -97.75Coordinates: 30°15′N 97°45′W / 30.25°N 97.75°W / 30.25; -97.75
Country	United States
State	Texas
Counties	Travis Williamson Hays
Settled	1835
Incorporated	December 27, 1839
Government
• Type	Council–manager
• Mayor	Lee Leffingwell
• City Manager	Marc Ott
Area[2]
• State Capital	272 sq mi (704 km2)
• Land	297.90 sq mi (771.6 km2)
• Water	6.9 sq mi (17.9 km2)
• Metro	4,285.70 sq mi (11,099.91 km2)
Elevation	489 ft (149 m)
Population (2010)[2]
• State Capital	790,390 (14th)
• Density	2,653.2/sq mi (1,024.4/km2)
• Metro	1,716,291 (35th)
Time zone	CST (UTC-6)
• Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
ZIP code	78701-78705, 78708-78739, 78741-78742, 78744-78769
Area code(s)	512
FIPS code	48-05000[3]
GNIS feature ID	1384879[4]
Website	www.austintexas.gov

Austin (/ˈɒstɨn/ or /ˈɔːstɨn/) is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest,^[5] it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States.^[6] It was the third-fastest-growing large city in the nation from 2000 to 2006.^[7] Austin has a population of 790,390 (2010 U.S. Census).^[8] The city is the cultural and economic center of the Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos metropolitan area, which had an estimated population 1,783,519 (2011 U.S. Census),^[9] making it the 34th-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States.

In the 1830s, pioneers began to the settle the area in central Austin along the Colorado River. After Republic of Texas Vice President Mirabeau B. Lamar visited the area during a buffalo-hunting expedition between 1837 and 1838, he proposed that the republic's capital then located in Houston, Texas, be relocated to the area situated on the north bank of the Colorado River near the present-day Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge. In 1839, the site was officially chosen as the republic's new capital (the republic's seventh and final location) and was incorporated under the name, Waterloo. Shortly thereafter, the name was changed to Austin in honor of Stephen F. Austin, the "Father of Texas" and the republic's first secretary of state.

The city grew throughout the 19th century and became a center for government and education with the construction of the Texas State Capitol and the University of Texas at Austin.^[10] After a lull in growth from the Great Depression, Austin resumed its development into a major city in the 1980s and emerged as a center for technology and business.^[11] Austin is home to many companies, high-tech and otherwise: Fortune 500 corporation Whole Foods Market is headquartered in the city as well as Apple, AMD, Freescale Semiconductor, Google, IBM, Intel, National Instruments, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and 3M having either headquarters or prominent regional offices in Austin.^[12] Dell's worldwide headquarters is located in nearby Round Rock, a suburb of Austin.

Residents of Austin are known as "Austinites". They include a diverse mix of government employees (e.g., university faculty & staff, law enforcement, political staffers); foreign and domestic college students; musicians; high-tech workers; blue-collar workers and businesspeople.^[13] The city is home to development centers for many technology corporations; it adopted the "Silicon Hills" nickname in the 1990s. However, the current official slogan promotes Austin as "The Live Music Capital of the World", a reference to the many musicians and live music venues within the area, and the long-running PBS TV concert series Austin City Limits.^[1][14] In recent years, some Austinites have also adopted the unofficial slogan "Keep Austin Weird".^[15] This interpretation of the classic, "Texas-style" sense of independence refers to: the traditional and proudly eclectic, liberal lifestyles of many Austin residents; a desire to protect small, unique, local businesses from being overrun by large corporations; and, as a reaction to the perceived rise of conservative influences within the community.^[16] In the late 1800s, Austin also became known as the City of the "Violet Crown" for the wintertime violet glow of color across the hills just after sunset.^[17] Even today, many Austin businesses use the term "violet crown" in their name. Lastly, Austin is known as a "clean air city" for the city's stringent no-smoking ordinances that apply to all public places and buildings, and all restaurants. ^[18]

History[link]

Austin, Travis County and Williamson County have been the site of human habitation since at least 9,200 BC. The earliest known inhabitants of the area lived during the late Pleistocene (Ice Age), and are linked to the Clovis culture around 9,200 BC (11,200 years ago) based on evidence found throughout the area and documented at the much-studied Gault Site, midway between Georgetown and Fort Hood.^[19]

When settlers first arrived from Europe, the area was inhabited by the Tonkawa tribe, and the Comanches and Lipan Apaches were known to travel through the area as well.^[20] Spanish explorers, including the Espinosa-Olivares-Aguirre expedition, traveled through the area for centuries, though few permanent settlements were created for some time.^[21] In 1730, three missions from East Texas were combined and reestablished as one mission on the south side of the Colorado River, in what is now Zilker Park, in Austin. The mission was in this area for only about seven months, and then was moved to San Antonio de Béxar and split into three missions.^[22] In the mid-18th century, the San Xavier missions were located along the Colorado River, in what is now western Milam County, to facilitate exploration.^[23]

Early in the 19th century, Spanish forts were established in what are now Bastrop and San Marcos.^[21][24] Following the independence of Mexico, new settlements were established in Central Texas, but growth in the region was stagnant because of conflicts with the regional Native Americans.^[24][25][26]

In 1835–1836, Texans fought and won independence from Mexico. Texas thus became its own independent country with its own president, congress and monetary system. In 1839, the Texas Congress formed a commission to seek a site for a new capital to be named for Stephen F. Austin.^[27] Mirabeau B. Lamar, second president of the newly formed Republic of Texas, advised the commissioners to investigate the area named Waterloo, noting the area's hills, waterways, and pleasant surroundings.^[28] Waterloo was selected and the name Austin was chosen as the town's new name.^[29] The name Austin is considered to be derived from Augustine, a variant of Augustus. The location was seen as a convenient crossroads for trade routes between Santa Fe and Galveston Bay, as well as routes between northern Mexico and the Red River.^[30] Austin is also the site where the southern leg of the Chisholm Trail leads to the Colorado River.^[31]

An 1873 illustration of Edwin Waller's layout for Austin

Edwin Waller was picked by Lamar to survey the village and draft a plan laying out the new capital.^[27] The original site was narrowed to 640 acres (259 ha) that fronted the Colorado River between two creeks, Shoal Creek and Waller Creek, which was later named in his honor. The 14-block grid plan was bisected by a broad north-south thoroughfare, Congress Avenue, running up from the river to Capital Square, where the new Texas State Capitol was to be constructed. A temporary one-story capitol was erected on the corner of Colorado and 8th Streets. On August 1, 1839, the first auction of 217 out of 306 lots total was held.^[27][30] The grid plan Waller designed and surveyed now forms the basis of downtown Austin.

In 1840, a series of conflicts between the Texas Rangers and the Comanches, known as the Council House Fight and the Battle of Plum Creek, finally pushed the Comanches westward, mostly ending conflicts in Central Texas.^[32] Settlement in the area began to expand quickly. Travis County was established in 1840, and the surrounding counties were mostly established within the next two decades.^[26]

Initially, the new capital thrived. But Lamar's political enemy, Sam Houston, used two Mexican army incursions to San Antonio as an excuse to move the government. Sam Houston fought bitterly against Lamar’s decision to establish the capital in such a remote wilderness. The men and women who traveled mainly from Houston to conduct government business were intensely disappointed as well. By 1840 the population had risen to 856 of whom nearly half fled from Austin when Congress recessed.^[33] The resident Black population listed in January of this same year was 176.^[34] The fear of Austin’s proximity to the Indians and Mexico, which still considered Texas a part of their land, created an immense motive for Sam Houston, the first and third President of the Republic of Texas, to relocate the capital once again in 1841. Upon threats of Mexican troops in Texas, Houston raided the Land Office to transfer all official documents to Houston for safe keeping in what was later known as the Archive War, but the people of Austin would not allow this unaccompanied decision to be executed. The documents stayed, but the capital would temporarily move from Austin to Houston to Washington-on-the-Brazos. Without the governmental body, Austin’s population declined to an alarming low of only a few hundred people throughout the early 1840s. The voting by the fourth President of the Republic, Anson Jones, and Congress, who reconvened in Austin in 1845, settled the issue to keep Austin the seat of government as well as annex the Republic of Texas into the United States.

In 1860, 38% of Travis County residents were slaves.^[35] In 1861, with the outbreak of the American Civil War, voters in Austin and other Central Texas communities voted against secession.^[24][27] However, as the war progressed and fears of attack by Union forces increased, Austin contributed hundreds of men to the Confederate forces. The African American population of Austin swelled dramatically after the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas by Union General Gordon Granger at Galveston in an event commemorated as Juneteenth. Black communities such as Wheatville, Pleasant Hill, and Clarksville were established with Clarksville being the oldest surviving freedomtown ‒ the original post-Civil War settlements founded by former African-American slaves ‒ west of the Mississippi River.^[27] In 1870, blacks made up 36.5% of Austin's population.^[36] The postwar period saw dramatic population and economic growth. The opening of the Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC) in 1871,^[37] turned Austin into the major trading center for the region with the ability to transport both cotton and cattle. The Missouri, Kansas, and Texas (MKT) line followed close behind.^[38] Austin was also the terminus of the southernmost leg of the Chisholm Trail and "drovers" pushed cattle north to the railroad.^[39] Cotton was one of the few crops produced locally for export and a cotton gin engine was located downtown near the trains for "ginning" cotton of its seeds and turning the product into bales for shipment.^[40] As other new railroads were built through the region in 1870s, however, Austin began to lose its primacy in trade to the surrounding communities.^[27] In addition, the areas east of Austin took over cattle and cotton production from Austin, especially in towns like Hutto and Taylor that sit over the blackland prairie, with its deep, rich soils for producing cotton and hay.^[41][42]

In September 1881, Austin public schools held their first classes. The same year, Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute (now part of Huston-Tillotson University) opened its doors. The University of Texas at Austin held its first classes in 1883, although classes had been held in the original wooden state Capitol for four years before.^[43]

During the 1880s, Austin gained new prominence as the state capitol building was completed in 1888, and claimed as the seventh largest building in the world.^[27] In the late 19th century, Austin expanded its city limits to more than three times its former area, and the first granite dam was built on the Colorado River to power a new street car line and the new "moon towers".^[27] Unfortunately the first dam washed away in a flood on April 6, 1909.^[44] It was finally replaced in 1940 by a hollow concrete dam^[45] that formed Lake McDonald (now called Lake Austin) and which has withstood all floods since. In addition, the much larger Mansfield Dam was built by the LCRA upstream of Austin to form the flood-control lake, Lake Travis.^[46] In the early 20th century, the Texas Oil Boom took hold, creating tremendous economic opportunities in Southeast Texas and North Texas. The growth generated by this boom largely passed by Austin at first, with the city slipping from fourth largest to 10th largest in Texas between 1880 and 1920.^[27]

Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, Austin launched a series of civic development and beautification projects that created much of the city's infrastructure and parks. In addition, the state legislature established the Lower Colorado River Authority that, along with the City of Austin, created the system of dams along the Colorado River to form the Highland Lakes. These projects were enabled in large part because Austin received more Depression era relief funds than any other Texas city.^[27]

After the mid-20th century, Austin became established as one of Texas' major metropolitan centers. In 1970, the Census Bureau reported Austin's population as 14.5% Hispanic, 11.9% black, and 73.4% non-Hispanic white.^[36] In the late 20th century, Austin emerged as an important high tech center for semiconductors and software. The University of Texas at Austin emerged as a major university.^[47]

The 1970s also saw Austin's emergence in the national music scene, with local artists such as Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, and Stevie Ray Vaughan and iconic music venues such as the Armadillo World Headquarters. The long-running television program Austin City Limits and the annual South by Southwest musical festival and the Austin City Limits Festival helped to solidify the city's place in the music industry.^[11]

Geography[link]

City limits of Austin

Austin is located in Central Texas, along the Balcones Escarpment and Interstate 35, northwest of Houston. It is also 80 miles northeast of its neighboring city, San Antonio. Its elevation varies from 425 feet (130 m) to approximately 1,000 feet (305 m) above sea level.^[48] As of 2010, the city occupies a total area of 271.8 square miles (704 km²).^[49] Approximately 6.9 square miles (18 km²) of this area is water.^[50]

Austin is situated on the Colorado River, with three man-made (artificial) lakes within the city limits: Lady Bird Lake (formerly known as Town Lake), Lake Austin (both created by dams along the Colorado River), and Lake Walter E. Long that is partly used for cooling water for the Decker Power Plant. Additionally, the foot of Lake Travis, including Mansfield Dam, is located within the city's limits.^[51] Lady Bird Lake, Lake Austin, and Lake Travis are each on the Colorado River.^[27] As a result of its straddling the Balcones Fault, the eastern part of the city is flat, with heavy clay and loam soils, whereas, the western part and western suburbs consist of rolling hills on the edge of the Texas Hill Country.^[52] Because the hills to the west are primarily limestone rock with a thin covering of topsoil, portions of the city are frequently subjected to flash floods from the runoff caused by thunderstorms.^[53][54] To help control this runoff and to generate hydroelectric power, the Lower Colorado River Authority operates a series of dams that form the Texas Highland Lakes. The lakes also provide venues for boating, swimming, and other forms of recreation within several parks on the lake shores.^[55]

Austin is located at the intersection of four major ecological regions, and is consequently a temperate-to-hot green oasis with a highly variable climate having some characteristics of the desert, the tropics, and a wetter climate.^[56] The area is very diverse ecologically and biologically, and is home to a variety of animals and plants.^[57] Notably, the area is home to many types of wildflowers that blossom throughout the year but especially in the spring, including the popular bluebonnets, some planted in an effort by "Lady Bird" Johnson, wife of former President Lyndon Johnson.^[58]

A popular point of prominence in Austin is Mount Bonnell. At about 780 feet (238 m) above sea level, it is a natural limestone formation overlooking Lake Austin on the Colorado River, with an observation deck about 200 feet (61 m) below its summit. From the observation deck, many homes are visible.

The soils of Austin range from shallow, gravelly clay loams over limestone in the western outskirts to deep, fine sandy loams, silty clay loams, silty clays or clays in the city's eastern part. Some of the clays have pronounced shrink-swell properties and are difficult to work under most moisture conditions. Many of Austin's soils, especially the clay-rich types, are slightly to moderately alkaline and have free calcium carbonate.^[59]

Climate[link]

Austin has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), characterized by hot summers with prevailing humid winds from the Gulf of Mexico and mild winters. On average, Austin receives 33.6 inches (853.4 mm) of rain per year, with most of the precipitation in the spring, and a secondary maximum in the fall.^{[citation needed]} During springtime, severe thunderstorms sometimes occur, though tornadoes are rare in the city. Austin is usually at least partially sunny, receiving nearly 2650 hours, or 60.3% of the possible total, of bright sunshine per year.^[60]

Austin summers are usually hot, with average July and August highs in the high-90s °F (34–36 °C). Highs exceed 90 °F (32.2 °C) on 109 days per year, and 100 °F (37.8 °C) on 12.^{[citation needed]} The highest recorded temperature was 112 °F (44 °C) occurring on September 5, 2000^[61][62]

Winters in Austin are mild and relatively dry. For the entire year, Austin averages 88 days below 45 °F (7.2 °C) and 18 days when the minimum temperature falls below freezing. The lowest recorded temperature was −2 °F (−19 °C) on January 31, 1949.^[63] About every two years or so, Austin experiences an ice storm that freezes roads over and affects much of the city for 24 to 48 hours.^[63] Snowfall is rare in Austin; a 3-inch (7.6 cm) snowstorm brought the city to a near standstill in 1985.^[64]

Monthly averages for Austin's weather data are shown in a graphical format to the right, and in a more detailed tabular format below.

Table Note: All temperature and precipitation normals were recorded at Camp Mabry from 1971–2000, and sunshine data were recorded from 1961–1990. Extremes are from Camp Mabry and previous stations, with the record spanning 1897 to present.^[60][62]

2011 drought[link]

From October 2010 through September 2011, Austin had the least rainfall since the 1950s. This was a result of La Niña conditions in the eastern Pacific Ocean where water was significantly cooler than normal. Dr. David Brown, a regional official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has explained that "these kinds of droughts will have effects that are even more extreme in the future, given a warming and drying regional climate."^[66]

Government and politics[link]

Law and government[link]

Austin City Hall

Austin is administered by a city council of seven members, each of them elected at large. The council is composed of six council members, and by an elected mayor, accompanied by a hired city manager under the manager-council system of municipal governance. Council and mayoral elections are non-partisan, with a runoff in case there is no majority winner. Austin remains an anomaly among large Texas cities in that council members are elected on an at-large basis by all voters, as opposed to elections by districts.

Austin formerly operated its city hall at 128 West 8th Street.^[67] Antoine Predock and Cotera Kolar Negrete & Reed Architects designed a new city hall building, which was intended to reflect what The Dallas Morning News referred to as a "crazy-quilt vitality, that embraces everything from country music to environmental protests and high-tech swagger."^[68] The new city hall, built from recycled materials, has solar panels in its garage.^[69] The city hall, at 301 West Second Street, opened in November 2004.^[70] The current^[update] mayor of Austin is Lee Leffingwell. His first term ends in 2012.

Law enforcement in Austin is provided by the Austin Police Department, except for state government buildings, which are patrolled by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Austin was ranked the fifth-safest city in part because there are fewer than five murders per 100,000 people annually.^[71][72]

Fire protection is provided by the Austin Fire Department, and emergency medical services are provided by Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services.

State and federal representation[link]

The Texas Department of Transportation operates the Austin District Office in Austin.^[73]

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) operates the Austin I and Austin II district parole offices in Austin.^[74]

The United States Postal Service operates several post offices in Austin.

Politics[link]

Austin is known as an enclave of liberal politics in a generally conservative state—so much so, that the city is sometimes sarcastically called the "People's Republic of Austin" by residents of other parts of Texas, and conservatives in the Texas Legislature.^[75][76]

As a result of the major party realignment that began in the 1970s, central Austin became a stronghold of the Democratic Party, while the suburbs tend to vote Republican. Opponents characterized the resulting district layout as excessively partisan gerrymandering, and the plan was challenged in court on this basis by Democratic and minority activists; of note, the Supreme Court of the United States has never struck down a redistricting plan for being excessively partisan. The plan was subsequently upheld by a three-judge federal panel in late 2003, and on June 28, 2006, the matter was largely settled when the Supreme Court in a 7–2 decision upheld the entire congressional redistricting plan with the exception of a Hispanic-majority district in southwest Texas. This later affected Austin's districting, as U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett's district (U.S. Congressional District 25) was found to be insufficiently compact to compensate for the reduced minority influence in the southwest district and so was redrawn so that it now takes in most of southeastern Travis County and several counties to its south and east.^[77]

Overall, the city is a blend of downtown liberalism and suburban conservatism but leans to the political left as a whole. In 2003, the city adopted a resolution against the USA PATRIOT Act that reaffirmed constitutionally guaranteed rights. In the 2004 presidential election, Senator John Kerry won a substantial majority of the votes in Travis County.^[78] Of Austin's six state legislative districts, three are strongly Democratic and three are swing districts, two of which are held by Democrats and one of which is held by a Republican. However, two of its three congressional districts (the 10th and the 21st) are presently held by Republicans, with only the 25th held by a Democrat. This is largely due to the 2003 redistricting, which left downtown Austin without an exclusive congressional seat of its own. Travis County was also the only county in Texas to reject Texas Constitutional Amendment Proposition 2 that effectively outlawed gay marriage and status equal or similar to it and did so by a wide margin (40% for, 60% against).^[79][80][81]

Austin is also an active area for the Libertarian Party.

Two of the candidates for president in the 2004 race call Austin home. Michael Badnarik, mentioned above as the Libertarian Party candidate, and David Cobb of the Green Party both have lived in Austin. During the run up to the election in November, a presidential debate was held at the University of Texas at Austin student union involving the two minor party candidates. While the Commission on Presidential Debates only invites Democrats and Republicans to participate in televised debates, the debate at UT was open to all presidential candidates. Austin also hosted one of the last presidential debates between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during their heated race for the Democratic nomination in 2008.^[82]

Environmental movement[link]

The distinguishing political movement of Austin politics has been that of the environmental movement, which spawned the parallel neighborhood movement, then the more recent conservationist movement (as typified by the Hill Country Conservancy),^[83] and eventually the current on-going debate about "sense of place" and preserving the Austin quality of life. Much of the so-called environmental movement has matured into a debate on issues related to saving and creating an Austin "sense of place."^[84]

Economy[link]

Whole Foods Market headquarters in Austin

Congress Bridge at night

Austin is the anchor city of the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos MSA, which had a Gross Domestic Product of $86 billion in 2010.^[85] Austin is considered to be a major center for high tech.^[86] Thousands of graduates each year from the engineering and computer science programs at the University of Texas at Austin provide a steady source of employees that help to fuel Austin's technology and defense industry sectors. The region's rapid growth has led Forbes to rank the Austin metropolitan area number one among all big cities for jobs for 2012 in their annual survey. ^[87] The metro Austin area has much lower housing costs than the San Francisco Bay Area's Silicon Valley, but much higher housing costs than many parts of rural Texas. As a result of the high concentration of high-tech companies in the region, Austin was strongly affected by the dot-com boom in the late 1990s and subsequent bust.^[86] Austin's largest employers include the Austin Independent School District, the City of Austin, Dell, the U.S. Federal Government, Freescale Semiconductor (spun off from Motorola in 2004), IBM, St. David's Healthcare Partnership, Seton Family of Hospitals, the State of Texas, Texas State University–San Marcos, and the University of Texas at Austin.^[86] Other high-tech companies with operations in Austin include Nvidia, 3M, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Google, AMD, Applied Materials, Cirrus Logic, Cisco Systems, Flextronics, eBay/PayPal, Bioware, Blizzard Entertainment, Hoover's, Intel Corporation, National Instruments, Samsung Group, Buffalo Technology, Silicon Laboratories, Xerox, Oracle, Hostgator, HomeAway, and United Devices. In 2010, Facebook accepted a grant to build a downtown office that could bring as many as 200 jobs to the city.^[88] The proliferation of technology companies has led to the region's nickname, "the Silicon Hills", and spurred development that greatly expanded the city. The concentration of high-tech companies has led the former American Airlines flight between Austin and San Jose, California to be dubbed the "nerd bird."^[89]

Austin is also emerging as a hub for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies; the city is home to about 85 of them.^[86] The city was ranked by the Milken Institute as the No.12 biotech and life science center in the United States.^[90] Companies such as Hospira, Pharmaceutical Product Development, and ArthroCare are located there.

Whole Foods Market (often called just "Whole Foods") is an upscale, national grocery store chain specializing in fresh and packaged food products—many having an organic-/local-/"natural"-theme. It was founded and is headquartered in Austin.^[91]

Other companies based in Austin include Temple-Inland, Keller Williams Realty, GSD&M Idea City, Golfsmith, Forestar Group and EZCorp.

An Online Trading Academy office and center is also located in Austin.^[92]

In addition to national and global corporations, Austin features a strong network of independent, unique, locally-owned firms and organizations.

Cityscape[link]

One American Center and 816 Congress (center) from the State Capitol in Austin

360 Condominiums Tower

Buildings that make up most of Austin's skyline are modest in height and somewhat spread out. The latter characteristic is partly due to a restriction that preserves the view of the Texas State Capitol building from various locations around Austin (known as the Capitol View Corridor).^[93] However, many new highrise towers have been constructed and the downtown area is looking more modern and dense. The city's tallest building, The Austonian, was topped out on September 17, 2009.^[94] Austin is currently undergoing a skyscraper boom, which includes recent construction on the now complete 360 Condominiums at 563 feet (172 m), Spring (condominiums),the Austonian at 683 feet (208 m), and several others that are mainly for residential use. By 2015, the Frost Bank Tower could be the only skyscraper built before 2005 to remain in the ten tallest buildings in the city.

At night, parts of Austin are lighted by "artificial moonlight" from Moonlight Towers^[95] built to illuminate the central part of the city. The 165-foot (50 m) moonlight towers were built in the late 19th century and are now recognized as historic landmarks. Only 15 of the 31 original innovative towers remain standing in Austin, and none remain in any of the other cities where they were installed. The towers are featured in the 1993 film Dazed and Confused.

Downtown[link]

The central business district of the city is home to some of the tallest condo towers in the state, with the Austonian Condos topping out at 56 floors^[96] and the 360 Condos at 44 floors.^[97] The 360 Tower and the Four Seasons Condos are condo towers in Austin, opened in early 2008.^[98] Former Mayor Will Wynn set out a goal for having up to 25,000 people living Downtown by 2015, and the city provided incentives for building residential units in the urban core.^[99] Because of this, the city has been driven to increase density in Austin's urban core. The skyline has drastically changed in recent years, and the residential real estate market has remained relatively strong. Downtown growth has been aided by the presence of a popular live music and nightlife scene, museums, restaurants, and Lady Bird Lake, considered one of the city's best recreational spots. The 2nd Street District consists of several new residential projects, restaurants, coffee shops, record stores, upscale boutiques and museums, and the Austin City Hall. Across 2nd Street from Austin City Hall is the newly re-created TV set for the long-running PBS program Austin City Limits,^[100] which is housed beneath the new 478 feet (146 m) W Hotel.^[101] The new Austin City Limits location also presents national and local live music performances unrelated to the television show such as recent performances by story-teller Garrison Keillor, and music groups Return to Forever and George Thorogood. South by Southwest (SXSW)^[102] is hosted downtown and is one of the largest music festivals in the United States, with more than 2,000 performers playing in more than 90 venues around Downtown Austin over four days, in March. Though it is an industry-based event, SXSW Music links locally with events such as the annual Austin Music Awards show. SXSW is the highest revenue-producing special event for the Austin economy, with an estimated economic impact of at least $167 million in 2010.^[103]

Demographics[link]