The way a city looks, feels and grows is often a combination of planning, hard work and, in many cases, blind luck. How different would Round Rock look today if I-35 had been built farther east or if Dell Inc. had gone elsewhere? What would Pflugerville's or Hutto's future be without Toll 130?
Two of our front-page stories explore what it means to shape a community and how the choices made today can affect the next 10, 20 or even 50 years.
In Hutto, city officials are attempting to bring business downtown through a series of incentives meant to nurture small businesses and restaurants. If it all works out, Hutto could have an Austin-style food trailer park and a revitalized downtown. If it doesn't? That makes for a murkier crystal ball to peer into.
In Round Rock, years of work preparing for growth along University Boulevard are starting to bear fruit, but even development in that corridor is still years—and in some places even decades—away. The interests of various parties are all working in their own ways to make that part of the city into what they envision, and hope, it can be.
