Austin's city government is famously unresponsive to its citizens, viz the city's "CodeNext" building code reforms that are roundly hated by hippies, environmentalists, businesspeople, homeowners, and liberals and conservatives alike. Worse, SxSW pretty much calls the tune the Mayor and City Council dance to. They'll allow SouthBy to go ahead, and the deadly fallout won't be evident for another month or two.
Not to get off topic, but the building code reforms are necessary in order to help control the ridiculous rises in housing prices and rents here. We have the same problem as California, where neighborhood associations want to freeze things as they were 50 years ago, and use restrictive zoning and deed restrictions to prevent building multi-family housing (duplexes/fourplexes/apartments).
The city government is plenty responsive to its citizens, ~55% of whom are renters, not homeowners, and many of whom are young people who can no longer afford to buy in the city. The already-haves in legacy neighborhoods, who file most of the protests and speak in front of the City Council the most, are mad that they are being given equal consideration rather than special consideration as they have gotten in the past.
