Saying that the Austin music scene is disappearing is being entirely too nice, and borderline condescending. The biggest findings though seem to indicate a catch-22. The music scene needs people. Yet as more people move to Austin, the population–and prices–skyrocket at a rate too fast for the music scene to keep up. My guess is because music isn’t on the top of everyone’s priority list, even if that’s what they moved here for. The priority in Austin seems to have subconsciously shifted from live music culture to big city dreams. Case in point, when I moved there six years ago with my family, we’re sad to see all the far-too-tall buildings go up because it destroys the atmosphere. While those have appeared in the past two years, it seems that the change has been going on for far longer than I thought.
Regarding information presentation, the report did follow correct procedure. However it is about a creative and interactive field. As concrete as graphs are, it would have been nice to see the pie charts in the beginning presented as an interactive image, so one could click on the pie pieces and maybe look at personal stories as well as one graph. The tweets in the Statesman article were much easier to read. Since we’re talking about sound, perhaps a video would also be a good idea, so musicians and others could share it on their social media channels, PCs, TVs and mobile devices. The report’s good and comprehensive, but reading something that big is intimidating and boring to some people, so it may not get the attention it deserves.