Key Takeaways
- Austin has always changed, but its culture of creativity and risk-taking has endured.
- Being mayor means carrying enormous accountability without controlling every lever.
- Adler reflects candidly on homelessness, trust, and decisions he would approach differently today.
- Austin’s future depends on affordability, diversity, and protecting the people who create its culture.
- Preserving Austin’s magic means continuing to build what comes next, not freezing the city in the past.
Meet the Guest – Steve Adler
Steve Adler served as the 52nd mayor of Austin, Texas, from 2015 to 2023, leading one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities through explosive change and extraordinary challenges—a serial bombing, the COVID-19 pandemic, historic protests over police violence, and growth that transformed Austin into a major technology hub.
As mayor, Adler navigated the tensions of governing a rapidly growing progressive city within a conservative state, expanding affordable housing initiatives, reforming homelessness policy, and implementing police accountability measures while managing infrastructure investment and explosive population growth.
Before his election as mayor, Adler practiced law for more than three decades, specializing in eminent domain and civil rights litigation, and represented clients before both the United States Supreme Court and the Texas Supreme Court.
A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Texas School of Law, Adler now teaches at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Huston-Tillotson University, and St. Edward’s University. He lives in Austin with his wife Diane.
Show Notes
How do you lead a city that is constantly changing without losing the qualities that made people fall in love with it in the first place?
In this episode of Austin Eras, Adam Flagg sits down with Steve Adler, Austin’s 58th mayor, for a wide-ranging conversation about nearly five decades in Austin, eight years in the mayor’s office, and what he sees differently now that he’s outside the political hot seat.
Adler arrived in Austin in 1978 for law school and never left. He built a career as an attorney, became deeply involved in Austin’s civic and nonprofit community, and eventually made an unexpected leap into politics, serving as mayor from 2015 through 2023 during one of the most consequential periods in the city’s modern history.
Adam and Steve explore what Austin felt like in the late 1970s, why the city has always rewarded risk and creativity, and how explosive growth changed both its opportunities and its pressures. They also dig into the realities of being mayor in a city where the person held accountable does not necessarily control every lever of government.
The conversation gets more personal as Adler reflects on the 2018 serial bombings, COVID, homelessness, policing, affordability, public trust, and the decisions he now views differently with the benefit of hindsight. He discusses where he believes the city got things right, where it underestimated consequences, and why listening may be one of the most important lessons he took away from office.
The episode also looks forward. Adler explains why he worries about Austin becoming a “museum of itself,” why affordability and diversity are essential to preserving the city’s creative energy, and why something as simple as music and breakfast tacos gets surprisingly close to explaining Austin’s economic and cultural advantage.
At its core, this episode is about the responsibility that comes with loving a city. Austin has changed dramatically since Adler arrived in 1978, and it will keep changing. His argument is that the goal should not be to freeze Austin in time, but to preserve the conditions that allow its next generation of people to make the city their own.