from the San Antonio Business Journal - March 30, 2007

San Antonio, Austin will be the next Texas Metroplex, poll shows

The San Antonio and Austin economies will one day become a single, unified market, according to the results of an online reader poll.

Travis Tullos, chairman of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce's Economic Analysis Panel, says the two cities are already joined at the hip economically.

If San Antonio and Austin became a unified market, the region would be poised to attract even more businesses, jobs and investment opportunities than as single markets.

Slightly more than half -- or 56 percent -- of all participants to an online San Antonio Business Journal survey agreed with Tullos. Many say the development along Interstate 35 demonstrates it is likely that the two cities -- and all the communities between -- will converge into a unified market.

Several urged the completion of the Austin-San Antonio Commuter Rail District project, which has been envisioned as an alternate route from I-35 between the two cities.

However, many of the survey participants agreed that there are too many obstacles in the way between San Antonio and Austin to prevent that from happening anytime soon.

Several who weighed in on the issue said that if San Antonio and Austin ever did become known as a single market, such as the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, it won't happen for another 30 or more years.

Some said having a combined San Antonio-Austin market could help land another major professional sports team to the area. The real benefit would be the increase in size of the combined market's Designated Market Area, also known as a media market. By capturing a larger viewership of residents across multiple cities, this may make the region more viable for advertisers and professional sports sponsors, one said.

Another 38 percent of survey participants said the two markets won't eventually converge because the cultures and political visions of the two cities are too different. More than one person said that Austin's and San Antonio's egos would prevent them from aligning with each other.

San Antonio would be better off joining up with a city like Corpus Christi, another said.

Five percent of survey respondents said they were undecided.

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