Growth Machine

About Growth Machine

Housing prices in Austin have exploded in the past decade, leading to a city that’s not just unaffordable — but also highly segregated. None of this happened by accident. It’s the result of decades of decisions about what — if anything — gets built in Austin and where. From a master plan to move Black and brown residents to one part of town, to fights over how to protect the environment, to an outdated land development code — all of these are pieces in a machine that’s engineered Austin’s housing market.

Publisher

KUT & KUTX Studios, Audrey McGlinchy

Category

history · news · news

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

8 May 2023

Latest episode

14 Feb 2025

Latest episodes

2 of 12 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   14 Feb 2025TRANSCRIPT

   Introducing Season 3 of The Disconnect: Power, Politics and the Texas Blackout

   Growth Machine host Audrey McGlinchy co-hosts The Disconnect, exploring oil and gas regulation and industry power dynamics in Texas.

2. 

   18 Nov 2024TRANSCRIPT

   Introducing: 24 Hours in Austin

   Audio producers from KUT explore a day in Austin's life, revealing how the city shrinks as it grows, in this interview episode.

3. 

   18 Aug 2023

   Grow or Die

   Host KUT & KUTX Studios explores existential questions facing Austin's housing market after the growth machine's impact.

4. 

   10 Aug 2023

   Pigs in a Parlor

   Host [Host Name] explores the 100-year origin story of modern zoning laws in this interview episode.

5. 

   4 Aug 2023

   There Go The Neighborhoods

   Host KUTX explores Austin's zoning history and current opposition to code changes, revealing how this impacts the city's affordability crisis.

6. 

   27 Jul 2023

   Welcome to Silicon Gulch

   Host KUTX Studios explores how a single innovation transformed Austin's economy and housing market, revealing the city's rise to Silicon Gulch.

7. 

   20 Jul 2023

   Fertility Drugs for Cars

   Host Evan Clark explores how parking requirements, like fertility drugs for cars, shape urban development and housing availability.

8. 

   13 Jul 2023

   Smart Growth or Dumb Growth?

   Host KUTX Studios explores how a new mayor navigates the complex challenge of balancing business growth and housing with ecological preservation in Austin.

9. 

   6 Jul 2023

   Listen to This Podcast or We’ll Poison Barton Springs

   This episode explores how 1990s Austin aquifer protections shaped the city's growth, revealing critical insights into urban development.

10. 

    29 Jun 2023

    Roads to Everywhere

    Host KUT & KUTX Studios explores how I-35 shaped Austin's housing and traffic patterns over six decades, revealing the highway's profound impact.

11. 

    22 Jun 2023

    We Planned This

    (Episode 1) Austin has grown a lot in recent years — and the East Side has been impacted the most. To understand the city’s pattern of displacement, we have to go back to 1928. The full transcript of this episode of Growth Machine is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is […] The post We Planned This (https://kutkutx.studio/growth-machine/episode-1-we-planned-this) appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts (https://kutkutx.studio).

12. 

    8 May 2023

    COMING JUNE 22 | Growth Machine: How Austin Engineered Its Housing Market

    Housing prices in Austin have exploded in the past decade, leading to a city that’s not just unaffordable, but also highly segregated. It’s the result of decades of decisions about what — if anything — gets built in Austin and where. Hosted by Audrey McGlinchy. The post COMING JUNE 22 | Growth Machine: How Austin Engineered Its Housing Market (https://kutkutx.studio/growth-machine/coming-soon-growth-machine-how-austin-engineered-its-housing-market) appeared first on KUT & KUTX Studios -- Podcasts (https://kutkutx.studio).

Inside a recent episode

Introducing Season 3 of The Disconnect: Power, Politics and the Texas Blackout

Published 14 Feb 2025 · Transcript excerpt

[…] Now, whenever a cold front comes through or a heat wave starts draining our energy supply, we can't help but wonder, is it happening again? We are keeping a close eye on our power grid this week, or caught the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the grid, did issue a weather watch. But as you can see, there's this big debate over how to fix things, how to build and manage a power grid that lets us stop worrying. State leaders say they've made good progress, but in the mean time, the challenges have become more complicated, not less. Over the last couple of years, the state's grid has seen some near misses. […]

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

103 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

61 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 30 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

22

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

92