Mega Texas cities like Dallas-Fort Value and Houston are dwelling to regional enterprise coalitions shaped years in the past to sort out frequent points.
Even El Paso has one spanning the worldwide border.
Now San Antonio and Austin, giant metroplexes bookending one of many quickest rising areas within the nation, are following go well with with the Central Texas Alliance.
Fashioned solely months in the past, the Central Texas Alliance is a coalition of civic, enterprise, financial improvement, educational and group leaders based to assist the Austin-San Antonio hall and a 13-county mega area.
The nonprofit additionally has a newly-appointed CEO, A.J. Rodriguez, who’s at present transitioning from his function as govt vice chairman for the general public coverage and advocacy group, Texas 2036.
Not like different main cities within the state, Central Texas has not been served by one entity that works to develop consensus round priorities for the area, Rodriguez mentioned.
The aim of the Alliance is to convene civic, enterprise, financial improvement, educational and group leaders to kind one voice on behalf of a area made up of 120 municipalities.
In different phrases, “What can we do cohesively collectively that not one metropolis or county might do alone?” Rodriguez mentioned.
Texas is taken into account the quickest rising financial system and inhabitants within the nation. The Austin-San Antonio hall, with a inhabitants of 5.3 million, is heading in the right direction so as to add 3 million extra residents by 2050, in response to census knowledge.
“These information inform us that it’s time for the Central Texas Alliance,” said Henry Cisneros, former Secretary of Housing and City Growth and four-term San Antonio mayor (1981–89).
Cisneros co-authored with Robert Rivard and David Hendricks, “The Austin-San Antonio Megaregion: Alternative and Challenges within the Lone Star State,” revealed in September. The e book outlines how projected progress will put calls for on housing, power and water assets, mobility infrastructure, and the area’s workforce.
“The very first thing to do whenever you see the numbers is then to take a look at the implications, and the implications are that progress calls for to be addressed, and to choose the areas of significance,” Cisneros mentioned on a 2025 episode of the podcast, Large Metropolis Small City. “Clearly, site visitors and congestion is one which’s instantly apparent.”
Addressing the influence of progress has been, to some extent, left untended. “There’s actually no entity the place persons are getting up each morning saying, ‘It’s my job to consider the implications of this unprecedented progress and the alternatives and challenges that it creates,’” Rivard added.
Cisneros is founding father of the Alliance, which is modeled after the North Texas Fee and the Larger Houston Partnership. Each teams depend on member assist for funding.
The Central Texas Alliance will give attention to seven concern areas, Rodriguez mentioned, together with transportation, water assets, housing, workforce improvement, power resilience, healthcare and land stewardship and planning.
Such collaboration on a regional scale has been mentioned amongst Austin-San Antonio hall leaders for greater than 20 years, Rodriguez mentioned.
“However every of the entities is doing their very own factor, and so they’re busy … serving their very own constituencies, which is what they’re alleged to do,” he mentioned. “I feel what’s modified within the urgency is absolutely the dimensions, the tempo of progress, that we’re experiencing.”
The Alliance is led by co-chairpersons Gary Farmer, president of Heritage Title Firm of Austin and founder and former chairman of Alternative Austin, and Jenna Saucedo-Herrera, head of company influence at USAA and former president and CEO of the financial improvement nonprofit, Larger:SATX.
Whereas San Antonio and Austin have traditionally had competing pursuits in relation to attracting enterprise and financial improvement, the 2 cities additionally carry complementary strengths, Rodriguez mentioned.
Moreover, the group spans the broader area past these cities to different quickly rising counties, from Williamson to Atascosa and Bandera to Bastrop.
Saucedo-Herrera mentioned unifying voices throughout the area positions it for profitable progress. “We all know that the seven regional priorities that we’ve recognized … are regional challenges that no single metropolis or county can successfully handle alone however that the area wants,” she mentioned.
The Alliance isn’t a chamber of commerce or an financial improvement entity, Rodriguez mentioned, however will work with these organizations all through the area. He additionally expects the group to have a seat on the desk with the state’s different mega area advocacy teams prefer it, “to consider how we promote Texas in an excellent bigger manner sooner or later.”
Within the meantime, the group shall be gathering knowledge and convening leaders to advocate for the area’s wants on the state and federal degree, he mentioned.
The Alliance launches Sept. 18 at an occasion to be held at Texas State College-San Marcos, the place greater than 100 leaders from throughout the area are anticipated to debate priorities for the 2027 legislative session. A board of administrators shall be shaped following the occasion.
Disclosure: A.J. Rodriguez is fast previous chairman of the San Antonio Report board of administrators.
