San Antonio is sometimes blessed, sometimes cursed, by the latest national survey ranking U.S. cities and their people, economies, and quality of life. After 37 years here, I tell people that I live in a great city to raise a family. It’s also…
San Antonio will be looking for a few good men and women to fill some big shoes.The search is already on for a new police chief to replace this week’s bigcitysmalltown podcast guest, San Antonio Police Chief William “Bill” McManu…
I do not envy City Manager Erik Walsh and his senior team as they address budget deficits that began with a $30 million shortfall in the current fiscal year budget and are predicted to grow to $130 million by fiscal year 2028.Mayor Gina Jones and …
For the 15th consecutive year in San Antonio, cyclists will gather in silence this evening on Main Plaza in the historic heart of the city to honor the six riders who were struck and killed by vehicle drivers last year. Some of those dr…
If you missed Tuesday’s announcement by ​Texas Public Radio​ and the ​San Antonio Report​, the two are joining forces on July 1, a significant change in the local media landscape and what could be a harbinger of the future for nonprofit news o…
There’s a new medium in town, and it’s calling itself ​The Civic​. Its first newsletter was released Tuesday by Philip Reichert, the Substack site’s editor and executive director. Reichert, who attended West Point and served in an …
Welcome to the newly launched weekly newsletter of the bigcitysmalltown podcast. Monday Musings is now being published as The Midweek every Wednesday morning. Why change? Because life is hard enough without a weekend deadline for myself or the BCST …
For the second time this month, the ​bigcitysmalltown​ podcast and this newsletter are putting a spotlight on two multi-billion-dollar, publicly funded infrastructure plans that would inflict irreversible environmental damage and a loss in land valu…
San Antonio’s two major municipal utilities, CPS Energy and SAWS, have both briefed city Council on the need for future rate hikes.CPS Energy’s board recently approved a budget with a $50 million deficit, a signal that trustees believe…
If President Trump really wanted to help Texas, the massive sum of $46.5 billion allocated for border wall construction in Big Bend in the absurdly named Big, Beautiful Bill of 2025 could be spent on many other transformative initiatives.Instead, …
Who says office towers struggle to find new tenants?Last week, a few hundred downtown advocates gathered on the garden patio of the One Riverwalk Place office tower for what may be the most important real estate occupancy since the pandemic.&ldq…
It was with mixed emotions that I read the New York Times’ damning exposé published last week, which posthumously canceled Chávez as a civil rights leader and historic advocate for better living and working conditions for migrant…
One thing about inflation: money isn’t what it used to be, right? If you need proof, try checking into the $185 million, 200-room Monarch Hotel at Hemisfair, San Antonio's newest upscale downtown hotel destination. News reports peg starting ro…
Mayor Gina Jones and Council members Edward Mungia (D4), Ric Galvan (D6), Ivalis Meza Gonzalez (D8) and Misty Spears (D9), all elected in 2025, did not run campaigns promising multiyear spending cuts to balance the General Fund or rate increases for…
People, more of you turned out to vote, here and across Texas! Bravo. Looks like about 15% of the county’s 1,294,973 registered voters went to the polls. Media reports led me to expect an even higher number. Let’s hope it portends a robu…
If you thought things couldn’t get worse at City Council under Mayor Gina Jones, think again. As you read this on Monday morning, the City Council is meeting in executive session to decide whether to censure the embattled mayor for her latest …
Mayor Gina Jones should sense gathering storm clouds on the near horizon when the San Antonio Express-News publishes an editorial, as it did Saturday, that calls her a “jerk” and renews the conversation about her lack of fitness to hold …
After 37 years living and working in San Antonio as a journalist, I’ve met just about every newsmaker who has made a difference in this city. The people who have had the most profound and positive impact on me, and I would argue, the community…
Bigcitysmalltown started the new year with a bang in the Geekdom Podcast Studio, featuring individual episodes with Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai and former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, who is seeking to unseat Sakai in the March 3 Democratic p…
As a District 1 resident, I am fatigued, as are many of my neighbors and fellow downtown workers, by the daily challenge of navigating urban street improvement projects that take years to complete. Completion of one project seems to signal the start…
It’s a new year, and that means yet another developer has announced plans to bring the long-dormant Lone Star Brewery Complex back to life. The 33-acre blighted site was once home to a brewery that, like the Pearl, was synonymous with San Anto…
There is a reason I joined with former San Antonio Mayor and U.S. Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Henry Cisneros and former San Antonio Express-News business columnist David Hendricks to report and write The Austin-San Antonio Megaregio…
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I still like wishing people well in the season, although some people seem to approach those words as if they are walking on eggshells. Happy Hanukkah, and happy holidays to all the people of other faiths who don&r…
Texas has long been an anti-science state, one where state elected leaders cling to the 19th-century past and keep their heads planted in the soil rather than accept responsibility for governing smartly in the 21st century.There is no better examp…