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 Antonio. …
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 Megaregion: O…
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’t…
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…
Mayor Gina Jones may have found an issue that will deliver a significant, much-needed win with her colleagues on City Council. The mayor wants to move city elections in odd-numbered years from May to November in an attempt to overcome dismal voter t…
I am spending more and more time each week delving into the world of AI-powered search tools, and I know I am not alone. How about you? These tools — new ones are seemingly launching faster than I can test-drive the existing ones — are changing my…
Sporting an out-of-office, salt-and-pepper beard, former mayor Ron Nirenberg moved through the crowd at the River North Icehouse on Election Night, shaking hands and exchanging abrazos as Spurs-crazy fans celebrated the passage of Propositions A & B…
317 W. Jones Avenue was a fitting address for supporters of Bexar County’s Propositions A & B on the Nov. 4 ballot to gather and await vote returns Tuesday night. A former dilapidated warehouse is now the city’s new icehouse, simply named River Nort…
It’s a noble gesture on the part of Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and many of San Antonio’s major employers and charitable foundations to mount a $1.6 million emergency campaign to provide $150 H-E-B gift cards to an estimated 11,000 economically challenge…
Week one of early voting in the Nov. 4 Bexar County election concluded with only 62,937 registered voters turning out to the polls. Another 2,600 mail-in ballots were received, and by the looks of it, even more mail-in ballots were returned to count…
If you’ve lived in San Antonio as long as my family, you probably recall the UTSA poll showing tepid support among voters for using the county’s “tourist taxes” to help fund a new arena for the San Antonio Spurs. I’m not talking about the latest UT…
San Antonio and Bexar County voters: This is no time to stop. Don’t do all the hard work to run a marathon and drop out halfway after hearing how hard it will be to finish. Let’s push through to the finish line and celebration. I am talking, of cou…
Let me say what San Antonio Spurs Chairman and Managing Partner Peter J. Holt is too pro-San Antonio to say: If Bexar County voters fail to pass Propositions A & B on Nov. 4, other big city mayors and billionaires will be falling all over each other…
Gina Ortiz Jones was sworn in as mayor of San Antonio on June 18, 2025 after one of the most ridiculous campaigns in city history with a clown car total of 27 candidates on the ballot, at least 20 of them lacking credibility. Jones, a Democrat, fini…
It was big news in 2002 when Trinity University announced the rebirth of Trinity University Press and the hiring of its new champion, the poet and publisher Barbara Ras. Backed by a $2.1 million grant from the Ewing-Halsell Foundation and an additio…
I had the honor Friday of serving as emcee at the Dee Howard Foundation’s 2025 San Antonio Aviation and Aerospace Hall of Fame luncheon at Port San Antonio’s Boeing Center at Tech Port. The annual gathering celebrates the city’s historic role in the…
San Antonio might be the only city in the country addressing the problem of irresponsible residents abandoning pet peacocks into the urban wild. It’s the kind of issue that often arouses the national media on a slow news day to publish “weird, but t…
Last week, I promised a more in-depth take on the Alamodome and its importance to San Antonio’s urban profile, big-city offerings and its visitor economy. I did so after hearing Mayor Gina Jones repeat the often-misleading claim that Mayor Henry Cis…
I actually had plans to multitask Thursday, but another marathon City Council session featuring more than 100 citizens to be heard kept me glued, post-shoulder surgery, to the laptop screen for what seemed like an entire day. The outcome, as expect…
It was a strong week for the San Antonio City Council majority, which delivered a lesson in governance to Mayor Gina Jones in her first 100 days. The lesson learned? Respecting the “process” after a successful challenge of the mayor’s unilateral and…
In four decades of observing newly-elected mayors take office in San Antonio, I have never seen one struggle so unsuccessfully to hit the ground running, to lead the City Council effectively and collaboratively, or to assemble a reliable professiona…
Two weeks ago, I informed readers (and promised myself) that I would be taking a hiatus from this weekly newsletter for the month of July while traveling on a book project and enjoying some personal time. The horrific events of the week in the Texas…