Texas man goes to HEB. Then he learns why they call Austin the ‘city that never works’

A Texas man has a bone to pick with Austin, claiming that it's called "the city that never works" for a reason. Dave Bravoo (@davebravoo) uploaded a TikTok outside of a HEB store.

While walking in front of it, he claimed that a visit to the establishment provides one with all the proof they need to believe the booming Texas city's motto is rooted in fact.

However, throngs of people who replied to his clip disagreed with his statement. Dave begins his video walking outside of the grocery store as he makes his claim.

"Y'all wanna know why they call Austin the city that never works? Come to the HEB off Slaughter, and you'll see why," he says as he walks down the sidewalk and takes a gander at the grocery store's parking lot. "You'll see why they call it the city that never works, babe," he says before his video comes to a close.

A caption for Dave's video gets into what his gripe with the HEB parking lot is—there's a massive number of cars in it. In the caption, he added, "12pm on a Wednesday and you're lucky if you find parking."

Indeed, there's a massive amount of vehicles on the lot, as far as the eye can see.

Judging by the clip, his grievances with Austin are that its planning department hasn't effectively dealt with the throngs of people who have relocated to the bustling Texas city.

Austin's own planning department highlighted in May 2026 that the city crossed the "one million and counting" milestone.

The Lone Star City saw tremendous growth over the years, too. In 2022, Austin's Chamber of Commerce learned that its population exploded by an additional 61,349 in 2022 alone. Additionally, 37,624 of these transplants arrived from within the U.S., with 37,624 coming from overseas.

Furthermore, Austin's CoC linked to U.S. Census Bureau data, citing it as "the fastest-growing [metro] of the top 50 U.S. metros from 2020 to 2022, adding 121,121 people or 5.3%."

My San Antonio writes that this trend of growth applies to other Texas cities as well: Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio became "top destinations for Austinites looking to move elsewhere."

Smart Cities Dive wrote that between 2010 and 2019, rents "skyrocketed by nearly 93%." This was largely driven by increases in demand, thanks to a 33% overall population surge that occurred in just a 10-year period between 2010 and 2020.

To meet the increased housing demand, 120,000 new housing units were added over a 9-year period from 2015 and 2024. Consequently, Smart Cities Dive reports that this uptick in inventory ultimately helped to drive the city's median rent rates up by more than 16% between 2021 and 2026.

This data was echoed by Pew research as well, stating that the new 120,000 homes built between 2015 and 2024 helped to drive average rental costs down. So how was Austin able to add so many new homes in such a relatively short amount of time? That largely has to do with "regulatory reform efforts" that Pew writes prioritize "new supply and affordability."

Increases in Mixed Use (VMU) homes, along with ADUs "targeted rezoning" has helped to fast-track a lot of new construction. When it comes to parking, the research group added that "in 2023, Austin removed minimum parking requirements for nearly every kind of property citywide."

Moreover, initiatives that encouraged affordable housing, specifically "taller buildings with more units," according to Pew, helped to drive down the average cost of rent in the Texas city.

But is that really having an effect on monthly rental expenditures?

According to Flat Fee Landlord, it has. In 2022, the website said the average monthly rental cost was $1,792. Fast forward to 2025, and that figure dipped to $1,618, and then up a bit to $1,622.

For single-family home rentals, the figures have remained consistent across this five-year period, fluctuating by only nine dollars ($2,303 in 2022 and $2,312 in 2026). 2024 and 2024 saw dips to $2,280 and $2,279, respectively.

Of course, location largely dictates how much you're going to shell out for your monthly rent or mortgage payment. The average cost per month for living accommodations in Austin puts the Lakeway and Dripping Springs neighborhoods at the top of the peak at $2,572 and $2,324 each month, respectively.

Conversely, San Marcos and Kyle sit towards the bottom of the list in terms of monthly rent/mortgage affordability, at $1,428 and $1,555.

Folks who replied to Dave's video didn't agree with the fact that he called Austin "the city that never works."

One TikTok user wrote: I've never heard anyone say that Austin is the city that never works." Someone else penned, "Literally nobody calls it that."

Conversely, someone else said this terminology is exclusive to folks who moved to the area and aren't from there originally. "I'm 30, born and raised here, and I have heard it get called that a lot but it's always transplants that call it that," one said.