Many politicians use “going green” as a platform these days but in his State of the City address this morning, Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell wasn’t talking about his city becoming environmentally friendly, he dropped one hell of a geek reference.
“If New York is Superman; and Chicago is Batman; and Los Angeles is the Flash; then Austin is the Green Lantern,” said the Texas politician.
We all know the fictional home of Green Lantern Hal Jordan is Coast City, usually compared to real world California cities like San Diego or Los Angeles, but Leffingwell is staking the claim for Austin.
Anyone can name superheroes in a speech but it seems Leffingwell really knows his stuff. “We are a city without fear,” he continued, “We are a city that can create anything we can visualize, through sheer force of will. We are a city with a special charge to shine a light into the darkness and lead the way to a new and better day.”
The mayor also spoke of his cities inhabitants as, ”smart, driven, courageous and compassionate people. People who make things happen. People who keep moving forward no matter what.”
So he messed up the real-world correlation for where the Flash lives but I think we can forgive him after that amazing speech, don’t you?
In his speech, Leffingwell also mentioned breaking ground on a new 800-room hotel in downtown Austin in the next year. His goal? ”We will rock it to the top of convention destinations,” he said.
Build it, and geeks will come.
via Big Shiny Robot and KXAN.com
February 25th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
I voted for that guy! Seriously, this town is crawling with geeks. I guess one of them wound up writing speeches for Leffingwell.
Also, I think a lot of Austinites believe all that about this town, too.
December 17th, 2011 at 5:31 pm
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