As San Antonio and Austin \u2014 and all points in between \u2014 experience growth and development, efforts are taking hold for municipalities to plan and work together as a region.<\/p>\n
Civic and business leaders are creating a regional organization intended to give the rapidly growing Austin-San Antonio corridor a stronger voice on infrastructure, economic development and quality-of-life issues.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit Central Texas Alliance encompasses a 13-county \u201cmegaregion\u201d with more than 120 municipalities. Rather than serving as a new layer of government, the organization plans to convene municipal, business, academic, economic-development and community leaders around shared priorities.<\/p>\n
A.J. Rodriguez has been appointed the Alliance\u2019s first CEO. He is transitioning from his position as executive vice president of Texas 2036, a nonpartisan public-policy organization. Rodriguez previously served as a San Antonio deputy city manager and held leadership positions with local business groups.<\/p>\n
The region has about 5.3 million residents and is projected to add roughly 3 million more by 2050. That growth is expected to intensify pressure on Interstate 35, housing, water supplies, energy systems and public services.<\/p>\n
The Alliance has identified seven areas of focus: transportation, water, housing, workforce development, energy resilience, health care, and land stewardship and planning. It also plans to research regional needs and advocate before state and federal policymakers.<\/p>\n
Former San Antonio Mayor and U.S. Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros founded the organization. It is co-chaired by Austin business leader Gary Farmer and Jenna Saucedo-Herrera, a USAA executive and former head of the Greater Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council. <\/p>\n
The Alliance is not the corridor\u2019s first regional organization. The Greater Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council<\/a> has worked for decades on transportation and development issues. Rodriguez said the new group is intended to provide a broader, comprehensive coalition similar to regional business organizations in Houston and North Texas.<\/p>\n Questions remain about its funding, governance and how smaller communities will be represented. A board is expected to be formed after a Sept. 18 gathering at Texas State University, where regional leaders will begin developing priorities for the 2027 Texas legislative session.<\/p>\n Guest:<\/p>\n A.J. Rodriguez is CEO of the Central Texas Alliance.<\/p>\n “The Source” is a live call-in program airing Mondays through Thursdays from 12-1 p.m. Leave a message before the program at\u00a0(210) 615-8982<\/a>. During the live show, call\u00a0833-877-8255<\/a>\u00a0or email thesource@tpr.org.<\/p>\n This interview will be recorded live on Wednesday September 2, 2026, at 12:00 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As San Antonio and Austin \u2014 and all points in between \u2014 experience growth and development, efforts are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-423315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}