It is a small municipality that has been around since the late 19th century: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HH/hlh59.html. What IS new(ish) is the ridiculous, poorly-planned sprawl that swallows up towns and makes them attractive to newcomers with the cheap McMansions planted there by environmentally tone-deaf, unscrupulous developers like Bradley, turning little towns into unwitting suburbs. I look forward to seeing this movie.

I hope it does soon.

Have fun on 6th.

National news and films are usually about someplace else. So imagine the shudder of recognition when I immediately recognized the aerial photo as Barton Springs Pool, a mere half mile from my home. Being more than passing familiar with our struggles to preserve what is best about Austin as the city seems to inexorably grow despite our best efforts, I look forward to seeing this film. Malick is one of the modern greats of film, so I expect nothing less than a deeply moving and thoughtful view of what has happened and is happening here.

Many of us here in Austin desire to preserve our home and its natural areas, but we have been thwarted by a conservative legislature that seems to take delight in undermining our local control. It's a metaphor for the hypocrisy of modern conservatism. Get the government off our backs except when the people choose something that stands in the way of business.

I hope the film comes to our local theater, the Alamo Drafthouse, soon.

I wept as I read about this documentary. My late wife went to UT, Austin, and she never convinced me to go to Austin with her to spend time at Barton Springs, even though she waxed poetic about how it defined Austin as a wonderful community. And now it has been ruined.

into every city on the planet, april fool's day would be good. it's the best way to bring the human race back into line with the environment. the only workable alternative is nuclear warfare, and that's clearly second best.

or we could sit down and figure out a way to keep the population under 1 billion, everybody well fed and in a house, and preserving the nature that is preserving us. already you can see why i think small pox is the answer, with the black death to follow the year after if results not good enough..

Andrew:

I love the fact that you cover documentaries so closely. Documentaries are my personal favorite type of movie. They are frequently underrepresented in the media. I can't wait to see this one.

We watched "Crazy Love" about the Pugach/Riss affair last night per your recommendation in May. What an amazing story! My wife and I loved it. In reading about it online elsewhere I discovered that it was a Fisher Stevens film. I fell in love with Fisher Stevens when he was the lead in a show that [I think] was called Key West. It's great to see him working - and fantastic that he created such a remarkable documentary.

I saw this documentary last year at SXSW and it's just gorgeous...and so, so sad. I wish I had lived in Austin when it was "paradisical." It's still wonderful, but when I hear the stories and see the photos of the days before the greedy developers took over, it's heartbreaking to witness the damage they've done. What a shame that these money hungry men with no taste have such a hard-on to rape and ruin such pristine natural beauty.

This film was a great and terrible education in how highways, suburbia and political will can change our natural resources. It's played in Austin several times and I'm sure it will be back again - it's been at SXSW (2007) and at the Alamo and the Paramount (for all you Austinites who missed it) and I think it will be back. The conclusion that there are no easy answers is thoughtfully balanced out by the provocative questions these filmmakers asked. I encourage everyone who can to see this film.

Sixty years ago there were two billion people on Earth and 150 million in the U.S. Those numbers now are six billion and 300 million and growing. Remember The Population Bomb?

There are no strategies that will save us. We saw it coming and did not change our ways.

Thanks for covering this documentary, I've been hearing great things about it and it's good to know that it's not all hype. I hope it manages to get a fair-sized-doc run in theaters.

I do, however, have to point out that your blurb for it is incredibly, and typically, sexist. Produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford, "The Unforeseen" is the "Chinatown" of Texas real-estate documentaries.

Yeah, seventeen words and you can't spare one for the director? (who is famous herself, but nevermind that part.) No, no, what about THE MEN that made this baby???!!