Cedar Park, a bedroom city in the northwest Austin area, is growing like mad.  The city added over 10,000 people to the workforce between 2000 and 2005 (source:  U.S. Census Bureau).  Why?  The first thing is that over the last 5-10 years, homes in Cedar Park have been very affordable compared to Austin as a whole.  Part of the reason for this is because Cedar Park was quite a commute to downtown and the airport.

When I moved to the Austin area in May or 1987, I rented a small home in Cedar Park.  The commute to the airport at 8:00 AM was miserable.  No matter which route I took, it was nothing but lots of vehicles and lots of stop lights.  It took at least 45 minutes and that was back when the population of Austin was nothing compared to today.

Today, Cedar Park remains pretty affordable and it is actually a quicker commute to downtown or the airport.  The reason for this is 183A, a toll road that just opened a few months ago.  What used to be a long, stop and start commute turned into a high-speed commute for many people.  There is still quite a bit of land in Cedar Park for new homes, but it is being gobbled up.  As Cedar Park becomes built out, the next area to boom will probably be Leander and Liberty Hill, which are just beyond Cedar Park along 183.