[
  
    {
      "title"   : "Where the Water Will Come From",
      "category": "Blog post",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/posts/2026/05/hays-county-water/",
      "date"    : "May 11, 2026",
      "content" : "The previous two posts looked at how fast Hays County is growing and at the range of forecasts for how big it might get. Both ended on the same question that nobody in the county can dodge for much longer. Where will the water come from?The county sits on top of two aquifers and beside one big surface-water provider. Each of those three sources has its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own ceiling. Stacking them together is what the growth depends on. Pulling them apart is the only way to see whether the math works.The AquifersThe Edwards Aquifer runs in a narrow band across the eastern edge of Hays County. The Edwards is famous because Barton Springs in Austin and the San Marcos Springs in San Marcos are both fed by it, and because everything that lands on the recharge zone west of I-35 eventually winds up in those springs. The Edwards is also the most heavily regulated groundwater in Texas. Pumping in the Barton Springs segment is governed by the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District, which has hard permit caps and aggressive drought triggers. When Barton Springs flow drops, pumping cuts follow.The Trinity Aquifer sits underneath most of the rest of the county. It is the source for Wimberley, Dripping Springs, the unincorporated subdivisions stretched across the western half of the county, and a lot of the new growth on the FM 150 corridor. Trinity is where the political fights are. The aquifer recharges slowly, the wells go deep, and the regulatory authority is the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District, which historically has been limited to new-well-construction, permit-renewal, and service-connection fees rather than the production fees most other Texas GCDs are authorized to charge. Jacob’s Well, the iconic Trinity-fed swimming hole at Wimberley, has stopped flowing six times since 2000, most recently in 2021, 2022, and 2023. That is not a metaphor. It is the underlying water table dropping below the spring vent.These two aquifers do not talk to each other in any meaningful sense. A subdivision on the Trinity cannot pump out of the Edwards even if Edwards has water, and vice versa. So the geographic accident of which aquifer your parcel sits on top of largely determines what your water future looks like.The map above is the spatial fact that drives everything else. Trinity covers most of the county. Edwards runs in a narrow north-south band along the eastern corridor where the population is densest. Buda, Kyle, and the eastern half of San Marcos sit on top of Edwards. Wimberley and Dripping Springs sit on Trinity. Niederwald, in the southeast, falls outside both major aquifer footprints and depends on imported supply through its retail provider.The DistrictsTexas does not have a single water regulator. It has groundwater conservation districts, which are local, and surface-water authorities, which are regional. In Hays County the relevant districts are:  Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District (BSEACD), for the Edwards on the east side.  Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (HTGCD), for the Trinity on most of the rest.  Edwards Aquifer Authority (EAA), for the part of the Edwards that feeds San Marcos Springs and points south.  Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority (GBRA), for surface water flowing through the county.A house in northeast Hays might be in BSEACD’s territory. A house ten miles west might be in HTGCD’s. A municipal customer in San Marcos is buying water that came through GBRA from Canyon Lake. The patchwork is not an oversight. It reflects the geology.The district map shows the patchwork directly. HTGCD covers the western two-thirds of the county. BSEACD covers the northeastern corner. EAA covers a southern wedge that includes San Marcos. The small unshaded area near Niederwald is a real gap, not a drawing artifact, and it is part of why the eastern edge of the county has the kind of supply story it has.What the districts have in common is that they are creatures of the legislature. Their authority comes from chapter 36 of the water code and from special legislation, and that authority varies. BSEACD can shut off pumping during drought. HTGCD has historically had to fight in Austin for even basic production-fee authority on existing wells. The 89th legislature attempted to expand HTGCD’s authority through SB 2660, which would have authorized pumpage fees not to exceed 38 cents per thousand gallons; that bill did not become law. The political economy of the two districts is therefore very different. One has tools. The other has had to ask for them.What GMA-9 DoesSitting above the local districts is Groundwater Management Area 9, which is a coordinating body that covers the Hill Country including Hays. Every five years GMA-9 sets what is called a Desired Future Condition, or DFC, for each aquifer in the area. The DFC is, in effect, a target for how much the aquifer can fall in average drawdown over the planning horizon. Once the DFC is set, the Texas Water Development Board calculates what is called the Modeled Available Groundwater, or MAG, which is the implied annual pumping ceiling consistent with that condition.The MAG is what permits get measured against. If a district’s permits already add up to the MAG, additional pumping requests are supposed to be denied or reallocated. In practice the DFC-MAG-permit chain has been contested for years, and the Trinity numbers in particular have been the subject of repeated legislative and legal attention. The mechanism is real, but it does not move quickly, and it does not by itself stop a subdivision from being approved before the supply is locked in.This is the gap that has shaped the last decade of growth on the Trinity side of the county. Subdivisions get platted. Wells get drilled. Some of those wells produce. Some of them do not. By the time the regional groundwater story catches up, the rooftops are already there.The chart above is the heart of the planning problem. Municipal demand has been the dominant category since the 2000s, and it is the line that scales with rooftops. Irrigation, mining, and manufacturing are roughly flat. So whatever growth scenario you accept from the previous post, it translates almost one for one into more municipal demand on top of the same fixed-supply Edwards and Trinity systems.Kyle’s MoveKyle is the clearest example of what a fast-growing Hays city has had to do to keep ahead of the supply curve. The city sits on the eastern edge of the county and was historically dependent on a mix of GBRA surface water and local sources. As the population roughly doubled through the 2010s, both city staff and the council recognized that the existing portfolio would not get them to a build-out population well above today’s count.The answer was the Alliance Regional Water Authority, which Kyle co-founded along with San Marcos, Buda, and the Canyon Regional Water Authority. ARWA’s signature project is a Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer wellfield in eastern Caldwell and northern Gonzales counties, well outside the Hill Country, with treated water piped back into the I-35 corridor. The Carrizo treatment plant is being built out toward a design capacity of 39.5 MGD across all of the partner cities.The Carrizo-Wilcox is a different aquifer entirely. It is regulated by a different groundwater conservation district, in a different basin, paid for through utility bills and through long-term debt issued by the participating cities. From a Hays County perspective, the deal effectively imports water across county and basin lines. That debt shows up in the cities’ annual financial reports and is one of the reasons that water-system operating costs are rising even when household consumption is roughly flat.ARWA also carries a kind of political importance that goes beyond the cubic-feet-per-second numbers. It demonstrates that the cities along the corridor can pool capital to buy out-of-basin supply. That is good news for anyone whose growth scenario depends on more water arriving. It is less good news for taxpayers in the participating cities, because the cost of that water is now a structural fixed cost on the utility’s books, not a variable bill that scales with how much it rains.Two Maps That MatterIf you want a single mental picture of the Hays County water story, hold two maps in your head at once.The first is the aquifer map. The Edwards recharge zone runs in a thin diagonal band along I-35. Move west of the band and you are on the Trinity. Move east of it and you are on the Edwards proper, where the springs come out and the regulation is tighter. That geography sets the rules each parcel plays by.The second is the city service area map. Kyle, Buda, and San Marcos can draw on ARWA, GBRA, and their own groundwater wells. Step outside their service areas, into the unincorporated parts of the county or into a small water utility that is not part of those agreements, and the supply story collapses back to whatever water can be produced from the well on the lot or in the subdivision. That is most of the western half of the county.The two maps overlap in ways that are unintuitive. A subdivision technically inside a city ETJ but located on the Trinity might not be served by ARWA water. A new development east of San Marcos might be on the Edwards but tied to a small private utility with its own permitting story.Where these maps disagree is where the supply risk lives.What Comes NextThe forecasts in the previous post implied roughly two more Hays Counties’ worth of people over the next several decades. The water question is whether the existing supply portfolio can be stacked tall enough to serve that population at the per-capita demand levels Texas cities have historically planned around, or whether build-out is going to require either additional out-of-basin imports or a real change in what residential water demand looks like.Three things are worth watching. First, the next round of GMA-9 DFCs, which will set the Trinity ceiling for the next planning cycle and will be contested. Second, ARWA’s phase-two and phase-three expansions, which determine how much imported water the partner cities can plan around. Third, the small utilities and the unincorporated subdivisions on the Trinity, which are where the supply story is most likely to break first.The economic development story in Hays County is a story about water as much as it is a story about jobs or roads or rooftops. The infrastructure is being built. The bills are being issued. The aquifers are being measured. Whether all three add up is the question the next decade is going to answer.SourcesAquifers and groundwater regulation  Texas Water Development Board, Major Aquifers GIS shapefile.  Texas Water Development Board, Groundwater Management Area 9 and Desired Future Conditions overview.  Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District.  Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District.  Edwards Aquifer Authority.  Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts, EDF case study on the Hays Trinity GCD.  Texas Special District Local Laws Code, Chapter 8843 (HTGCD enabling statute).  Texas Water Code, Chapter 36 (groundwater conservation districts).  89th Texas Legislature, SB 2660 bill analysis.Springs and drought  KUT, Jacob’s Well stops flowing for sixth time in recorded history (Aug 2023).  Texas Monthly, Who’s Killing Jacob’s Well?.Water demand and planning  Texas Water Development Board, Historical Water Use Estimates.  Texas Water Development Board, 2026 RWP Board-Adopted Demand Projections (municipal) and non-municipal.  South Central Texas Regional Water Planning Group (Region L).ARWA and surface water  Alliance Regional Water Authority.  Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority.  City of Kyle, Alliance Water partnership.Replication code and figures  github.com/scottlangford2/southbound-35/posts/hays-water.DisclosureThis post was drafted with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic). Claude helped with research, drafting, map rendering, and code. All analytical decisions and editorial judgment are the author’s.The author is an assistant professor at Texas State University in San Marcos and writes here in a personal capacity. The views expressed are his own and do not represent his employer or any of the entities discussed."
    },
  
    {
      "title"   : "Did LIV Golfers Get Worse After They Defected?",
      "category": "Blog post",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/posts/2026/04/liv-defectors-majors/",
      "date"    : "April 30, 2026",
      "content" : "Since 2022, more than thirty PGA Tour pros have left for the Saudi-backed LIVGolf league, lured by guaranteed contracts reportedly worth tens or hundredsof millions of dollars. The complaint from those who stayed has been blunt:LIV’s 54-hole, no-cut, shotgun-start format is “exhibition golf,” and playerswho take the money will get rusty. The defectors say the opposite — that thelighter schedule lets them practice harder and play fresher. So who’s right?The clean way to ask the question is to look at the four times a year whendefectors and stayers play the same course in the same field on the samedays: the majors. I scraped every round of every men’s major from 2018through the 2026 Masters from Wikipedia — 31 tournaments, ~17,500player-rounds — and ran a difference-in-differences regression. Eachdefector’s strokes-versus-the-field is compared, before vs. after theysigned with LIV, against the same shift among comparable stayers in thesame rounds. Because every player is being compared to the same field onthe same day, course difficulty and field strength cancel out.The headline answer is: on average, defectors got about half a stroke perround worse — but the average hides almost everything interesting. Onceyou split by player type, the story is much sharper.The story is in the heterogeneitySplitting the 30 defectors into three buckets — stars (pre-defectionscoring at least 1.5 strokes better than the major field, on average),older (38+ at defection, not stars), and journeymen (everyone else) —gives this:The stars — Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, LouisOosthuizen, Patrick Reed, and Pat Perez — got dramatically worse:+1.58 strokes per round at majors (SE 0.33), large enough that the95% CI clears zero by a wide margin. Translated to a 4-round major, that’sroughly the difference between contending and missing the cut. The olderdefectors and the journeymen, by contrast, are statisticallyindistinguishable from no effect (and the journeyman point estimate isactually negative).The popular narrative — “LIV makes you rusty” — turns out to applyspecifically to the players who arrived at LIV at the top of their game.Older defectors were declining anyway; journeymen weren’t good enough atmajors for LIV to obviously hurt their relative standing.How robust is the average effect?The aggregate +0.48 stroke estimate holds up across specifications:Adding age + age² (to net out normal aging) barely moves the estimate.Restricting to all four rounds pulls it down slightly to +0.40; R3+R4 onlygives +0.29. Most importantly, when I build a matched control group —three nearest-neighbor stayers per defector, matched on pre-period skill,age, and major appearances — the estimate falls to +0.25 strokes(SE 0.32). That last spec is the cleanest read because it compares eachdefector to a handful of stayers who looked very similar pre-2022. Acrossall five specs the standard errors are wide enough that we can’t rejectzero, but every point estimate sits to the right of it.CutsA separate outcome — the probability of making the cut at a major —points the same way:Each dot is one defector; the dashed line is “no change.” Most dots sitbelow the line. The DiD estimate is a −7.9 percentage point drop incut probability after defection (SE 5.6). The visual standouts are PhilMickelson (73% → 36%), Bubba Watson (69% → 25%), Dustin Johnson (76% →60%), and Cameron Smith (84% → 54%).Cut rates are tricky for a different reason: many defectors lost OWGRpoints and major exemptions over time, so the post-period cut rate isconditional on still getting into the major. Defectors who kept showingup were positively selected on quality, which biases the apparent declinedownward. A simple Lee-style bound, trimming the top of the post-perioddistribution to match the appearance rate, says the true effect on cutscould be anywhere from a small drop (−6.9pp) to a much larger one(−57.8pp). The point estimate is the optimistic end of that range.Bryson DeChambeau is a real counterexampleThe clear exception to the “stars got worse” story is Bryson DeChambeau,who became a one-man rebuttal to the rust narrative — and won the 2024 USOpen as a LIV member.His scoring has been better relative to major fields after the movethan before. He’s classified as a journeyman in my buckets only becausehe was injured and underperforming in the year right before he signed; ifyou’d asked anyone in 2020 (the year he won the US Open the first time),“star” would have been the obvious bucket. So the existence-proof isreal: LIV play does not, by itself, prevent peak major performance.Whatever is hurting Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith is not just “fewerrounds against good players.”What this doesn’t tell usA few honest caveats:  Major-eligibility selection. The post-period sample is selected onstill being invited to majors — which positively selects on play. TheLee bound on cuts says this could matter a lot.  Pre-trend issue. A formal event study (in the appendix)shows defectors were unusually good three majors before they signed,which fails a parallel-trends test. The matched-control spec is partlydesigned around this; it gives the smallest estimate (+0.25).  Mechanism. I can’t tell from this whether the decline is from lesscompetitive play, fewer rounds per year, different course types on LIV,or something psychological. Strokes-gained data (which LIV doesn’tpublish) would be needed to decompose.  Small post-period for late defectors. Tyrrell Hatton, who shows upas the biggest improver, has played only nine majors as a LIV member.Bottom lineThe popular “LIV makes you rusty” claim is mostly true for the stars —Brooks, Smith, DJ, Rahm, Oosthuizen, Reed — who got noticeably worse atmajors after defecting, by an amount large enough to materially affecttheir results. It’s not really true for everyone else: the older andjourneyman defectors look indistinguishable from how they’d have doneanyway. And DeChambeau is a real existence proof that the rightplayer can be a peak major performer while playing only LIV golf the restof the year.If you want one number, it’s: among defectors who were elite before theyleft, expect about 1.5 fewer strokes of edge per round at majors,going from “regularly contend” to “regularly make the cut and finishmid-pack.” If you’re an older or middling defector, the major-tournamentevidence is consistent with no real change.Code, scraped data, and all figures are in the replicationpackage.AppendixSupplementary figures and discussion. Per-defector breakdown, formal eventstudy, distribution view, round-specific effects, and the sampledefinitions.A1 — Per-defector breakdownEach defector’s average strokes-vs-field at majors, before vs. afterdefection (R1+R2 only, so no cut selection):Roughly half the defectors got worse and about a third got better, withthe magnitudes among the worst movers (Oosthuizen, Watson, DJ, Grace) farlarger than among the best (Hatton, Westwood, Poulter, Burmester). Thesmall-sample defectors (Westwood, Poulter, Munoz at n = 2 rounds) areessentially one major’s data and shouldn’t be over-read. The “n =” labelson each bar are post-defection player-rounds in the R1+R2 sample.The unweighted distribution explains why the regression gives the pictureit does: the worst movers are mostly players who were already very good(DJ, Smith, Brooks) and slipped a lot, while the improvers are journeymenor older players whose pre-period bars were already close to the fieldmean.A2 — Formal event studyLetting the data say when the change happened: separate coefficients ateach event time relative to defection, with player FE, major×round FE,and an age polynomial as controls. Event time t = −1 (the majorimmediately before defection) is omitted as the reference period.The post-defection coefficients (in red) are mostly positive — defectorsare scoring worse relative to the field than they did at t = −1 — but theconfidence intervals are wide and there’s no clean step-function jump.Nothing dramatic happens exactly at the defection point; thepost-period averages drift positive over time.The bigger problem is on the pre-defection side. The leads at t = −2 andt = −1 sit close to zero (good — that’s what parallel trends wouldpredict), but the t = −3 coefficient is about −1.6 strokes — defectorswere unusually good three majors before they signed. The maximumabsolute t-statistic across the pre-period leads is 2.24, which failsa conventional parallel-trends test.Two stories could explain that dip:  Reverse causation in selection. A strong major run might havehelped attract LIV’s offer (or at least raised the player’sreservation wage). If players sign during or just after a hot streak,the t = −3 to t = −1 window naturally shows above-trend performance,and any decline post-signing partly reflects mean reversion.  Noise. With ~20 players observable at t = −3 and a single major’sworth of data, a t-stat of 2.24 isn’t extraordinary.The matched-control specification in the main post is partly designedaround this issue. It compares each defector to similar stayers in thesame calendar year, which absorbs much of any reversion-to-mean trendthat’s common across the cohort. That spec gives the smallest estimate(+0.25 strokes), consistent with the idea that some of the headline+0.48 is mean reversion rather than a LIV effect.A3 — Distribution viewFor readers who prefer raw distributions to point estimates, here’s thedensity of defector rounds (R1+R2, full field) before and after defection:The pre-LIV distribution (grey) is centered slightly to the left of thepost-LIV distribution (red), and the post-LIV side has a slightly fatterright tail — more genuine blowup rounds. The means differ by about 0.3strokes, which is consistent with the regression estimates. The hugeoverlap is why the standard errors are wide: a defector’s typical roundis well within the noise of any single major.A4 — Round-specific effectsThe DiD coefficient broken out by round (each is a separate regressionwith player FE, major×round FE, and age controls):            Round      β      SE      N rounds                  1      +0.31      0.34      2,904              2      +0.60      0.38      2,871              3      +0.34      0.41      1,516              4      +0.36      0.39      1,514      There’s no obvious “Sunday pressure” story — the effect doesn’t ramp upthrough the rounds. The R2 estimate is the largest of the four, but thedifferences across rounds are within standard-error distance.A5 — Sample and definitions  Universe. All four men’s major championships from 2018 through the2026 Masters: Masters, PGA Championship, US Open, Open Championship.31 tournaments, 17,532 player-round observations.  Defectors. Thirty named PGA Tour pros who signed multi-year LIVcontracts between June 2022 and February 2024. Defection date = firstLIV event played.  Outcome. Strokes vs. round-field-mean. The “field” is everyplayer who posted a score that round; for R3 and R4 that’scut-makers only. Lower scores = better.  Player typing. Star if average pre-LIV strokes-vs-field≤ −1.5 (so player was scoring at least 1.5 strokes better than themajor field on average pre-defection). Older if 38+ at first LIVevent, not a star. Journeyman otherwise.  Birthdates. Hardcoded for the 30 defectors. For the rest of thefield (~500 players), scraped from Wikipedia infobox class=\"bday\"microformat with a few manual corrections for disambiguation errors(golfers who shared names with historical figures).DisclosureThis post was drafted with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic). Claude helped with data scraping, statistical analysis, and drafting the narrative text. All analytical decisions, data interpretation, and editorial judgment are the author’s."
    },
  
    {
      "title"   : "Where Is All of This Going?",
      "category": "Blog post",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/posts/2026/04/hays-county-projections/",
      "date"    : "April 13, 2026",
      "content" : "Hays County has roughly 300,000 people today. How many will it have in2040? In 2060?The answer depends on who you ask and what method they use. Populationprojections are not predictions — they are conditional estimates, eachbuilt on a different set of assumptions about how growth works. Someassume recent trends continue mechanically. Others model the underlyingdynamics. None of them are right. All of them are useful.I compiled six projection strategies and put them on the same chart.Three are published estimates from official planning agencies — theTexas Demographic Center (TDC) and the Capital Area MetropolitanPlanning Organization (CAMPO) — plotted here as reported, notre-estimated. Three are statistical fits I estimated directly from 26years of annual Census population data. The spread is striking.By 2060, the estimates range from roughly 460,000 to nearly 1.4 million.That is not a typo. The range reflects the fact that different methodsmake fundamentally different assumptions about what drives growth andwhether it has limits. Understanding the differences is more useful thanpicking a single number.The Official ProjectionsThe TDC — the state demographer’s office —publishes county-level projections through 2060 under three migrationscenarios. Migration is the dominant driver of growth in Hays County(far more than births and deaths), so the scenario you choose mattersenormously.      The low migration scenario (0.0) assumes net migration drops tonear zero — essentially, the county stops attracting new residents.Under this scenario, Hays County reaches about 460,000 by 2060.Growth continues through natural increase and residual momentum, butit slows dramatically.        The mid migration scenario (0.5) assumes migration continues atroughly half the pace of the 2010–2020 decade. This is the scenariomost commonly cited in planning documents. It produces about 612,000by 2060 — a doubling from today.        The high migration scenario (1.0) assumes the 2010–2020 migrationrate continues indefinitely. Under this scenario, the county reachesabout 870,000 by 2060 — nearly tripling.  The shaded band on the chart shows the range between the low and highscenarios. The TDC’s mid estimate — 612,000 — sits in the middle ofthat band and is the number most often cited.CAMPO usesits own demographic forecast for the six-county Austin region.CAMPO’s earlier planning documents projected Hays County could approach628,000 by 2040, which is more aggressive than the TDC’s mid scenariobut consistent with the TDC’s high scenario. CAMPO also projectsthat the county will more than triple its employment levels over theplanning horizon — a signal that the county is expected to develop itsown economic base, not just serve as a bedroom community for Austin.The Statistical FitsThe TDC and CAMPO projections are outputs of cohort-componentdemographic models — they use age-sex-race specific fertility, mortality,and migration assumptions to project forward. Those models are runinternally by the agencies; what is published (and plotted above) arethe resulting population estimates, not the models themselves.A complementary approach is to fit statistical models directly to thehistorical population series and extrapolate. This is simpler — itignores the demographic mechanics — but it is fully transparent andreplicable. Using the 26 annual Census population estimates for HaysCounty (2000–2025), three standard curve-fitting approaches produceusefully different results:Linear fit extrapolates a straight line through the historical data(R² = 0.98). It assumes the county adds roughly the same number ofpeople each year — about 7,900 — regardless of how large it gets. Thisis the most conservative statistical approach, and it produces thelowest estimate: about 561,000 by 2060. The linear model treats growthas additive, which tends to understate growth in places where thepopulation is large enough to generate compounding effects.Exponential fit assumes a constant percentage growth rate — thepopulation grows by the same proportion each year, not the samenumber (R² = 0.99). This is the standard compound-growth model. Appliedto the annual estimates, it produces a growth rate of about 4.4 percentper year and a 2060 projection of roughly 1.4 million. That is clearlytoo high. The exponential model is useful for short-run extrapolation,but it has no built-in ceiling. It assumes growth never slows, whichmakes it unreliable over long horizons. It does, however, illustratewhat happens if you simply extend the county’s recent growth rateforward without accounting for constraints.Logistic fit models growth as following an S-curve — rapid earlyacceleration that gradually slows as the population approaches acarrying capacity (R² = 0.99). The carrying capacity is estimated fromthe data itself via nonlinear least squares, not assumed in advance. ForHays County, the model estimates a carrying capacity of roughly 1.9million and a 2060 population of about 971,000 — close to the TDC’shigh migration scenario and CAMPO’s estimate. The logistic model isattractive because it captures the intuition that growth rates eventuallydecline, though the estimated carrying capacity is sensitive to thefunctional form assumed.What the Spread Tells YouThe range — 460,000 to 1.4 million — is not a failure of the methods.It is the methods doing their job. Each one isolates a differentassumption and shows where it leads:  If migration slows dramatically, the county still reaches 460,000on momentum alone (TDC low).  If migration continues at half the recent pace, the county doublesto about 612,000 (TDC mid).  If recent migration patterns hold, the county approaches 850,000–970,000 (TDC high, CAMPO, logistic).  If growth compounds at the historical rate without any constraints,the county approaches 1.4 million (exponential — and this is whyexponential models are not used for long-range planning).The exponential model is a useful warning label. It shows what happenswhen you assume nothing changes — no water constraints, no land limits,no shifts in housing markets. The fact that it produces an absurd numberis itself informative. It means that something will have to change.Growth at Hays County’s historical rate is not sustainable indefinitely,and the interesting question is what will slow it down: deliberateplanning, resource constraints, or some combination of both.What the Projections Assume — and What They Don’tAll of these projections share a common limitation: they assume thefuture will resemble the past in some structural way. None of themaccount for:      Water supply constraints. The Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) buildsits demand forecasts on the assumption that supply will be available.If it is not — if the Edwards Aquifer, the Trinity, or the Guadalupe-Blanco system cannot sustain projected demand — growth will beconstrained by physics regardless of what the demographic models say.        Policy changes. A county-level moratorium on water-heavydevelopment, stricter subdivision regulations, or shifts in stateannexation law could all slow growth in ways that are not captured bytrend extrapolation.        Economic shocks. A recession, a shift in remote work patterns, ora major employer relocation could alter migration flows in eitherdirection.        The affordability gap closing. The growth engine — Hays Countybeing $135,000 cheaper than Travis County — is not fixed. If Austinprices fall or Hays County prices rise, the engine weakens.  The projections are best understood as a range of plausible futures, notas forecasts. The TDC mid scenario (612,000 by 2060) is a reasonablecentral estimate, but reasonable central estimates have a way of beingwrong in both directions.The Planning QuestionThe most important thing about these projections may not be the numbersthemselves. It may be the gap between the scale of growth they describeand the scale of planning that is currently in place.Kyle’s comprehensive plan — Kyle 2030 — projects the city reaching about75,000 by the end of this decade. But Kyle is already approaching 70,000and has been ranked the second-fastest-growing city in America. SanMarcos adopted a new comprehensive plan in October 2024 and projectsneeding 42,000 to 54,000 additional housing units by 2050. Texas StateUniversity enrolled over 44,000 students in fall 2025, up from 40,000just a year earlier. At the county level, a development regulationrewrite is expected by late 2026.These are encouraging steps. The question — as with everything in HaysCounty right now — is whether the pace of planning can match the pace ofgrowth.The projections say the growth is coming. Whether it lands at 460,000 or870,000 depends on assumptions that are themselves uncertain. What is notuncertain is that the decisions being made today — about water, roads,schools, and land use — will shape a county that looks fundamentallydifferent from the one that exists now.SourcesTexas Demographic Center, Vintage 2024 population projections (0.0, 0.5,1.0 migration scenarios). CAMPO 2045 Regional Transportation Plandemographic forecast. Texas Water Development Board, 2026 Regional WaterPlanning municipal projections. City of Kyle, Kyle 2030 ComprehensivePlan. City of San Marcos, Vision SMTX Comprehensive Plan (adoptedOctober 2024). Texas State University enrollment data. Hays CountyCommissioners Court.Statistical fits (exponential, linear, logistic) estimated from 26annual Census Bureau population estimates (Population Estimates Programand American Community Survey, 2000–2025).Replication code: southbound-35/posts/hays-projectionsDisclosureThis blog post was written with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic).Claude helped with data research, statistical modeling, and drafting.All analysis and editorial judgment are the author’s."
    },
  
    {
      "title"   : "Hevel on the Back Nine",
      "category": "Blog post",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/posts/2026/04/scheffler-ecclesiastes/",
      "date"    : "April 10, 2026",
      "content" : "There is an image of Scottie Scheffler that I cannot stop thinking about.It is 6:30 in the morning in Louisville, Kentucky. It is May. The sky isthat bruised gray-purple it gets before dawn in the Ohio Valley. A manhas just been killed by a shuttle bus outside Valhalla Golf Club. Trafficis rerouted. There are flashing lights. And the best golfer on theplanet — the number-one player in the world, a man who has won nineteentimes in four years, who has four major championships and an Olympic goldmedal, who has earned over a hundred million dollars hitting a ball intoa hole — is standing in an orange jumpsuit in the Louisville Metro jail,getting his mugshot taken.He will be released in two hours. He will arrive at Valhalla with lessthan an hour before his tee time. He will shoot 5-under 66.All charges will be dismissed with prejudice. Three officers will befound to have violated policy. The arresting detective will bedisciplined for not activating his body camera.I keep coming back to this image not because it is funny — though it isabsurd in the way only real life can be — but because it capturessomething about Scheffler that I think most people are missing. There isa book that explains him. It is not a golf book. It is 2,300 years old,and it predicted him almost perfectly.The book is Ecclesiastes. The verse is 9:11.  I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, northe battle to the strong … but time and chance happen to them all.This is the most directly athletic verse in the Bible, and it is alsothe most annoying. The Teacher — the author, traditionally identified asSolomon — is not saying that speed and strength don’t matter. He issaying they are not sufficient. Something else intervenes. He calls ittime and chance. What happened to Scheffler outside Valhalla was time andchance in its purest form: a shuttle bus, a predawn traffic pattern, adetective without a body camera.And then Scheffler went out and shot 66. Because the race is notalways to the swift — but it usually is. The verse holds both truths.That is the genius of Ecclesiastes. It refuses to simplify.Here is the thing about Scheffler that makes him different from everyother dominant athlete I have watched.He keeps saying it doesn’t matter.Not in the defeated way, not in the false-humble way you hear fromathletes who have been media-trained to say “I’m just blessed.” He saysit in the specific, detailed, almost clinical way of a man who hasexamined his own experience and is reporting his findings. Like ascientist describing an experiment that produced an unexpected result.At the 2025 Open Championship — days before he would win the ClaretJug by four strokes — Golf Digest called his press conference thedeepest answer they had ever heard from a professional athlete. Hedescribed winning the Byron Nelson, his hometown event outside Dallas,where he had shot 31-under. He described the feeling that followed. Youwork your entire life for a moment like that. You celebrate, you hug yourfamily, your sister is there. And then immediately the thought shifts tosomething like what to have for dinner.Life just goes on.He said he wasn’t out there to inspire someone to become the best playerin the world, because what would be the point of that? He describedprofessional golf as fulfilling in a sense of accomplishment, but notfulfilling in the deepest places of the heart. He said winning doesn’tfill the deepest wants and desires. He said golf doesn’t define him. Hisfaith does. He said if golf ever started affecting his home life or hisrelationship with his wife or son, that would be his last day playingfor a living.Then he went and won the Open.After lifting the Claret Jug, he said it again: this doesn’t fulfill thedeepest desires of his heart.I want to be very precise here. The man who has everything his professioncan offer — four majors, world number one for 141 consecutive weeks, agold medal, a hundred million dollars, four straight Player of the Yearawards, a résumé that only Tiger Woods can match in the modern era — issaying, on the record, to the assembled global sports media, that noneof it is enough.And he means it. I am fairly certain he means it. Which is what makesit so interesting.There is a Hebrew word for what Scheffler is describing. It is hevel.If you have read Ecclesiastes in English, you have almost certainlyencountered a bad translation of it. The King James gives you “vanity.”The NIV gives you “meaningless.” Both are misleading in a way thatmatters.Hevel literally means breath. Vapor. Smoke. It appears 38 times inEcclesiastes, five times in the famous opening line: hevel havalim,hevel havalim, hakol hevel. Vapor of vapors, vapor of vapors, all isvapor.The difference between “meaningless” and “vapor” is not cosmetic. Itchanges the entire book. If everything is meaningless, Ecclesiastes isnihilism, and the Teacher is a depressive who needs therapy, not a sageworth reading. If everything is vapor, Ecclesiastes is something elseentirely — a clear-eyed account of what it feels like to live insidetime, where every beautiful thing is passing.“Meaningless” makes the book sound like it debunks life. “Vapor” makesit sound like weather. Something real that you live inside. Beautiful andimpossible to hold.The Teacher conducted a systematic experiment in achievement. He pursuedwisdom, pleasure, wealth, and labor. He got them all. His conclusion wasnot that they were pointless. His conclusion was that they wereungraspable. Real, warm, beautiful — and they slipped through hisfingers like smoke.This is Scheffler’s dinner moment. The Byron Nelson win happened. It wasreal. It was warm. His family was there. And within minutes it was vapor.Scholars fight about this book, and the fight is worth knowing becauseit determines whether Ecclesiastes is a warning or a guide.Tremper Longman, in his commentary for the New International Commentaryon the Old Testament, reads the Teacher as a foil. A brilliant pessimistwhose raw honesty the epilogist — the narrator who appears in the finalverses, 12:9–14 — ultimately corrects. On Longman’s reading, theTeacher pushed human wisdom to its absolute limit and discovered itcould not hold him. The epilogue then reframes everything: fear God andkeep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. The Teacher’swords are true as far as they go, Longman argues, but they do not go farenough. They are the testimony of a man reasoning “under the sun” —within the bounds of what observation can reach — without the fullrevelation that comes from above it.Duane Garrett, writing in the New American Commentary, disagrees. Hereads the Teacher not as a foil but as a believing sage who is doingtheology, not merely complaining. And the key evidence, on Garrett’sreading, is the seven “enjoy life” refrains scattered through the book.They are not consolation prizes. They are not the Teacher reluctantlyadmitting that things could be worse. They are his positive theology.His actual answer.And they escalate.The first refrain, at 2:24, is resigned. Passive. There is nothingbetter for a person than to eat and drink. The language sounds like aman who arrived at this conclusion by process of elimination rather thanenthusiasm. By the third, at 3:22, he is slightly more confident: thereis nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work. By thesixth, at 9:7, resignation has given way entirely to imperative: Go,eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for Godhas already approved what you do. And by the seventh, at 11:9, he isspeaking directly to the young: Rejoice, O young man, in your youth,and let your heart cheer you.Garrett reads this progression as the Teacher arriving at his answer.Not through syllogism. Through lived experience. The answer is not thatachievement is bad or that toil should be avoided. The answer is that joyis not earned by achievement. It is received as a gift from God.Derek Kidner, in The Message of Ecclesiastes, offers a structuralinsight that holds Longman and Garrett together. He identifies atwo-voice architecture: the Teacher provides the raw testimony — thehonest, sometimes brutal, first-person account of what it feels like toachieve everything and find it vapor — and the epilogist provides theframe that makes the testimony bearable. Kidner’s key point is that thebook needs both voices. Without the Teacher, the epilogue is aplatitude. Without the epilogue, the Teacher’s words are despair.Together they produce something neither voice can produce alone: arealistic faith.Peter Enns, in his commentary for the Two Horizons series, pushes thisfurther. Ecclesiastes is not finally a pessimistic book, he argues. Noran optimistic one. It is an honest one. It names the experience thatevery high achiever knows but few will say out loud: that the thing yougave your life to get, once you have it, cannot hold you. The value ofthe book is precisely that it refuses to resolve the tension cheaply. Itdoes not say achievement is bad. It does not say try harder. It says:this is what it is. Now — given that — how will you live?Here is what is remarkable about Scottie Scheffler, and the reason Ithink Ecclesiastes explains him better than any sportswriter has managedto: he is both voices at once.When he describes the dinner moment — the vapor-quality of winning, theinability of the highest accomplishment to fill the deepest places — heis the Teacher. Raw testimony. First person. No theological gloss. Justthe observation: I won everything, and within minutes I was thinkingabout dinner.When he says his identity is not a golf score, that his faith defineshim, that he would quit tomorrow if the game harmed his family — he isthe epilogist. The frame. The voice that says: fear God, becauseeverything else is passing.Most athletes who talk about faith sound like they are adding adisclaimer. A footnote. The thing you say because you are supposed to sayit. Scheffler sounds like he is reading from Ecclesiastes withoutknowing it. The dinner moment is hevel — not as a philosophicalabstraction, but as lived experience described with the specificity of aman who has actually felt it. The win was real. It was beautiful. It waswarm. And it could not hold him.There is a verse near the end of the Teacher’s testimony that I thinkabout whenever Scheffler talks. Ecclesiastes 5:20:  He will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps himoccupied with joy in his heart.This is perhaps the strangest verse in the book. The person who receivesjoy as a gift from God “will not much remember the days of his life.”Not because the days were bad. Because he was too occupied with gladnessto grip them. He held them loosely. They passed. He was, somehow, fine.Scheffler keeps winning. He keeps saying it doesn’t satisfy. He keepsplaying. He seems — by every account from people who know him — content.Not despite the vapor-quality of his achievements. Inside it.The question Ecclesiastes poses is not whether achievement is vapor.That is stipulated. The race is not always to the swift. Time and chancehappen to them all.The question is what you do once you know.The Teacher’s answer — which Scottie Scheffler is living out on the PGATour in real time, nineteen wins deep and counting — is that you keepplaying. You enjoy the toil. Not because it will satisfy, but becausethe enjoyment itself is a gift, received from a hand that is not yourown, in a life that is passing like breath.And sometimes, on the way to the tee box from a jail cell, you shoot 66.Sources and Further ReadingGolf reporting: PGA Tour, ESPN, NBC Sports, Golf Digest, CBS Sports,Sportico, Sports Spectrum, The Gospel Coalition, Religion Unplugged.Ecclesiastes commentaries cited:  Longman, Tremper III. The Book of Ecclesiastes. New InternationalCommentary on the Old Testament. Eerdmans, 1998.  Garrett, Duane A. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs. New AmericanCommentary. Broadman & Holman, 1993.  Kidner, Derek. The Message of Ecclesiastes. The Bible Speaks Today.InterVarsity Press, 1976.  Enns, Peter. Ecclesiastes. Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary.Eerdmans, 2011.DisclosureThis blog post was written with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic).Claude helped with research, commentary synthesis, and drafting thenarrative text. All theological interpretation and editorial judgmentare the author’s."
    },
  
    {
      "title"   : "How Dangerous Is Spring Break, Really?",
      "category": "Blog post",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/posts/2026/04/spring-break-mortality/",
      "date"    : "April 08, 2026",
      "content" : "Every March, cable news runs the same reel: ambulances on the beach, studentson stretchers, a grim-faced anchor reading the latest death toll. The coveragemakes spring break look like the most dangerous week on the American calendar.But is it?I pulled federal crash data, scraped a decade of news reports, and ran someback-of-the-envelope statistics to find out. The answer is more nuanced thaneither “spring break kills” or “it’s totally fine” — and the real story hassome surprises.Part 1 — What the Headlines SayThe news countTo build a raw death count I searched Google News and Bing News for everyreported spring-break-related fatality from 2016 through 2025 — car crashes,drownings, balcony falls, alcohol poisoning, the works. The year-by-yeartotals:The trend line (excluding the COVID dip in 2020–21) is slightly upward, butthe numbers bounce around a lot. In any given year the count lands somewherebetween 60 and 100. That range matters for what comes next.Sanity-checking the numberAre 60–100 deaths plausible, or is the news over- or under-counting?A quick Monte Carlo simulation can tell us. The CDC puts the all-causemortality rate for 18-to-24-year-olds at about 79 per 100,000 per year. Ifroughly 1.5–3 million students travel for spring break, stay 7–14 days, andface 1.5–3x their normal daily risk of dying (from alcohol, driving,swimming, sleep deprivation), how many deaths should we expect?The simulation’s median lands right in the 60–100 window the news reports.That’s reassuring: the news isn’t wildly inflating the count, and theunderlying assumptions aren’t crazy. But ~80 deaths out of ~2 milliontravelers is a rate of about 4 per 100,000 — which sounds bad until yourealize that’s roughly the normal daily mortality rate for this age group,scaled up by a modest behavioral risk factor.Part 2 — What the Federal Data SayNews scraping is noisy. For more rigorous evidence I turned to the FatalityAnalysis Reporting System (FARS), which records every traffic fatality on U.S.roads. I filtered to ages 18–24 and looked at 2016–2023.Seasonal patternIf spring break were uniquely deadly, March and April should jump out of themonthly pattern. They don’t — at least not in the way you’d expect:March and April are below the annual mean. The real killing season for youngdrivers is summer: June, July, and August. That doesn’t mean spring break issafe — it means the seasonal signal is dominated by three straight months ofwarm weather, long days, and road trips, not a two-week party window.Destination vs. everywhere elseA smarter test: compare states that receive large numbers of spring breakers(Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, etc.) against the rest of thecountry. If spring break drives excess deaths, destination states should spikein March–April relative to their own baseline and relative tonon-destination states. That’s a difference-in-differences design:The DiD estimate is positive — destination states do see a relative uptick —but the effect is modest and imprecisely estimated. Spring break probably addssome risk at the destination, but it’s not the bloodbath the headlinessuggest.Are we even Googling the right thing?One reason spring break deaths feel enormous is that we notice them. GoogleTrends data for the search query “spring break death” shows massive spikesevery March — but those spikes track individual viral stories, not actual deathcounts:A single dramatic incident (a balcony collapse, a mass-casualty crash) canspike search interest 10x even though total deaths are flat. Media salienceand actual risk are barely correlated.Geographic concentrationSpring break deaths aren’t spread evenly. A handful of destination counties —South Padre Island, Panama City Beach, Miami-Dade, Myrtle Beach — account fora disproportionate share:But here’s the catch: those same counties are dangerous year-round, not justduring spring break. They have beaches, highways, nightlife, and warm weather365 days a year. The concentration of deaths during spring break largelyreflects the concentration of risk factors that exist independent of thespring break calendar.Part 3 — Four CounterfactualsRaw comparisons can mislead. To get closer to the causal effect of springbreak, I ran four counterfactual analyses — each asking a different version of“compared to what?”CF1: What if they stayed home?Spring break weekends are dangerous. But so are Labor Day weekends, 4th ofJuly, Memorial Day, and Thanksgiving. When you compute per-day death ratesfor 18-to-24-year-olds across all major holiday weekends, spring break is inthe pack — not an outlier:The per-day death rate on spring break weekends is comparable to the 4th ofJuly and summer weekends generally. Young people die on long weekends. Springbreak isn’t special in that regard.CF2: Deaths per million attendeesHow does spring break compare to other mass gatherings on adeaths-per-million-attendees basis?Spring break’s rate is elevated — but not dramatically so compared to Sturgis,Mardi Gras, or even a season of college football Saturdays. The denominatormatters: spring break is big. When you normalize by the sheer number ofpeople participating, the per-capita risk is less alarming than the raw countsuggests.CF3: Risk substitutionHere’s a question nobody asks: if spring breakers didn’t go to Florida, wouldthey just die somewhere else?If spring break merely relocates risk (students would be driving, drinking,and partying at home instead), then banning spring break wouldn’t save lives —it would just move the dots on the map. To test this, I looked at whethernon-destination states get safer during spring break weeks (as their riskyyoung people leave):The distribution is centered near zero with a slight negative skew: somestates may get marginally safer when their students leave, but the effect issmall. This suggests spring break is mostly additive risk — thecombination of travel, unfamiliar roads, heavy drinking, and sleep deprivationcreates danger that wouldn’t exist at home — but there’s a substitutioncomponent too.CF4: How many deaths are actually because of spring break?Finally, the big question. I applied the death rate from non-destinationcounties to the destination-county population to build a counterfactual:how many 18-to-24-year-olds would have died in destination counties duringMarch 1 – April 15, even without spring break?The gap between the red and blue bars is the causal excess — deathsattributable to the spring break concentration effect. In most years, theexcess is positive but modest: on the order of 10–30 additional deathsnationally during the six-week window.The Bottom LineSpring break kills people. That’s real. But the magnitude is smaller than theheadlines suggest, and the mechanism is more mundane than you’d think:      The raw count is real but not extraordinary. 60–100 deaths per yearamong ~2 million travelers is tragic but roughly in line with what you’dpredict from baseline mortality rates scaled by behavioral risk.        Summer is deadlier. The seasonal peak for young-adult traffic deaths isJune–August, not March–April.        Destination counties are always dangerous. The geographic concentrationof spring break deaths largely reflects year-round risk factors, not aspring-break-specific effect.        Spring break is comparable to other holiday weekends. Per-day deathrates for 18-to-24-year-olds are similar across spring break, the 4th ofJuly, and Labor Day.        The causal excess is modest. After accounting for baseline risk, springbreak likely causes 10–30 additional deaths per year — meaningful, but farfrom the hundreds implied by breathless coverage.        Media salience ≠ risk. Google Trends spikes track viral stories, notdeath tolls. One dramatic incident generates more search interest than adozen routine crashes.  None of this means spring break is safe, or that universities andmunicipalities shouldn’t invest in harm reduction. It means the marginalrisk of spring break — the risk above and beyond what these young peoplewould face anyway — is smaller than you think. The most effectiveinterventions won’t target “spring break” as a category; they’ll target theunderlying behaviors (binge drinking, impaired driving, water safety) thatkill young people year-round.Methodology Notes  FARS data: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System, 2016–2023. Person-levelrecords filtered to fatal injuries (inj_sev == 4) aged 18–24.  News scrape: Google News and Bing News searches for spring-break-relatedfatalities, 2016–2025. Manual review to de-duplicate and exclude non-U.S.incidents.  Monte Carlo: 50,000 simulations using CDC all-cause mortality rate(79.1/100,000/year for ages 18–24), uniform distributions for traveler count(1.5–3M), duration (7–14 days), and behavioral risk multiplier (1.5–3x).  DiD: OLS with heteroskedasticity-robust (HC3) standard errors. Destinationstates defined by FIPS codes for the 12 states receiving the largest springbreak inflows.  Counterfactual excess: Non-destination Mar–Apr death rate applied to anestimated destination-county population of ~5 million 18-to-24-year-olds.Replication code: scottlangford2/spring-break-mortalityDisclosureThis blog post was written with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic). Claudehelped with code development, data analysis workflow, and drafting thenarrative text. All analytical decisions, data interpretation, and editorialjudgment are the author’s."
    },
  
    {
      "title"   : "254 Counties, One Interstate: The Hays County Growth Story",
      "category": "Blog post",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/posts/2026/04/hays-county-growth/",
      "date"    : "April 06, 2026",
      "content" : "If you drive south from Austin on I-35, you can feel the moment youcross into Hays County. Not because of a sign — though there is one —but because the landscape opens up. New subdivisions in various stagesof completion. Warehouse pads with fresh concrete. A strip centerwaiting for tenants. The feeling of a place in motion — growing intosomething, and doing it quickly.Hays County was the fastest-growing large county in the United Statesbetween 2010 and 2020. The Census Bureau measured it at 53.4 percentgrowth in a single decade, more than any other U.S. county with apopulation over 100,000. Between 2020 and 2023, the pace continued —second-fastest in the nation, adding another 16 percent.The county had 97,000 people in 2000. It has roughly 300,000 today. Ittripled in a quarter century.The growth has not been uniform across the county. Kyle — a city with5,314 residents at the 2000 census — now has roughly 70,000. The CensusBureau ranked it the second-fastest-growing city in America among thoseover 50,000 in population. San Marcos, anchored by Texas StateUniversity, has doubled since 2010 and is approaching 91,000. DrippingSprings, on the county’s western edge, nearly quadrupled off a smallbase. Buda, sitting between Kyle and Austin, grew more modestly — aninteresting contrast that deserves its own post down the road, becausetwo cities five miles apart on the same interstate with very differentgrowth trajectories is a story worth understanding.The EngineThe growth has a straightforward cause. For many families, Hays Countyis where the math starts to work.The median home in Travis County costs roughly $490,000. In Hays County,it is about $355,000 — $135,000 less for a home that is, in many cases,20 minutes farther south on the same highway. I-35 connects the twocounties seamlessly, and families looking for more affordable optionshave steadily moved south along the corridor.This is a familiar pattern in Central Texas. Williamson Countyexperienced a similar wave north of Austin a generation earlier. HaysCounty is now absorbing that same energy — but faster, off a smallerbase, and with infrastructure still catching up.Kyle has been especially proactive in welcoming the growth. The Kyle/35Logistics Park — five warehouse facilities totaling over a millionsquare feet, representing $115 million in capital investment — was thefirst spec project of that scale ever built in the corridor. Developersare now building-to-finish rather than building-to-spec, with buildingsleased before completion. The city is not just growing residentially — itis becoming a regional logistics hub.Two Things Worth WatchingBeyond the headline growth numbers, two developments stand out asparticularly important for the county’s future.The county recently commissioned its first comprehensive water studysince 2011. The population has nearly doubled since the last one,which means the county has been navigating a period of extraordinarygrowth without an updated picture of its most constrained resource. Thestudy was approved by the Commissioners Court in January 2026 and willtake time to complete. In the meantime, mandatory water restrictions arein effect in parts of the county, and boil water notices have becomemore frequent — a single notice in northern Hays County affected 11,000customers. The county judge has proposed a moratorium on water-heavyindustrial projects, though questions have been raised about whetherTexas counties have the legal authority to impose one under recent statelegislation.Updating the water picture is an important step. The timing underscoreshow quickly the county has grown relative to its planning infrastructure.In November 2024, voters approved a $440 million road bond fortransportation improvements. Fifty-six percent voted yes. It covered31 projects across mobility, safety, and regional connectivity, with aprojected tax impact of two cents per hundred dollars of assessed value.In June 2025, however, a judge voided the bond, ruling that theCommissioners Court did not properly comply with the Texas Open MeetingsAct when calling the special election. The ruling was about process, notsubstance — not the projects themselves, but the way the meeting wasnoticed. The county judge has since formed a transportation task force tochart a path forward, and as of this writing, $440 million invoter-approved infrastructure remains unresolved.These are the kinds of challenges that come with rapid growth — notfailures of will, but situations where the pace of development hasoutrun the pace of institutional capacity. They are worth understanding,and worth getting right.What Comes NextThis is not a story about whether Hays County will keep growing. Theaffordability gap is significant, the corridor is well-connected, andthe momentum is strong. CAMPO — the Capital Area Metropolitan PlanningOrganization — estimates the county could approach 628,000 people by2040.The more interesting question is how the county manages that growth —how it plans for water, funds infrastructure, educates a growingstudent population, and coordinates across the many jurisdictions thatshare responsibility for governing the county.SourcesU.S. Census Bureau (decennial census 1990–2020, ACS 2023). City of KyleEconomic Development. City of San Marcos. Redfin. CBA Realtors. KXAN.KUT. Community Impact News. TxDOT. Hays County Commissioners Court.Replication code: southbound-35/posts/hays-growthDisclosureThis blog post was written with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic).Claude helped with data research and drafting. All analysis andeditorial judgment are the author’s."
    }
  
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    {
      "title"   : "Welcome.",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "I am an assistant professor at Texas State University in the Department of Political Science in the Masters of Public Administration Program. I previously served as a post-doctoral research fellow in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. I earned my PhD in Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.The central goal of my career is to improve policy using a data-driven approach. I use policy and public administration theoretical frameworks, coupled with rigorous research designs, and advanced econometric methods, to answer policy-relevant questions. Substantively, my interests lie at the intersection of economics, public health, and the environment. I examine how economies react to shocks (e.g., hurricanes), and identify moderating conditions (e.g., entrepreneurship).My independent research has been funded by the Kenan Institute for Private Enterprise. My research has appeared in leading journals, such as the Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Economic Development Quarterly, the Journal of Regional Science, and JAMA Pediatrics.Southbound 35I write Southbound 35 — a blog on public finance and economic development on the Texas corridor, with occasional detours into sports, politics, and religion. Texas has 254 counties, thousands of taxing entities, and an interstate that runs through the heart of it.Recent posts:Where the Water Will Come From — May 11, 2026Did LIV Golfers Get Worse After They Defected? — April 30, 2026Where Is All of This Going? — April 13, 2026ContactEmail: scottlangford@txstate.edu  ·  Office: Texas State University, San Marcos, TX  ·  Google Scholar · SSRN · GitHub · OSFFor something less formal: a little about me."
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      "title"   : "Archive Layout with Content",
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      "url"     : "/scott_langford/archive-layout-with-content/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "A variety of common markup showing how the theme styles them.Header oneHeader twoHeader threeHeader fourHeader fiveHeader sixBlockquotesSingle line blockquote:  Quotes are cool.Tables            Entry      Item                         John Doe      2016      Description of the item in the list              Jane Doe      2019      Description of the item in the list              Doe Doe      2022      Description of the item in the list                  Header1      Header2      Header3                  cell1      cell2      cell3              cell4      cell5      cell6                  cell1      cell2      cell3              cell4      cell5      cell6                  Foot1      Foot2      Foot3      Definition Lists  Definition List Title  Definition list division.  Startup  A startup company or startup is a company or temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.  #dowork  Coined by Rob Dyrdek and his personal body guard Christopher “Big Black” Boykins, “Do Work” works as a self motivator, to motivating your friends.  Do It Live  I’ll let Bill O’Reilly explain this one.Unordered Lists (Nested)  List item one          List item one                  List item one          List item two          List item three          List item four                    List item two      List item three      List item four        List item two  List item three  List item fourOrdered List (Nested)  List item one          List item one                  List item one          List item two          List item three          List item four                    List item two      List item three      List item four        List item two  List item three  List item fourButtonsMake any link standout more when applying the .btn class.NoticesWatch out! You can also add notices by appending {: .notice} to a paragraph.HTML TagsAddress Tag  1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014 United StatesAnchor Tag (aka. Link)This is an example of a link.Abbreviation TagThe abbreviation CSS stands for “Cascading Style Sheets”.Cite Tag“Code is poetry.” —AutomatticCode TagYou will learn later on in these tests that word-wrap: break-word; will be your best friend.Strike TagThis tag will let you strikeout text.Emphasize TagThe emphasize tag should italicize text.Insert TagThis tag should denote inserted text.Keyboard TagThis scarcely known tag emulates keyboard text, which is usually styled like the <code> tag.Preformatted TagThis tag styles large blocks of code..post-title {  margin: 0 0 5px;  font-weight: bold;  font-size: 38px;  line-height: 1.2;  and here's a line of some really, really, really, really long text, just to see how the PRE tag handles it and to find out how it overflows;}Quote TagDevelopers, developers, developers… –Steve BallmerStrong TagThis tag shows bold text.Subscript TagGetting our science styling on with H2O, which should push the “2” down.Superscript TagStill sticking with science and Isaac Newton’s E = MC2, which should lift the 2 up.Variable TagThis allows you to denote variables.                        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    {
      "title"   : "Awards & Honors",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/awards/",
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      "content" : "Grants & Funded ResearchCost-Benefit Analysis for Clayton, NC — Archlight Analytics, $65,000 (awarded; in progress), 2025We're Not in Dreamland Anymore: How Regional Opioid Use Rates Affect Industrial Composition — Hammer Fund Travel Award, NARSC Annual Research Conference, $750 (2021); Graduate Student Transportation Grant, NARSC Annual Research Conference, $400 (2021)Small Business Activity in Banking Deserts — Kenan Institute Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Small Grant, $10,000 (2018)The Snowball Effect of Federal Research Funding — Hammer Fund Travel Award, APPAM Annual Research Conference, $500 (2018)Honors & RecognitionSpecial Sworn Status — US Census Bureau, 2023–PresentElected Member — Frank Porter Graham Honor Society, UNC Chapel Hill, 2021Emerging Scholar — Community Banking in the 21st Century Research Conference, 2020Eagle Scout Award — Boy Scouts of America, 2006Service & Editorial RolesCo-Principal Investigator — US Census Bureau, Federal Statistical Research Data Center, 2022–PresentAssociate Editor — Academy of Management Annual Meeting, TIM Division, 2021Senator, Public Policy — Graduate and Professional Student Federation, UNC Chapel Hill, 2019–2021Referee ServiceClimate Resilience & Sustainability · Public Budgeting & Finance · Public Management Review · Nature Energy · Cambridge University Press · Research Policy · Southern Economic Journal · Papers in Regional Science · Academy of Management Annual Meeting (2020–2023) · Journal of Urban Affairs · Journal of Small Business Strategy · Journal of Infrastructure, Policy and Development"
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    {
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      "content" : "    economic-development                              Where the Water Will Come From                           \t  12 minute read\t                      Published: May 11, 2026                The previous two posts looked at how fast Hays County is growing and at the range of forecasts for how big it might get. Both ended on the same question that nobody in the county can dodge for much longer. Where will the water come from?                                            Where Is All of This Going?                           \t  9 minute read\t                      Published: April 13, 2026                Hays County has roughly 300,000 people today. How many will it have in2040? In 2060?                                            254 Counties, One Interstate: The Hays County Growth Story                           \t  5 minute read\t                      Published: April 06, 2026                If you drive south from Austin on I-35, you can feel the moment youcross into Hays County. Not because of a sign — though there is one —but because the landscape opens up. New subdivisions in various stagesof completion. Warehouse pads with fresh concrete. A strip centerwaiting for tenants. The feeling of a place in motion — growing intosomething, and doing it quickly.                    hays-county                              Where the Water Will Come From                           \t  12 minute read\t                      Published: May 11, 2026                The previous two posts looked at how fast Hays County is growing and at the range of forecasts for how big it might get. Both ended on the same question that nobody in the county can dodge for much longer. Where will the water come from?                                            Where Is All of This Going?                           \t  9 minute read\t                      Published: April 13, 2026                Hays County has roughly 300,000 people today. How many will it have in2040? In 2060?                                            254 Counties, One Interstate: The Hays County Growth Story                           \t  5 minute read\t                      Published: April 06, 2026                If you drive south from Austin on I-35, you can feel the moment youcross into Hays County. Not because of a sign — though there is one —but because the landscape opens up. New subdivisions in various stagesof completion. Warehouse pads with fresh concrete. A strip centerwaiting for tenants. The feeling of a place in motion — growing intosomething, and doing it quickly.                    other                              How Dangerous Is Spring Break, Really?                           \t  9 minute read\t                      Published: April 08, 2026                Every March, cable news runs the same reel: ambulances on the beach, studentson stretchers, a grim-faced anchor reading the latest death toll. The coveragemakes spring break look like the most dangerous week on the American calendar.But is it?                    sports                              Did LIV Golfers Get Worse After They Defected?                           \t  11 minute read\t                      Published: April 30, 2026                Since 2022, more than thirty PGA Tour pros have left for the Saudi-backed LIVGolf league, lured by guaranteed contracts reportedly worth tens or hundredsof millions of dollars. The complaint from those who stayed has been blunt:LIV’s 54-hole, no-cut, shotgun-start format is “exhibition golf,” and playerswho take the money will get rusty. The defectors say the opposite — that thelighter schedule lets them practice harder and play fresher. So who’s right?                                            Hevel on the Back Nine                           \t  13 minute read\t                      Published: April 10, 2026                There is an image of Scottie Scheffler that I cannot stop thinking about.                "
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    {
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      "url"     : "/scott_langford/coauthors/",
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      "content" : "Listed by frequency of collaboration. Affiliations as of most recent joint work.Frequent collaboratorsMaryann P. Feldman — Watts Endowed Professor of Public Affairs, Arizona State University. Doctoral advisor and frequent coauthor on regional economic development, entrepreneurship, and knowledge spillovers.Vincent Peters — Maastricht University. Coauthor on extreme weather and economic resilience, including the community-banking and entrepreneurship papers.Mark Sanders — Utrecht School of Economics. Coauthor on the entrepreneurship-and-resilience line of work.Christian Heinzel — Coauthor on Young and Small Firms and Resilience to Extreme Weather Events (Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 2025).Daniel P. Gitterman — UNC Chapel Hill, Department of Public Policy. Coauthor on pediatric research and federal funding.Abhisekh Ghosh Moulick — Baruch College, Zicklin School of Business. Coauthor on entrepreneurship and innovation.Jeremy G. Moulton — UNC Chapel Hill, Department of Public Policy. Coauthor on banking and the Great Recession.Working-paper collaboratorsAdditional coauthors on current working papers include W. W. Hay Jr. (pediatric research portfolio), A. N. Bailey and A. S. Lowe Reed (regional development), and several others noted on the Research page."
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    {
      "title"   : "Posts by Collection",
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      "content" : "                portfolio                                                Local Finance & Extreme Weather — Replication Code                                    Published: May 13, 2026                Stata code replicating the analysis on community banks and economic resilience to extreme weather events.                                                      PA 3311 Textbook: Analytical Techniques for Public Administration                                    Published: May 13, 2026                Open-source textbook companion for PA 3311 at Texas State University — data analysis for public administration students.                                                      Southbound 35 — Replication Packages                                    Published: May 13, 2026                Replication code and data for every data-driven post on the Southbound 35 blog.                                                                            research                                                Synthesis of Proposed Inhibitors of the Enzyme Aspartate-Beta-Semialdehyde Dehydrogenase.                                    Published: January 01, 2018                Analogs for the substrates of aspartate semialdehyde dehydrogenase were prepared. Phosphonomethylcysteine, its sulfoxide, and its sulfone were synthesized starting from phosphonomethyltrifluoromethanesulfonic acid and cysteine. Phosphonomethylhomocysteine, its sulfoxide, and its sulfone were prepared in a similar manner. 2-Amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid, 2-amino-4-butanoic acid, were synthesized via the Hell-Volhard-Zelinsky reaction. S-Methylcysteinesulfone was synthesized by oxidation of S-methylcysteine. A bisubstrate analog was also synthesized, namely S-(3-(acetyl)pyridinyl) homocysteine. Most of these molecules are potential inhibitors of aspartate β -semialdehyde dehydrogenase.                  Recommended citation: Halkides CJ, Langford WS, Kish WS, Johnson NP, Lookadoo DB, Hey B, Jansen D, Hifko N. Synthesis of Proposed Inhibitors of the Enzyme Aspartate-Beta-Semialdehyde Dehydrogenase. Journal of Undergraduate Chemistry Research. (2018)Download Paper                                              The Fragile State of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio, 1992-2015.                                    Published: March 01, 2018                In this article, we examine the status of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) pediatric research portfolio between start of federal fiscal year (FY) 1992 and end of FY 2015. The NIH experienced the greatest mean annual growth rate during the “doubling era” (FY 1998-2003): both the NIH budget (13.5%) and pediatric research portfolios (11.5%) increased annually by double digits. However, in the “postdoubling” era (FY 2004-2009), both the NIH (2.0%) and pediatric (−0.2%) mean annual growth rates decreased dramatically. In the most recent era (FY 2010-2015), the NIH mean annual growth rate has been flat (−0.1%) and pediatric research funding has posted very modest gains (3.5%) without accounting for 1-time increases under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We offer recommendations to protect against further erosion of the pediatric research portfolio because continuation of these trends will have a negative effect on the health of children during their childhood and as adults. As capacity to conduct basic and applied research is further constrained, it will be a challenge for pediatric researchers to do more with less and less.                  Recommended citation: Gitterman DP, Langford WS, Hay Jr WW. The Fragile State of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio, 1992-2015. JAMA Pediatrics. (2018)Download Paper                                              The Uncertain Fate of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio.                                    Published: July 06, 2018                Background: The amount of federal dollars allocated to improving the health of our pediatric population can serve as an indicator of the priority placed on child well-being. Although Congress has established novel mechanisms that marginally increase pediatric research funding, the pediatric research portfolio is facing an increasingly uncertain fate. Methods: This work examines pediatric, perinatal and pediatric research initiative (PRI) spending using data collected by the NIH that uses the novel research, condition and disease categorization system. Further, this work reports on recent policy developments in pediatric biomedical research and offers recommendations to insulate this portfolio from future uncertainty. Results: Federal support for pediatric research has declined with average annual growth rates of NIH pediatric spending dropping from 12.8% (FY 1998-2003) to 1.7% (FY 2004-2015). After taking into account Biomedical Research and Development Price Index growth, the pediatric research portfolio’s purchasing power has declined by 15.9% (FY 2004-2015). Conclusion: Federal support for pediatric biomedical research has plateaued in nominal terms and declined significantly in real terms. Future congressional action will be necessary to protect gains and to expand the capacity of the pediatric portfolio.                  Recommended citation: Gitterman DP, Langford WS, Hay Jr WW. The Uncertain Fate of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio. Pediatric Research. (2018)Download Paper                                              Catching the Whale: A Comparison of Place Promotion Strategies Through the Lens of Amazon HQ2.                                    Published: July 16, 2019                Identifying potential sites for firm relocation or expansion is a negotiated process that involves both firms and localities. Some firms focus on profit enhancement through cost minimization, while others seek qualities that maximize talent attraction and benefit corporate identity. Simultaneously, localities seek to maximize the economic welfare for residents through job creation and place-based economic development strategies. The purpose of this work is to examine how localities use place promotion strategies to attract relocating or expanding firms based on analysis of proposals submitted by communities in response to the 2017 Amazon HQ2 Request for Proposals. Our results support literature streams that argue quality of life and talent attraction, as well as cost are priorities for place-based economic development strategies. We present a complete picture of place promotion strategies that localities use to differentiate themselves and avoid competing only on cost in the competitive marketplace of corporate recruiting.                  Recommended citation: Nager AN, Lowe Reed AS, Langford WS. Catching the Whale: A Comparison of Place Promotion Strategies Through the Lens of Amazon HQ2. Geography Compass. (2019)Download Paper                                              The Distribution of Indirect Cost Recovery in Academic Research.                                    Published: June 01, 2021                Research universities rely heavily on external funding to advance knowledge and generate economic growth. In the USA, tens of billions of dollars are spent each year on research and development with the federal government contributing over half of these funds. Yet a decline in relative federal funding highlights the role of other funders and their varying contractual terms. Specifically, nonfederal funders provide lower recovery of indirect costs. Using project-level university-sponsored research administrative records from four institutions, we examine indirect cost recovery. We find significant variation in the amount of indirect funding recovered—both across and within funders, as well as to different academic fields within a university. The distribution of sponsors in the overall research funding portfolio also impacts indirect cost recovery. The recovery variation has important implications for the sustainability and cross-subsidization of the university research enterprise. Together, our results show where universities are under-recovering indirect costs.                  Recommended citation: Graddy-Reed A, Feldman MP, Bercovitz J, Langford WS. The Distribution of Indirect Cost Recovery in Academic Research. Science and Public Policy. (2021)Download Paper                                              Making the Case for Pediatric Research: A Life-Cycle Approach and The Return on Investment.                                    Published: July 02, 2022                There is unmistakable evidence of increased NIH funding for pediatric and perinatal research, but there is much work to be done. To further promote NIH-funded pediatric and perinatal research, we advocate for a life-cycle approach in which the return on the investment continues over the lifespan. Although elected policymakers have short-time horizons, pediatric and perinatal researchers must provide novel evidence and theoretical arguments demonstrating the long-term health benefits for the adults of tomorrow by improving the health of our current pediatric populations. Child health researchers must communicate the role of early developmental events on childhood and adult disease, including those that are prenatal and gestational so that its importance is understood by the public and policymakers.                  Recommended citation: Gitterman D, Langford WS, Hay Jr WW. Making the Case for Pediatric Research: A Life-Cycle Approach and The Return on Investment. Pediatric Research. (2022)Download Paper                                              We Miss You George Bailey: The Effect of Local Banking Conditions on the County-Level Timing of the Great Recession.                                    Published: November 02, 2022                Community banks have a unique capacity to strengthen economic resilience by alleviating local firm credit constraints during economic downturns. We provide evidence that banking access and community bank market share affected both the county-level timing and duration of the Great Recession in the United States. Using the Cox Proportional Hazards and Heckman Selection models, we find that communities with a higher community bank market share are less likely to experience recession conditions, conditional on local bank health. This suggests community banks have unique institutional structures, allowing them to continue providing funds to firms through economic downturns. This research demonstrates that local financial institutions affect economic resilience, in particular the timing and duration of recession conditions.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Feldman MP. We Miss You George Bailey: The Effect of Local Banking Conditions on the County-Level Timing of the Great Recession. Regional Studies. (2022)Download Paper                                              The NIH Childhood Adversity Portfolio: Unmet Needs, Emerging Challenges).                                    Published: January 11, 2023                Despite the significant increase in pediatric funding, an important question is whether recent changes in the burden of disease and conditions (child and adolescent mortality and nonfatal health loss) are reflected in the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) allocation process. As it sets future priorities, NIH acknowledges “a need to scan the landscape for unmet needs and emerging challenges” so that supported “research translates into meaningful health benefits.” Our focus is to scan the pediatric budgetary landscape, report research funding for childhood adversity and adverse childhood experiences, and to illuminate gun violence, suicide, and drug abuse/overdose as prime examples of pediatric unmet needs and emerging challenges. Our findings suggest that pediatric researchers must reconceptualize gun violence as a form of childhood adversity and adverse childhood experiences, as we also need to do for other leading causes of child and adolescent mortality such as suicide and drug abuse/overdose. As it relates to the leading cause of death for children and adolescents, pediatric-related gun violence research spending remains only 0.0017% of the NIH pediatric portfolio.                  Recommended citation: Gitterman D, Hay Jr WW, Langford WS. The NIH Childhood Adversity Portfolio: Unmet Needs, Emerging Challenges. Pediatric Research (2023)Download Paper                                              Banking for the Other Half: The Factors That Explain Banking Desert Formation.                                    Published: August 30, 2023                Banks are one of the key drivers of economic development across communities. Banking deserts—defined by inadequate banking access—limit access to capital, inhibit wealth accumulation, and increase exposure to predatory lending. Banking desert formation could be profit-driven, with lower-income and less densely populated regions more likely to become banking deserts. Discrimination could also play a role here: banks may have less presence in areas with higher minority populations. The authors use a panel, census tract-level data set for the entire state of North Carolina to investigate how these forces impact banking access and banking desert formation. Panel methodologies are incorporated to investigate the extent to which profit and discrimination mechanisms each drive banking access and banking desert formation. Profit and discrimination mechanisms are shown to play roles, highlighting the need for policies that mitigate bank branch losses in underserved neighborhoods.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Thomas HW, Feldman MP. Banking for the Other Half: The Factors That Explain Banking Desert Formation. Economic Development Quarterly. (2023)Download Paper                                              We’re Not in Dreamland Anymore: The Consequences of Community Opioid Use on Local Industrial Composition.                                    Published: August 21, 2024                We estimate the effect of opioid use rates on local economic resilience through changes in industrial composition. We find regional opioid use rates adversely affect firm growth in general, with the greatest impact on small firms. Our results are robust to several identification strategies (Difference in Differences, Propensity Score Matching, and Instrumental Variables) and alternative empirical specifications. Our findings establish that local industrial composition and long-term resilience are each adversely affected by the opioid public health crisis.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Feldman MP. We’re Not in Dreamland Anymore: The Consequences of Community Opioid Use on Local Industrial Composition. Journal of Regional Science (2024)Download Paper                                              Let Us Put Our Moneys Together: Minority-Owned Banks and Resilience to Crises.                                    Published: January 01, 2025                Racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately suffer more severe consequences during economic downturns, having heightened vulnerability in employment and credit. We investigate the role of minority-owned banks in mitigating these challenges, focusing on shared borrower-lender identity, and analyzing how these minority-owned banks affect employment through the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 Crisis. Using multiple econometric specifications including propensity score matching and instrumental variables, our study reveals that communities with higher minority-owned bank market shares experience fewer employment declines through the two crises, thus exhibiting greater resilience. These banks achieve this by increasing lending to small businesses and households during crises. By addressing financial constraints, particularly for minority-owned businesses and households, minority-owned banks contribute to economic resilience, bridging racial gaps, and fostering community employment during times of crisis.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Roman R, Berger AN, Feldman MP. “Let Us Put Our Moneys Together:” Minority-Owned Banks and Resilience to Crises. SSRN Working Paper #4231594Download Paper                                              George Bailey Meets the Tempestates: How Local Finance Strengthens Economic Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events.                                    Published: January 01, 2025                The economic costs incurred by extreme weather events are substantial and increasing. In this study, we demonstrate how community banks - a type of financial institution with strong local ties and customer relationships - mitigate these costs at the local level. We use an event study model to demonstrate that US counties with higher community bank market shares experience fewer employment losses through extreme weather events. We then use bank-level analyses to demonstrate the mechanism - the small business credit supply. Community banks maintain their lending following extreme weather events, while other banks reduce it. These findings provide novel evidence on how local financial institutions strengthen economic resilience through extreme weather events. As policymakers develop strategies to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events, local finance may be a solution.                  Recommended citation: Peters V, Langford WS, Sanders M, Feldman MP. George Bailey Meets the Tempestates: How Local Finance Strengthens Economic Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events. SSRN Working Paper #4868821Download Paper                                              Extreme Weather and Employment: Differential Effects Across Race and Ethnicity.                                    Published: January 01, 2025                This paper examines the differential effects of extreme weather events on employment across race and ethnicity.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Sanders M, Peters V. [Author list alphabetical.] Extreme Weather and Employment: Differential Effects Across Race and Ethnicity. Available Upon Request.                                              Extreme Weather Events Disrupt the Flow of Opioids and Opioid Use Disorder Medications                                    Published: January 01, 2025                Extreme weather events are becoming more common and have significant health impacts on local residents. Injuries caused by these events may drive demand for pain-relieving medications. In addition, the US remains in the midst of an opioid overdose crisis, with an unprecedented number of Americans relying on opioid use disorder (OUD) medications, such as buprenorphine, to manage symptoms of OUD. At the same time, inclement weather makes delivering supplies, such as medication, more challenging. This study evaluated the effects of extreme weather events on supplies of opioid medications. We used an event study model to demonstrate extreme weather events cause temporary decreases in shipments of several types of opioids: buprenorphine, methadone, hydrocodone, morphine and oxymorphone. These results indicate extreme weather events may disrupt treatment for OUD as well as for those experiencing extreme pain. These results point to an additional cost of extreme weather events: disruption of OUD and pain treatment.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Steuart SR. Extreme Weather Events Disrupt the Flow of Opioids and Opioid Use Disorder Medications. Available Upon Request.                                              Do Federal Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants Pay Off? An Empirical Analysis of Cost-Effectiveness Using a Portfolio Approach.                                    Published: January 02, 2025                This paper examines whether federal hazard mitigation assistance grants are cost-effective using an empirical analysis with a portfolio approach.                  Recommended citation: Hines R, Grandage AJ, Chaudhry H, Langford WS, Waddell M. Do Federal Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants Pay Off? An Empirical Analysis of Cost-Effectiveness Using a Portfolio Approach. Available Upon Request.                                              Young and Small Firms and Resilience to Extreme Weather Events.                                    Published: July 01, 2025                In this paper, we demonstrate that the presence of entrepreneurial organizations, proxied by young and small firms, in an economy increases its resilience to external shocks. We estimate the effect of local young and small firm employment shares on employment growth through extreme weather events in US counties using an event study model. We find that higher employment shares of young and small firms reduce employment losses for given levels of property damages. We contribute to the literature by showing that entrepreneurship enhances economic resilience to physical climate shocks at the local level. As regional resilience can be considered a public good, our findings add an argument to the case for supporting young and small firms in the face of progressing climate change.                  Recommended citation: Heinzel C, Langford WS, Peters V, Sanders M. Young and Small Firms and Resilience to Extreme Weather Events. Journal of Business Venturing InsightsDownload Paper                            talks                                                The Snowball Effect of Federal Research Funding                                    Published: November 01, 2018                Presented at:                                                      We Miss You George Bailey: The Effect of Local Banking Conditions on the County-Level Timing of the Great Recession                                    Published: April 01, 2020                Presented at:                                                      We’re Not in Dreamland Anymore: How Regional Opioid Use Rates Affect Industrial Composition                                    Published: November 01, 2021                Presented at:                                                      George Bailey Meets the Tempestates: How Local Finance Strengthens Economic Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events                                    Published: November 01, 2023                Presented at:                                                      “Let Us Put Our Moneys Together:” Minority-Owned Banks and Resilience to Crises                                    Published: January 01, 2024                Presented at:                                                      Extreme Weather Events and Mitigation Strategies: County-Level Evidence                                    Published: October 01, 2024                Presented at:                                                      How Entrepreneurship Strengthens Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events                                    Published: November 01, 2024                Presented at:                                                      Extreme Weather and Employment: Differential Effects Across Race and Ethnicity                                    Published: November 01, 2024                Presented at:                                    teaching                                                Public Policy (Undergraduate)                                     Instructor of Record, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2021                 Two undergraduate courses taught at UNC Chapel Hill’s Department of Public Policy, 2020–2021.                                                      Comparative Administration                                     Instructor of Record, Texas State University, 2025                 Undergraduate course on comparative public administration systems, governance structures, and administrative reform across countries.                                                      Public Finance Administration                                     Instructor of Record, Texas State University, 2025                 Graduate seminar on public budgeting, revenue systems, debt management, and fiscal policy for MPA students.                                                      Quantitative Methods                                     Instructor of Record, Texas State University; Arizona State University; UNC Pembroke; West Texas A&M, 2026                 Introductory and applied quantitative methods for undergraduate and graduate students in public administration and public policy. Covers research design, descriptive and inferential statistics, regression analysis, and applied data analysis using statistical software.                    "
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      "title"   : "CV",
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      "url"     : "/scott_langford/cv-json/",
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      "content" : "        Your Sidebar Name                                 none@example.org                                                                              https://academicpages.github.io                                       Earth, , US                                                 Google Scholar                           ORCID                           GitHub                                  Summary    Currently employed at Red Brick University. Short biography for the left-hand sidebar                Education                                  Ph.D in Version Control Theory          2018                          GitHub University                                                                M.S. in Jekyll          2014                          GitHub University                                                                B.S. in GitHub          2012                          GitHub University                                                                    Publications                                  Paper Title Number 1          2009                          Journal 1                    This paper is about the number 1. The number 2 is left for future work.                                          View Publication                                                                Paper Title Number 2          2010                          Journal 1                    This paper is about the number 2. The number 3 is left for future work.                                          View Publication                                                                Paper Title Number 3          2015                          Journal 1                    This paper is about the number 3. The number 4 is left for future work.                                          View Publication                                                                Paper Title Number 4          2024                          GitHub Journal of Bugs                    This paper is about fixing template issue #693.                                          View Publication                                                            Presentations                                  Talk 1 on Relevant Topic in Your Field          2012                          UC San Francisco, Department of Testing                    San Francisco, CA, USA                                                                                    Tutorial 1 on Relevant Topic in Your Field          2013                          UC-Berkeley Institute for Testing Science                    Berkeley, CA, USA                                                                                    Talk 2 on Relevant Topic in Your Field          2014                          London School of Testing                    London, UK                                                                                    Conference Proceeding talk 3 on Relevant Topic in Your Field          2014                          Testing Institute of America 2014 Annual Conference                    Los Angeles, CA, USA                                                                                Teaching                                  Teaching experience 1          2014                          University 1, Department                    Role: Undergraduate course                                                                                    Teaching experience 2          2015                          University 1, Department                    Role: Workshop                                                                                Portfolio                                  Portfolio item number 1                                    Portfolio                    Short description of portfolio item number 1                                          View Project                                                              Download CV as PDF  View Markdown CV"
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      "content" : "Last updated: May 2026.  ·  📄 Download PDFInterests  Research: Community & Economic Development; Public Finance; Entrepreneurship  Teaching: Public Policy & Administration; Budgeting & Financial Management; Econometric & Statistical AnalysisEducation  Ph.D in Public Policy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2022  M.S. in Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2016  B.S. in Chemistry, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, 2012Work Experience  2025-Present: Assistant Professor of Public Administration          Texas State University      Department of Political Science        2022-2025: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow          Arizona State University      School of Public Affairs      Funding  Cost-Benefit Analysis for Clayton, NC — Archlight Analytics (awarded; in progress; $65,000), 2025  We’re Not in Dreamland Anymore: How Regional Opioid Use Rates Affect Industrial Composition — Hammer Fund Travel Award (NARSC Annual Research Conference, $750); Graduate Student Transportation Grant (NARSC Annual Research Conference, $400), 2021  Small Business Activity in Banking Deserts — Kenan Institute Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Small Grant ($10,000), 2018  The Snowball Effect of Federal Research Funding — Hammer Fund Travel Award (APPAM Annual Research Conference, $500), 2018Technical Skills  STATA, Tableau, ArcGIS, Qualtrics, LaTeX, R, PythonProfessional Affiliations  Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM)  American Society for Public Administration (ASPA)  Association for Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM)PublicationsWorking Papers                                Do Federal Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants Pay Off? An Empirical Analysis of Cost-Effectiveness Using a Portfolio Approach.                  Hines R, Grandage AJ, Chaudhry H, Langford WS, Waddell M. Do Federal Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants Pay Off? An Empirical Analysis of Cost-Effectiveness Using a Portfolio Approach. Available Upon Request.                                        Extreme Weather Events Disrupt the Flow of Opioids and Opioid Use Disorder Medications                  Langford WS, Steuart SR. Extreme Weather Events Disrupt the Flow of Opioids and Opioid Use Disorder Medications. Available Upon Request.                                        Extreme Weather and Employment: Differential Effects Across Race and Ethnicity.                  Langford WS, Sanders M, Peters V. [Author list alphabetical.] Extreme Weather and Employment: Differential Effects Across Race and Ethnicity. Available Upon Request.                                        George Bailey Meets the Tempestates: How Local Finance Strengthens Economic Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events.                  Peters V, Langford WS, Sanders M, Feldman MP. George Bailey Meets the Tempestates: How Local Finance Strengthens Economic Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events. SSRN Working Paper #4868821                                        Let Us Put Our Moneys Together: Minority-Owned Banks and Resilience to Crises.                  Langford WS, Roman R, Berger AN, Feldman MP. “Let Us Put Our Moneys Together:” Minority-Owned Banks and Resilience to Crises. SSRN Working Paper #4231594        Journal Articles                                Young and Small Firms and Resilience to Extreme Weather Events.                  Heinzel C, Langford WS, Peters V, Sanders M. Young and Small Firms and Resilience to Extreme Weather Events. Journal of Business Venturing Insights                                        We’re Not in Dreamland Anymore: The Consequences of Community Opioid Use on Local Industrial Composition.                  Langford WS, Feldman MP. We’re Not in Dreamland Anymore: The Consequences of Community Opioid Use on Local Industrial Composition. Journal of Regional Science (2024)                                        Banking for the Other Half: The Factors That Explain Banking Desert Formation.                  Langford WS, Thomas HW, Feldman MP. Banking for the Other Half: The Factors That Explain Banking Desert Formation. Economic Development Quarterly. (2023)                                        The NIH Childhood Adversity Portfolio: Unmet Needs, Emerging Challenges).                  Gitterman D, Hay Jr WW, Langford WS. The NIH Childhood Adversity Portfolio: Unmet Needs, Emerging Challenges. Pediatric Research (2023)                                        We Miss You George Bailey: The Effect of Local Banking Conditions on the County-Level Timing of the Great Recession.                  Langford WS, Feldman MP. We Miss You George Bailey: The Effect of Local Banking Conditions on the County-Level Timing of the Great Recession. Regional Studies. (2022)                                        Making the Case for Pediatric Research: A Life-Cycle Approach and The Return on Investment.                  Gitterman D, Langford WS, Hay Jr WW. Making the Case for Pediatric Research: A Life-Cycle Approach and The Return on Investment. Pediatric Research. (2022)                                        The Distribution of Indirect Cost Recovery in Academic Research.                  Graddy-Reed A, Feldman MP, Bercovitz J, Langford WS. The Distribution of Indirect Cost Recovery in Academic Research. Science and Public Policy. (2021)                                        Catching the Whale: A Comparison of Place Promotion Strategies Through the Lens of Amazon HQ2.                  Nager AN, Lowe Reed AS, Langford WS. Catching the Whale: A Comparison of Place Promotion Strategies Through the Lens of Amazon HQ2. Geography Compass. (2019)                                        The Uncertain Fate of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio.                  Gitterman DP, Langford WS, Hay Jr WW. The Uncertain Fate of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio. Pediatric Research. (2018)                                        The Fragile State of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio, 1992-2015.                  Gitterman DP, Langford WS, Hay Jr WW. The Fragile State of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio, 1992-2015. JAMA Pediatrics. (2018)                                        Synthesis of Proposed Inhibitors of the Enzyme Aspartate-Beta-Semialdehyde Dehydrogenase.                  Halkides CJ, Langford WS, Kish WS, Johnson NP, Lookadoo DB, Hey B, Jansen D, Hifko N. Synthesis of Proposed Inhibitors of the Enzyme Aspartate-Beta-Semialdehyde Dehydrogenase. Journal of Undergraduate Chemistry Research. (2018)        Works in Progress  Deming, K, Langford, WS. Discontinuities in the PPP Fee Structure.  Petach, L, Langford, WS. Local Finance and Pollution.  Langford, WS, Singla, AG. The Effect of Access to Local Finance on Local Government Finance.  Langford, WS, Lozano Rojas, F. The Effect of Extreme Weather Events on Local Tax Revenue.  Kattikatt, C, Rangarajan, N, Langford, WS. Local Government and Data.Other Writing  Gitterman, D, Hay Jr., WW, Langford, WS. The National Institute of Health and Responding to New Forms of Childhood Adversity. Children’s Health Care (2022)  Feldman, MP, Bailey, AN, Lowe Reed, AS, Langford, WS. Combine Water, Grain, Hops, Yeast and Get - Jobs. News and Observer (Raleigh, NC) (2019)  Feldman, MP, Langford, WS. Knowledge Spillovers Informed by Network Theory and Social Network Analysis. Handbook of Regional Science. (ed) Fischer, M, Capello, R. (2019)Teaching                                Quantitative Methods                                                          Public Finance Administration                                                          Comparative Administration                                                          Public Policy (Undergraduate)                          Conference PresentationsExtreme Weather Events and Mitigation Strategies: County-Level Evidence (2024)  ABFM Annual Research Conference  SouthEastern Conference For Public AdministrationExtreme Weather and Employment: Differential Effects Across Race and Ethnicity (2024)  APPAM Annual Research Conference - Panel Organizer  Carolina Region Empirical Economics DayHow Entrepreneurship Strengthens Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events (2024)  APPAM Annual Research Conference - Panel Organizer“Let Us Put Our Moneys Together:” Minority-Owned Banks and Resilience to Crises (2022-2024)  American Economic Association Annual Meeting (2024)  APPAM Annual Research Conference - Panel Organizer (2023)  Southern Economic Association Annual Meeting - Panel Organizer  ABFM Annual Research Conference  SouthEastern Conference For Public Administration  Eastern Finance Association  Midwest Finance Association  Carolina Region Empirical Economics Day (2022)  FDIC Bank Research Conference  Community Banking Research Conference  NARSC Annual Research ConferenceGeorge Bailey Meets the Tempestates: How Local Finance Strengthens Economic Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events (2023)  APPAM Annual Research ConferenceWe’re Not in Dreamland Anymore: How Regional Opioid Use Rates Affect Industrial Composition (2021)  ABFM Annual Research Conference  APPAM Annual Research Conference - Panel Organizer  Carolina Region Empirical Economics Day  CEnSE Urban and Regional Economics Workshop  DRUID Industry and Innovation Conference  NARSC Annual Research Conference  SEA Annual Meeting - Panel Organizer  SouthEastern Conference For Public AdministrationWe Miss You George Bailey: The Effect of Local Banking Conditions on the County-Level Timing of the Great Recession (2020)  Southern Regional Science AssociationThe Snowball Effect of Federal Research Funding (2018)  APPAM Annual Research ConferenceProfessional Experience  Co-Principal Investigator — US Census Bureau, Federal Statistical Research Data Center, 2022-Present          Title: The Roles of the Opioid and COVID Crises in Entrepreneurship and Innovation      Co-Principal Investigator: Maryann P. Feldman        Research Associate — CREATE-Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, 2019-2022  Research Assistant — North Carolina Entrepreneurship Data Initiative, 2020          Principal Investigator: Maryann P. Feldman        Research Assistant — Early Stage Evaluation of the Kauffman Foundation’s ESHIP Communities Project, 2018-2019          Principal Investigator: Maryann P. Feldman        Research Assistant — Examining the US Pediatric Research Portfolio, 2016-2018, 2022          Principal Investigator: Daniel P. Gitterman      Leadership Experience, Awards, and Professional Service  Special Sworn Status — US Census Bureau, 2023-Present  Associate Editor — Academy of Management (AoM) Annual Meeting - TIM Division, 2021  Elected Member — Frank Porter Graham Honor Society, UNC, 2021  Emerging Scholar — Community Banking in the 21st Century Research Conference, 2020  Senator, Public Policy — Graduate and Professional Student Federation (GPSF), UNC, 2019-2021  Finance Committee Member — GPSF, 2020-2021  Vice President - Internal Affairs — Science Policy and Advocacy Group, UNC, 2015-2016  Ambassador — DNA Day NC, 2015-2016  Eagle Scout Award — Boy Scouts of America, 2006Advising and Mentorship  Christina Kattikatt — Current: MPA Student, Texas State University, 2025-present  Dustin Miller — Assistant City Manager, Pampa, TX; MPA Student, West Texas A&M University, 2025  Khushi Wadhwani — Current: Undergraduate Student, Arizona State University, 2024-2025  Cody Taylor — Assistant Professor, Appalachian State University, 2023-2025  Harrison Thomas — Law Student, UT Knoxville, 2020-2023Referee ExperienceClimate Resilience & Sustainability; Public Budgeting & Finance; Public Management Review; Nature Energy; Cambridge University Press; Research Policy; Southern Economic Journal; Papers in Regional Science; AoM Annual Meeting (2020-2023); Journal of Urban Affairs; Journal of Small Business Strategy; Journal of Infrastructure, Policy and Development"
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Southbound 35 — Local Economic Development",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/economic-development/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "  All posts ·  Sports ·  Local Economic Development ·  Hays County ·  Other                              Where the Water Will Come From                           \t  12 minute read\t                      Published: May 11, 2026                The previous two posts looked at how fast Hays County is growing and at the range of forecasts for how big it might get. Both ended on the same question that nobody in the county can dodge for much longer. Where will the water come from?                                            Where Is All of This Going?                           \t  9 minute read\t                      Published: April 13, 2026                Hays County has roughly 300,000 people today. How many will it have in2040? In 2060?                                            254 Counties, One Interstate: The Hays County Growth Story                           \t  5 minute read\t                      Published: April 06, 2026                If you drive south from Austin on I-35, you can feel the moment youcross into Hays County. Not because of a sign — though there is one —but because the landscape opens up. New subdivisions in various stagesof completion. Warehouse pads with fresh concrete. A strip centerwaiting for tenants. The feeling of a place in motion — growing intosomething, and doing it quickly.                "
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Southbound 35 — Hays County",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/hays-county/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "  All posts ·  Sports ·  Local Economic Development ·  Hays County ·  OtherAn ongoing series on Hays County — its growth, its water, its public finance, and the institutions trying to govern a place that tripled in population in 25 years.                              Where the Water Will Come From                           \t  12 minute read\t                      Published: May 11, 2026                The previous two posts looked at how fast Hays County is growing and at the range of forecasts for how big it might get. Both ended on the same question that nobody in the county can dodge for much longer. Where will the water come from?                                            Where Is All of This Going?                           \t  9 minute read\t                      Published: April 13, 2026                Hays County has roughly 300,000 people today. How many will it have in2040? In 2060?                                            254 Counties, One Interstate: The Hays County Growth Story                           \t  5 minute read\t                      Published: April 06, 2026                If you drive south from Austin on I-35, you can feel the moment youcross into Hays County. Not because of a sign — though there is one —but because the landscape opens up. New subdivisions in various stagesof completion. Warehouse pads with fresh concrete. A strip centerwaiting for tenants. The feeling of a place in motion — growing intosomething, and doing it quickly.                "
    },
    
  
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Markdown",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/markdown/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "     On This Page  Locations of key files/directories  Tips and hints  Resources  MathJax  Markdown guide          Header three                  Header four                          Header five                                  Header six                                                                          Blockquotes  Tables          Table 1      Table 2        Definition Lists  Unordered Lists (Nested)  Ordered List (Nested)  Buttons  Notices          Footnotes        HTML Tags          Address Tag      Anchor Tag (aka. Link)      Abbreviation Tag      Cite Tag      Code Tag      Details Tag (collapsible sections)      Emphasize Tag      Insert Tag      Keyboard Tag      Preformatted Tag      Quote Tag      Strike Tag      Strong Tag      Subscript Tag      Superscript Tag      Variable Tag        Locations of key files/directories  Basic config options: _config.yml  Top navigation bar config: _data/navigation.yml  Single pages: _pages/  Collections of pages are .md or .html files in:          _publications/      _portfolio/      _posts/      _teaching/      _talks/        Footer: _includes/footer.html  Static files (like PDFs): /files/  Profile image (can set in _config.yml): images/profile.pngTips and hints  Name a file “.md” to have it render in markdown, name it “.html” to render in HTML.  Go to the commit list (on your repo) to find the last version GitHub built with Jekyll.          Green check: successful build      Orange circle: building      Red X: error      No icon: not built        Academic Pages uses Jekyll Kramdown, GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) parser, which is similar to the version of Markdown used on GitHub, but may have some minor differences.          Some of emoji supported on GitHub should be supposed via the Jemoji plugin :computer:.      The best list of the supported emoji can be found in the Emojis for Jekyll via Jemoji blog post.        While GitHub Pages prevents server side code from running, client-side scripts are supported.          This means that Google Analytics is supported, and the wiki should contain the most up-to-date information on getting it working.        Your CV can be written using either Markdown (preview) or generated via JSON (preview) and the layouts are slightly different. You can update the path to the one being used in _data/navigation.yml with the JSON formatted CV being hidden by default.Resources  Liquid syntax guide  MathJax DocumentationMathJaxSupport for MathJax Version 3.0 is included in the template:\\[\\displaylines{\\nabla \\cdot E= \\frac{\\rho}{\\epsilon_0} \\\\\\\\nabla \\cdot B=0 \\\\\\\\nabla \\times E= -\\partial_tB \\\\\\\\nabla \\times B  = \\mu_0 \\left(J + \\varepsilon_0 \\partial_t E \\right)}\\]The default delimiters of $$...$$ and \\\\[...\\\\] are supported for displayed mathematics, while \\\\(...\\\\) should be used for in-line mathematics (ex., \\(a^2 + b^2 = c^2\\))Note that since Academic Pages uses Markdown which cases some interference with MathJax and LaTeX for escaping characters and new lines, although some workarounds exist. In some cases, such as when you are including MathJax in a citation field for publications, it may be necessary to use \\(...\\) for inline delineation.Markdown guideAcademic Pages uses kramdown for Markdown rendering, which has some differences from other Markdown implementations such as GitHub’s. In addition to this guide, please see the kramdown Syntax page for full documentation.Header threeHeader fourHeader fiveHeader sixBlockquotesSingle line blockquote:  Quotes are cool.TablesTable 1            Entry      Item                         John Doe      2016      Description of the item in the list              Jane Doe      2019      Description of the item in the list              Doe Doe      2022      Description of the item in the list      Table 2            Header1      Header2      Header3                  cell1      cell2      cell3              cell4      ce                     ll5      cell6                         cell1      cell2      cell3              cell4      cell5      cell6                  Foot1      Foot2      Foot3      Definition Lists  Definition List Title  Definition list division.  Startup  A startup company or startup is a company or temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.  #dowork  Coined by Rob Dyrdek and his personal body guard Christopher “Big Black” Boykins, “Do Work” works as a self motivator, to motivating your friends.  Do It Live  I’ll let Bill O’Reilly explain this one.Unordered Lists (Nested)  List item one          List item one                  List item one          List item two          List item three          List item four                    List item two      List item three      List item four        List item two  List item three  List item fourOrdered List (Nested)  List item one          List item one                  List item one          List item two          List item three          List item four                    List item two      List item three      List item four        List item two  List item three  List item fourButtonsMake any link standout more when applying the .btn class.NoticesBasic notices or call-outs are supported using the following syntax:**Watch out!** You can also add notices by appending `{: .notice}` to the line following paragraph.{: .notice}which wil render as:Watch out! You can also add notices by appending {: .notice} to the line following paragraph.FootnotesFootnotes can be useful for clarifying points in the text, or citing information.1 Markdown support numeric footnotes, as well as text as long as the values are unique.2This is the regular text.[^1] This is more regular text.[^note][^1]: This is the footnote itself.[^note]: This is another footnote.HTML TagsAddress Tag  1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014 United StatesAnchor Tag (aka. Link)This is an example of a link.Abbreviation TagThe abbreviation CSS stands for “Cascading Style Sheets”.Cite Tag“Code is poetry.” —AutomatticCode TagYou will learn later on in these tests that word-wrap: break-word; will be your best friend.You can also write larger blocks of code with syntax highlighting supported for some languages, such as Python:print('Hello World!')or R:print(\"Hello World!\", quote = FALSE)Details Tag (collapsible sections)The HTML <details> tag works well with Markdown and allows you to include collapsible sections, see W3Schools for more information on how to use the tag.  Collapsed by default  This section was collapsed by default!The source code:<details>  <summary>Collapsed by default</summary>  This section was collapsed by default!</details>Or, you can leave a section open by default by including the open attribute in the tag:  Open by default  This section is open by default thanks to open in the <details open> tag!Emphasize TagThe emphasize tag should italicize text.Insert TagThis tag should denote inserted text.Keyboard TagThis scarcely known tag emulates keyboard text, which is usually styled like the <code> tag.Preformatted TagThis tag styles large blocks of code..post-title {  margin: 0 0 5px;  font-weight: bold;  font-size: 38px;  line-height: 1.2;  and here's a line of some really, really, really, really long text, just to see how the PRE tag handles it and to find out how it overflows;}Quote TagDevelopers, developers, developers… –Steve BallmerStrike TagThis tag will let you strikeout text.Strong TagThis tag shows bold text.Subscript TagGetting our science styling on with H2O, which should push the “2” down.Superscript TagStill sticking with science and Isaac Newton’s E = MC2, which should lift the 2 up.Variable TagThis allows you to denote variables.FootnotesThe footnotes in the page will be returned following this line, return to the section on Markdown Footnotes.            Such as this footnote. ↩              When using text for footnotes markers, no spaces are permitted in the name. ↩      "
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Page not in menu",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/non-menu-page/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "This is a page not in the menu. You can use markdown in this page.Heading 1Heading 2"
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Southbound 35 — Other",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/other/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "  All posts ·  Sports ·  Local Economic Development ·  Hays County ·  Other                              How Dangerous Is Spring Break, Really?                           \t  9 minute read\t                      Published: April 08, 2026                Every March, cable news runs the same reel: ambulances on the beach, studentson stretchers, a grim-faced anchor reading the latest death toll. The coveragemakes spring break look like the most dangerous week on the American calendar.But is it?                "
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Page Archive",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/page-archive/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "                          Page Not Found                                                                  Welcome.                                                                  Archive Layout with Content                                                                  Awards & Honors                                                                  Posts by Category                                                                  Coauthors                                                                  Posts by Collection                                                                  CV                                                                  CV                                                                  Southbound 35 — Local Economic Development                                                                  Southbound 35 — Hays County                                                                                                                                    Markdown                                                                  Page not in menu                                                                  Southbound 35 — Other                                                                  Page Archive                                                                  Personal                                                                  Tools & Resources                                                                  Public Scholarship & Other Writing                                                                  Research                                                                  Search                                                                                                                                    Sitemap                                                                  Southbound 35 — Sports                                                                  For Students                                                                  Subscribe to Southbound 35                                                                  Posts by Tags                                                                  Tags                                                                  Talk map                                                                  Talks & Speaking                                                                  Teaching                                                                  Terms and Privacy Policy                                                                  Southbound 35                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Southbound 35 — Editorial Schedule                                                                  Jupyter notebook markdown generator                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              "
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Personal",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/personal/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "A note for blog readers who want to know who’s writing. The academic homepage is the professional version. This page is the human one.Where I liveSan Marcos, Texas. I moved here in 2025 to join the Texas State MPA program. Before that, I was in Phoenix (Arizona State) for a postdoc, and before that Chapel Hill for my PhD. North Carolina to Arizona to Texas is a slow drift south. I am running out of south.What I think aboutPublic finance, mostly — how state and local governments raise and spend money, and how the structure of that system shapes who can afford to live where. The Hays County series on Southbound 35 is the long version of this interest applied to one fast-growing place.Outside of work, I think about golf more than I should. The Scheffler / Ecclesiastes post is probably the clearest evidence of that, but the LIV defectors post is the more rigorous one.I am also a Christian, which shows up occasionally in the blog and is part of why the Ecclesiastes piece exists. The blog’s frame — “occasional detours into sports, politics, and religion” — is not a marketing line. It is the actual range of things I will get curious about and want to write up.Other thingsI went to UNC for undergrad and graduate school, so I follow Tar Heel basketball. I have an unofficial coaching-search tracker on GitHub from one particularly anxious recent year. I will not be writing about UNC basketball on the blog. I will, however, be writing about Texas State football at some point. They are good and getting better.I was an Eagle Scout. I still think about knots.How to reach meEmail is best: scottlangford@txstate.edu.I am on Bluesky more than X these days, like much of the public administration academic world.If you read Southbound 35 and want to suggest a topic, an angle, or a correction, send a note. I read everything."
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Tools & Resources",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/portfolio/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "Replication packages, open-source textbooks, data tools, and other research outputs.                          Local Finance & Extreme Weather — Replication Code                                    Published: May 13, 2026                Stata code replicating the analysis on community banks and economic resilience to extreme weather events.                                        PA 3311 Textbook: Analytical Techniques for Public Administration                                    Published: May 13, 2026                Open-source textbook companion for PA 3311 at Texas State University — data analysis for public administration students.                                        Southbound 35 — Replication Packages                                    Published: May 13, 2026                Replication code and data for every data-driven post on the Southbound 35 blog.              "
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Public Scholarship & Other Writing",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/public-scholarship/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "Writing for non-academic audiences, op-eds, handbook chapters, and other outputs beyond peer-reviewed journal articles.Blog: Southbound 35Southbound 35. Public finance and economic development on the Texas corridor, with occasional detours into sports, politics, and religion. Posts are drafted with Claude. The blog serves three purposes: exploring what an LLM can do alongside an academic researcher, giving the author a way to learn about subjects he is curious about, and providing an outlet for short analyses too limited in scope to warrant a full academic paper.Where the Water Will Come From — May 2026Did LIV Golfers Get Worse After They Defected? — April 2026Where Is All of This Going? — April 2026Hevel on the Back Nine — April 2026How Dangerous Is Spring Break, Really? — April 2026Op-EdsFeldman, MP, Bailey, AN, Lowe Reed, AS, Langford, WS. Combine Water, Grain, Hops, Yeast and Get — Jobs. News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), 2019.Book ChaptersFeldman, MP, Langford, WS. Knowledge Spillovers Informed by Network Theory and Social Network Analysis. Handbook of Regional Science, ed. Fischer, M, Capello, R., 2019.Policy-Facing PublicationsGitterman, D, Hay Jr., WW, Langford, WS. The National Institute of Health and Responding to New Forms of Childhood Adversity. Children’s Health Care, 2022.Open-Source Teaching MaterialsPA 3311 Textbook: Analytical Techniques for Public Administration — Open-access online textbook for undergraduate public administration research methods."
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Research",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/research/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "  You can also find my articles on my Google Scholar profile.See also: Public Scholarship · Awards & Grants · Tools & Replication · Coauthors  Currently working on      Minority-owned banks and community resilience to financial crises (with M. Feldman et al.)    Extreme weather and labor market outcomes by race and ethnicity    Hays County public finance and growth — a research-informed blog series on Southbound 35    Cost-benefit analysis for the City of Clayton, NC (Archlight Analytics)                                              Working Papers                                            Do Federal Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants Pay Off? An Empirical Analysis of Cost-Effectiveness Using a Portfolio Approach.                                    Published: January 02, 2025                This paper examines whether federal hazard mitigation assistance grants are cost-effective using an empirical analysis with a portfolio approach.                  Recommended citation: Hines R, Grandage AJ, Chaudhry H, Langford WS, Waddell M. Do Federal Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grants Pay Off? An Empirical Analysis of Cost-Effectiveness Using a Portfolio Approach. Available Upon Request.                                                    Extreme Weather Events Disrupt the Flow of Opioids and Opioid Use Disorder Medications                                    Published: January 01, 2025                Extreme weather events are becoming more common and have significant health impacts on local residents. Injuries caused by these events may drive demand for pain-relieving medications. In addition, the US remains in the midst of an opioid overdose crisis, with an unprecedented number of Americans relying on opioid use disorder (OUD) medications, such as buprenorphine, to manage symptoms of OUD. At the same time, inclement weather makes delivering supplies, such as medication, more challenging. This study evaluated the effects of extreme weather events on supplies of opioid medications. We used an event study model to demonstrate extreme weather events cause temporary decreases in shipments of several types of opioids: buprenorphine, methadone, hydrocodone, morphine and oxymorphone. These results indicate extreme weather events may disrupt treatment for OUD as well as for those experiencing extreme pain. These results point to an additional cost of extreme weather events: disruption of OUD and pain treatment.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Steuart SR. Extreme Weather Events Disrupt the Flow of Opioids and Opioid Use Disorder Medications. Available Upon Request.                                                    Extreme Weather and Employment: Differential Effects Across Race and Ethnicity.                                    Published: January 01, 2025                This paper examines the differential effects of extreme weather events on employment across race and ethnicity.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Sanders M, Peters V. [Author list alphabetical.] Extreme Weather and Employment: Differential Effects Across Race and Ethnicity. Available Upon Request.                                                    George Bailey Meets the Tempestates: How Local Finance Strengthens Economic Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events.                                    Published: January 01, 2025                The economic costs incurred by extreme weather events are substantial and increasing. In this study, we demonstrate how community banks - a type of financial institution with strong local ties and customer relationships - mitigate these costs at the local level. We use an event study model to demonstrate that US counties with higher community bank market shares experience fewer employment losses through extreme weather events. We then use bank-level analyses to demonstrate the mechanism - the small business credit supply. Community banks maintain their lending following extreme weather events, while other banks reduce it. These findings provide novel evidence on how local financial institutions strengthen economic resilience through extreme weather events. As policymakers develop strategies to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events, local finance may be a solution.                  Recommended citation: Peters V, Langford WS, Sanders M, Feldman MP. George Bailey Meets the Tempestates: How Local Finance Strengthens Economic Resilience Through Extreme Weather Events. SSRN Working Paper #4868821Download Paper                                                    Let Us Put Our Moneys Together: Minority-Owned Banks and Resilience to Crises.                                    Published: January 01, 2025                Racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately suffer more severe consequences during economic downturns, having heightened vulnerability in employment and credit. We investigate the role of minority-owned banks in mitigating these challenges, focusing on shared borrower-lender identity, and analyzing how these minority-owned banks affect employment through the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 Crisis. Using multiple econometric specifications including propensity score matching and instrumental variables, our study reveals that communities with higher minority-owned bank market shares experience fewer employment declines through the two crises, thus exhibiting greater resilience. These banks achieve this by increasing lending to small businesses and households during crises. By addressing financial constraints, particularly for minority-owned businesses and households, minority-owned banks contribute to economic resilience, bridging racial gaps, and fostering community employment during times of crisis.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Roman R, Berger AN, Feldman MP. “Let Us Put Our Moneys Together:” Minority-Owned Banks and Resilience to Crises. SSRN Working Paper #4231594Download Paper                                                                                                                                                                                    Journal Articles                                            Young and Small Firms and Resilience to Extreme Weather Events.                                    Published: July 01, 2025                In this paper, we demonstrate that the presence of entrepreneurial organizations, proxied by young and small firms, in an economy increases its resilience to external shocks. We estimate the effect of local young and small firm employment shares on employment growth through extreme weather events in US counties using an event study model. We find that higher employment shares of young and small firms reduce employment losses for given levels of property damages. We contribute to the literature by showing that entrepreneurship enhances economic resilience to physical climate shocks at the local level. As regional resilience can be considered a public good, our findings add an argument to the case for supporting young and small firms in the face of progressing climate change.                  Recommended citation: Heinzel C, Langford WS, Peters V, Sanders M. Young and Small Firms and Resilience to Extreme Weather Events. Journal of Business Venturing InsightsDownload Paper                                                                                                                          We’re Not in Dreamland Anymore: The Consequences of Community Opioid Use on Local Industrial Composition.                                    Published: August 21, 2024                We estimate the effect of opioid use rates on local economic resilience through changes in industrial composition. We find regional opioid use rates adversely affect firm growth in general, with the greatest impact on small firms. Our results are robust to several identification strategies (Difference in Differences, Propensity Score Matching, and Instrumental Variables) and alternative empirical specifications. Our findings establish that local industrial composition and long-term resilience are each adversely affected by the opioid public health crisis.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Feldman MP. We’re Not in Dreamland Anymore: The Consequences of Community Opioid Use on Local Industrial Composition. Journal of Regional Science (2024)Download Paper                                                    Banking for the Other Half: The Factors That Explain Banking Desert Formation.                                    Published: August 30, 2023                Banks are one of the key drivers of economic development across communities. Banking deserts—defined by inadequate banking access—limit access to capital, inhibit wealth accumulation, and increase exposure to predatory lending. Banking desert formation could be profit-driven, with lower-income and less densely populated regions more likely to become banking deserts. Discrimination could also play a role here: banks may have less presence in areas with higher minority populations. The authors use a panel, census tract-level data set for the entire state of North Carolina to investigate how these forces impact banking access and banking desert formation. Panel methodologies are incorporated to investigate the extent to which profit and discrimination mechanisms each drive banking access and banking desert formation. Profit and discrimination mechanisms are shown to play roles, highlighting the need for policies that mitigate bank branch losses in underserved neighborhoods.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Thomas HW, Feldman MP. Banking for the Other Half: The Factors That Explain Banking Desert Formation. Economic Development Quarterly. (2023)Download Paper                                                    The NIH Childhood Adversity Portfolio: Unmet Needs, Emerging Challenges).                                    Published: January 11, 2023                Despite the significant increase in pediatric funding, an important question is whether recent changes in the burden of disease and conditions (child and adolescent mortality and nonfatal health loss) are reflected in the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) allocation process. As it sets future priorities, NIH acknowledges “a need to scan the landscape for unmet needs and emerging challenges” so that supported “research translates into meaningful health benefits.” Our focus is to scan the pediatric budgetary landscape, report research funding for childhood adversity and adverse childhood experiences, and to illuminate gun violence, suicide, and drug abuse/overdose as prime examples of pediatric unmet needs and emerging challenges. Our findings suggest that pediatric researchers must reconceptualize gun violence as a form of childhood adversity and adverse childhood experiences, as we also need to do for other leading causes of child and adolescent mortality such as suicide and drug abuse/overdose. As it relates to the leading cause of death for children and adolescents, pediatric-related gun violence research spending remains only 0.0017% of the NIH pediatric portfolio.                  Recommended citation: Gitterman D, Hay Jr WW, Langford WS. The NIH Childhood Adversity Portfolio: Unmet Needs, Emerging Challenges. Pediatric Research (2023)Download Paper                                                    We Miss You George Bailey: The Effect of Local Banking Conditions on the County-Level Timing of the Great Recession.                                    Published: November 02, 2022                Community banks have a unique capacity to strengthen economic resilience by alleviating local firm credit constraints during economic downturns. We provide evidence that banking access and community bank market share affected both the county-level timing and duration of the Great Recession in the United States. Using the Cox Proportional Hazards and Heckman Selection models, we find that communities with a higher community bank market share are less likely to experience recession conditions, conditional on local bank health. This suggests community banks have unique institutional structures, allowing them to continue providing funds to firms through economic downturns. This research demonstrates that local financial institutions affect economic resilience, in particular the timing and duration of recession conditions.                  Recommended citation: Langford WS, Feldman MP. We Miss You George Bailey: The Effect of Local Banking Conditions on the County-Level Timing of the Great Recession. Regional Studies. (2022)Download Paper                                                    Making the Case for Pediatric Research: A Life-Cycle Approach and The Return on Investment.                                    Published: July 02, 2022                There is unmistakable evidence of increased NIH funding for pediatric and perinatal research, but there is much work to be done. To further promote NIH-funded pediatric and perinatal research, we advocate for a life-cycle approach in which the return on the investment continues over the lifespan. Although elected policymakers have short-time horizons, pediatric and perinatal researchers must provide novel evidence and theoretical arguments demonstrating the long-term health benefits for the adults of tomorrow by improving the health of our current pediatric populations. Child health researchers must communicate the role of early developmental events on childhood and adult disease, including those that are prenatal and gestational so that its importance is understood by the public and policymakers.                  Recommended citation: Gitterman D, Langford WS, Hay Jr WW. Making the Case for Pediatric Research: A Life-Cycle Approach and The Return on Investment. Pediatric Research. (2022)Download Paper                                                    The Distribution of Indirect Cost Recovery in Academic Research.                                    Published: June 01, 2021                Research universities rely heavily on external funding to advance knowledge and generate economic growth. In the USA, tens of billions of dollars are spent each year on research and development with the federal government contributing over half of these funds. Yet a decline in relative federal funding highlights the role of other funders and their varying contractual terms. Specifically, nonfederal funders provide lower recovery of indirect costs. Using project-level university-sponsored research administrative records from four institutions, we examine indirect cost recovery. We find significant variation in the amount of indirect funding recovered—both across and within funders, as well as to different academic fields within a university. The distribution of sponsors in the overall research funding portfolio also impacts indirect cost recovery. The recovery variation has important implications for the sustainability and cross-subsidization of the university research enterprise. Together, our results show where universities are under-recovering indirect costs.                  Recommended citation: Graddy-Reed A, Feldman MP, Bercovitz J, Langford WS. The Distribution of Indirect Cost Recovery in Academic Research. Science and Public Policy. (2021)Download Paper                                                    Catching the Whale: A Comparison of Place Promotion Strategies Through the Lens of Amazon HQ2.                                    Published: July 16, 2019                Identifying potential sites for firm relocation or expansion is a negotiated process that involves both firms and localities. Some firms focus on profit enhancement through cost minimization, while others seek qualities that maximize talent attraction and benefit corporate identity. Simultaneously, localities seek to maximize the economic welfare for residents through job creation and place-based economic development strategies. The purpose of this work is to examine how localities use place promotion strategies to attract relocating or expanding firms based on analysis of proposals submitted by communities in response to the 2017 Amazon HQ2 Request for Proposals. Our results support literature streams that argue quality of life and talent attraction, as well as cost are priorities for place-based economic development strategies. We present a complete picture of place promotion strategies that localities use to differentiate themselves and avoid competing only on cost in the competitive marketplace of corporate recruiting.                  Recommended citation: Nager AN, Lowe Reed AS, Langford WS. Catching the Whale: A Comparison of Place Promotion Strategies Through the Lens of Amazon HQ2. Geography Compass. (2019)Download Paper                                                    The Uncertain Fate of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio.                                    Published: July 06, 2018                Background: The amount of federal dollars allocated to improving the health of our pediatric population can serve as an indicator of the priority placed on child well-being. Although Congress has established novel mechanisms that marginally increase pediatric research funding, the pediatric research portfolio is facing an increasingly uncertain fate. Methods: This work examines pediatric, perinatal and pediatric research initiative (PRI) spending using data collected by the NIH that uses the novel research, condition and disease categorization system. Further, this work reports on recent policy developments in pediatric biomedical research and offers recommendations to insulate this portfolio from future uncertainty. Results: Federal support for pediatric research has declined with average annual growth rates of NIH pediatric spending dropping from 12.8% (FY 1998-2003) to 1.7% (FY 2004-2015). After taking into account Biomedical Research and Development Price Index growth, the pediatric research portfolio’s purchasing power has declined by 15.9% (FY 2004-2015). Conclusion: Federal support for pediatric biomedical research has plateaued in nominal terms and declined significantly in real terms. Future congressional action will be necessary to protect gains and to expand the capacity of the pediatric portfolio.                  Recommended citation: Gitterman DP, Langford WS, Hay Jr WW. The Uncertain Fate of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio. Pediatric Research. (2018)Download Paper                                                    The Fragile State of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio, 1992-2015.                                    Published: March 01, 2018                In this article, we examine the status of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) pediatric research portfolio between start of federal fiscal year (FY) 1992 and end of FY 2015. The NIH experienced the greatest mean annual growth rate during the “doubling era” (FY 1998-2003): both the NIH budget (13.5%) and pediatric research portfolios (11.5%) increased annually by double digits. However, in the “postdoubling” era (FY 2004-2009), both the NIH (2.0%) and pediatric (−0.2%) mean annual growth rates decreased dramatically. In the most recent era (FY 2010-2015), the NIH mean annual growth rate has been flat (−0.1%) and pediatric research funding has posted very modest gains (3.5%) without accounting for 1-time increases under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. We offer recommendations to protect against further erosion of the pediatric research portfolio because continuation of these trends will have a negative effect on the health of children during their childhood and as adults. As capacity to conduct basic and applied research is further constrained, it will be a challenge for pediatric researchers to do more with less and less.                  Recommended citation: Gitterman DP, Langford WS, Hay Jr WW. The Fragile State of the National Institutes of Health Pediatric Research Portfolio, 1992-2015. JAMA Pediatrics. (2018)Download Paper                                                    Synthesis of Proposed Inhibitors of the Enzyme Aspartate-Beta-Semialdehyde Dehydrogenase.                                    Published: January 01, 2018                Analogs for the substrates of aspartate semialdehyde dehydrogenase were prepared. Phosphonomethylcysteine, its sulfoxide, and its sulfone were synthesized starting from phosphonomethyltrifluoromethanesulfonic acid and cysteine. Phosphonomethylhomocysteine, its sulfoxide, and its sulfone were prepared in a similar manner. 2-Amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid, 2-amino-4-butanoic acid, were synthesized via the Hell-Volhard-Zelinsky reaction. S-Methylcysteinesulfone was synthesized by oxidation of S-methylcysteine. A bisubstrate analog was also synthesized, namely S-(3-(acetyl)pyridinyl) homocysteine. Most of these molecules are potential inhibitors of aspartate β -semialdehyde dehydrogenase.                  Recommended citation: Halkides CJ, Langford WS, Kish WS, Johnson NP, Lookadoo DB, Hey B, Jansen D, Hifko N. Synthesis of Proposed Inhibitors of the Enzyme Aspartate-Beta-Semialdehyde Dehydrogenase. Journal of Undergraduate Chemistry Research. (2018)Download Paper            "
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Search",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/search/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "Search posts and pages on this site.  Search requires JavaScript. Browse the sitemap instead."
    },
    
  
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Sitemap",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/sitemap/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "{% include base_path %}A list of all the posts and pages found on the site. For you robots out there, there is an [XML version]({{ base_path }}/sitemap.xml) available for digesting as well.Pages{% for post in site.pages %}  {% include archive-single.html %}{% endfor %}Posts{% for post in site.posts %}  {% include archive-single.html %}{% endfor %}{% capture written_label %}'None'{% endcapture %}{% for collection in site.collections %}{% unless collection.output == false or collection.label == \"posts\" %}  {% capture label %}{{ collection.label }}{% endcapture %}  {% if label != written_label %}  {{ label }}  {% capture written_label %}{{ label }}{% endcapture %}  {% endif %}{% endunless %}{% for post in collection.docs %}  {% unless collection.output == false or collection.label == \"posts\" %}  {% include archive-single.html %}  {% endunless %}{% endfor %}{% endfor %}"
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Southbound 35 — Sports",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/sports/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "  All posts ·  Sports ·  Local Economic Development ·  Hays County ·  Other{% include base_path %}{% assign filtered_posts = site.posts | where_exp: \"post\", \"post.categories contains 'sports'\" %}{% if filtered_posts.size == 0 %}  No posts yet.{% else %}  {% for post in filtered_posts %}    {% include archive-single.html %}  {% endfor %}{% endif %}"
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "For Students",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/students/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "{% include base_path %}## Current and Former AdviseesChristina Kattikatt — MPA Student, Texas State University, 2025–presentDustin Miller — Assistant City Manager, Pampa, TX; MPA Student, West Texas A&M University, 2025Khushi Wadhwani — Undergraduate Student, Arizona State University, 2024–2025Cody Taylor — Assistant Professor, Appalachian State University, 2023–2025Harrison Thomas — Law Student, UT Knoxville, 2020–2023## Office HoursBy appointment. Email [scottlangford@txstate.edu](mailto:scottlangford@txstate.edu) to set up a time.## For Prospective MPA Students at Texas StateIf you're considering the [Texas State MPA](https://www.polisci.txst.edu/graduate-programs/master-of-public-administration.html), I'm happy to talk. I teach public finance administration and quantitative methods, and I advise students on applied research projects, Texas-focused independent studies, and career paths that bridge academic research and government practice.## For UndergraduatesIf you're in my section of PA 3311 (Analytical Techniques) or PA 4352 (Comparative Administration), the syllabus and course materials are the primary guide. The [PA 3311 Textbook](https://scottlangford2.github.io/pa3311-textbook/) is freely available online.## Working With Me on ResearchI am generally open to collaborating with students on projects in state and local public finance (Texas, North Carolina, and comparative), economic development and entrepreneurship, extreme weather and community resilience, and applied econometrics on administrative data. If you have an idea that fits, send me an email with a short description of what you're thinking about."
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Subscribe to Southbound 35",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/subscribe/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "{% include base_path %}[Southbound 35](/year-archive/) publishes on Mondays at 5 AM Central, with occasional extra posts throughout the week. Three ways to follow along.## 1. Email (hand-managed list)The mailing list is small, run by hand, and free. Each post goes out as an individual email — not a BCC blast — so you receive a personal message from me, not a broadcast.To join, click below and send the pre-filled email. I'll add you to the list within a day or two and reply to confirm.  📬 Subscribe by emailTo unsubscribe at any time, reply to any post email with \"unsubscribe\" and I'll remove you the same day.I don't share the list, sell the list, or use it for anything other than sending Southbound 35 posts.## 2. RSSStandard RSS feed:{{ site.url }}{{ site.baseurl }}/feed.xmlDrop that URL into any feed reader — [Feedly](https://feedly.com), [NetNewsWire](https://netnewswire.com), [Inoreader](https://www.inoreader.com), [The Old Reader](https://theoldreader.com), or whatever you prefer.## 3. BlueskyI post links to new entries on [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/{{ site.author.bluesky }})."
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Posts by Tags",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/tags/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "{% include base_path %}{% include group-by-array collection=site.posts field=\"tags\" %}{% for tag in group_names %}  {% assign posts = group_items[forloop.index0] %}  {{ tag }}  {% for post in posts %}    {% include archive-single.html %}  {% endfor %}{% endfor %}"
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Tags",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/tags/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "{% include base_path %}Browse Southbound 35 by tag. Click any tag to jump to the posts that use it.{% assign rawtags = \"\" %}{% for post in site.posts %}  {% assign ttags = post.tags | join:'|' | append:'|' %}  {% assign rawtags = rawtags | append: ttags %}{% endfor %}{% assign rawtags = rawtags | split:'|' | sort %}{% assign tags = \"\" | split: ',' %}{% for tag in rawtags %}  {% if tag != \"\" %}    {% unless tags contains tag %}      {% assign tags = tags | push: tag %}    {% endunless %}  {% endif %}{% endfor %}  {% for tag in tags %}    {% assign tag_slug = tag | slugify %}    {% assign tag_posts = site.posts | where_exp: \"post\", \"post.tags contains tag\" %}    {{ tag }} ({{ tag_posts.size }})  {% endfor %}{% for tag in tags %}  {% assign tag_slug = tag | slugify %}  {{ tag }}    {% for post in site.posts %}    {% if post.tags contains tag %}      {{ post.title }} — {{ post.date | date: \"%B %Y\" }}    {% endif %}  {% endfor %}  {% endfor %}"
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Talk map",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/talkmap.html",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "This map is generated from a Jupyter Notebook file in talkmap.ipynb, which mines the location fields in the .md files in _talks/."
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Talks & Speaking",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/talks/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "{% include base_path %}  Available for speaking engagements.  I'm available to speak with academic audiences, professional associations, government and nonprofit organizations, podcasts, and journalists. Inquiries: scottlangford@txstate.edu.Topics  Texas state & local public finance — property taxes, appraisal, school finance and recapture, special districts (MUDs, ESDs), bond elections.  Economic development & entrepreneurship — small business activity, banking deserts, knowledge spillovers, regional industrial composition.  Extreme weather & community resilience — how local finance institutions and entrepreneurship moderate the economic effects of climate shocks.  Applied econometrics for policy — research design, causal inference, and translating administrative data into policy-relevant evidence.  Hays County and the I-35 corridor — growth, water, schools, governance (the subject of the Southbound 35 blog).Formats  Keynotes and invited lectures  Departmental seminars and workshops  Panels and moderated discussions  Podcast and media interviews  Briefings for elected officials and agency staffSelected invited venues  Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — Community Banking Research Conference (Fed/CSBS joint conference)  Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) — Bank Research Conference  American Economic Association (AEA) — Annual MeetingPast conference presentationsPeer-reviewed academic conference talks, grouped by project. For invited talks, briefings, and media appearances, please get in touch.{% for post in site.talks reversed %}  {% include archive-single-talk.html %}{% endfor %}"
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Teaching",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/teaching/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "See also: For Students · Teaching Materials{% include base_path %}{% for post in site.teaching reversed %}  {% include archive-single.html %}{% endfor %}"
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Terms and Privacy Policy",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/terms/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "{% include base_path %}{% include toc %}## Privacy PolicyThe privacy of my visitors is extremely important. This Privacy Policy outlines the types of personal information that is received and collected and how it is used.First and foremost, I will never share your email address or any other personal information to anyone without your direct consent.### Log FilesLike many other websites, this site uses log files to help learn about when, from where, and how often traffic flows to this site. The information in these log files include:* Internet Protocol addresses (IP)* Types of browser* Internet Service Provider (ISP)* Date and time stamp* Referring and exit pages* Number of clicksAll of this information is not linked to anything that is personally identifiable.### Cookies and Web BeaconsWhen you visit this site \"convenience\" cookies are stored on your computer when you submit a comment to help you log in faster to [Disqus](http://disqus.com) the next time you leave a comment.Third-party advertisers may also place and read cookies on your browser and/or use web beacons to collect information. This site has no access or control over these cookies. You should review the respective privacy policies on any and all third-party ad servers for more information regarding their practices and how to opt-out.If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your web browser options. Instructions for doing so can be found on the specific web browsers' websites.#### Google AnalyticsGoogle Analytics is a web analytics tool I use to help understand how visitors engage with this website. It reports website trends using cookies and web beacons without identifying individual visitors. You can read [Google Analytics Privacy Policy](http://www.google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html)."
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Southbound 35",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/year-archive/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "Public Finance & Economic Development on the Texas CorridorTexas has 254 counties, thousands of taxing entities, and an interstate that runs through the heart of it. Southbound 35 covers public finance and economic development on that corridor, with occasional detours into sports, politics, and religion. Posts are drafted with Claude, an AI research assistant. The blog serves three purposes: exploring what a model like Claude can do alongside an academic researcher, giving the author a way to learn about subjects he is curious about, and providing an outlet for short analyses. These analyses are too limited in scope to warrant a full academic paper but may still be useful to the people who study Texas communities or to the state and local officials who govern them.  All posts ·  Sports ·  Local Economic Development ·  Hays County ·  Other  Browse by tag ·  Search ·  Subscribe{% include base_path %}{% capture written_year %}'None'{% endcapture %}{% for post in site.posts %}  {% capture year %}{{ post.date | date: '%Y' }}{% endcapture %}  {% if year != written_year %}    {{ year }}    {% capture written_year %}{{ year }}{% endcapture %}  {% endif %}  {% include archive-single.html %}{% endfor %}"
    },
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Southbound 35 — Editorial Schedule",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/EDITORIAL/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "# Southbound 35 — Editorial Schedule**Cadence:** mixed- **Local Economic Development** — every other Monday (anchor slot)- **Sports / Other** — opportunistic, no fixed date**Buckets:** sports, economic-development, other (see `_pages/sports.html`, etc.)---## Pipeline| Date | Bucket | Working title | Data status ||---|---|---|---|| 2026-05-11 (Mon) | economic-development | Where the Water Will Come From (Hays County water) | **Published** || TBD | sports | TBD (pick from queue) | — || 2026-05-25 (Mon) | economic-development | The 3.5% squeeze: SB 2 vs. a doubling tax base in Hays-area cities | Have it; `mf_scraper` ACFR pipeline || TBD | other | Extreme weather + local finance crossover | Have it; `np_scraper` + `mf_scraper` || 2026-06-08 (Mon) | economic-development | Hays CISD: enrollment growth, bond cycles, capacity | Partial; TEA AEIS public || 2026-06-22 (Mon) | economic-development | The MUD/ETJ thicket along I-35 | Have it; gov-meetings + ASLGF || TBD | sports | TBD (pick from queue) | — || 2026-07-06 (Mon) | economic-development | Williamson vs. Hays: same corridor, different fiscal strategies | Have it; `mf_scraper` || TBD | sports | TBD | — |## Notes on style- Same shape as 2026-04-06-hays-county-growth.md and 2026-04-13-hays-county-projections.md: ~1,500–2,000 words, headings (## The X / ## What Y Tells You / etc.), `## Sources` and `## Disclosure` footers.- Frontmatter must include `categories: [economic-development]` (or `sports` / `other`) so the post lands on the right subject page.- Drafts live in `_drafts/`. Move to `_posts/YYYY-MM-DD-slug.md` to publish on that date.## How to use this fileWhen a slot comes due, pull the row, draft in `_drafts/`, then promote to `_posts/`. Update this table when topics shift."
    },
    
  
    
    {
      "title"   : "Jupyter notebook markdown generator",
      "category": "Page",
      "url"     : "/scott_langford/markdown_generator/",
      "date"    : "",
      "content" : "# Jupyter notebook markdown generatorThese .ipynb files are Jupyter notebook files that convert a TSV containing structured data about talks (`talks.tsv`) or presentations (`presentations.tsv`) into individual markdown files that will be properly formatted for the academicpages template. The notebooks contain a lot of documentation about the process. The .py files are pure python that do the same things if they are executed in a terminal, they just don't have pretty documentation."
    },
    
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
]