The way the Domain was explained to me is that there's a mobile cosmopolitan upper class that likes to float around the planet without ever feeling a sense of uncomfortable unfamiliarity. Austin attracted their attention partly by being "cool" and more importantly by having a Formula 1 track. The Domain was created to make money by helping those people feel at home.

The one person I've met who lived in the Domain was a rich tech guy from another continent who "moved" to Austin but never actually spent much time here. He rented an apartment in the Domain that was mostly vacant because he was always in other countries, acquired a girlfriend in Austin, was rarely here, and eventually stopped coming to Austin altogether. He treated Austin basically the same way I treat a restaurant. He came once, got really excited about his experience, came a few times more and then felt less excited, and then never came back because there was always another city somewhere else that he was a little bit more jazzed about. He was so wealthy that this level of interest in a city involved him renting an apartment for a couple of years and considering purchasing a condo. I wouldn't be surprised if he did purchase a condo, and it's been sitting empty for years because he likes having it and the cost of maintaining it pales next to the effort of finding somebody to manage it as a rental property for him.

That's what the Domain is, a world built for those people.

It made me feel like I was walking around on the set of The Truman Show every time I went up there.

Did you ever get to play The Elephant Room ? One of my favorite Austin spots.