• The Austin Monthly June issue in its guide for newcomers recommends Web sites, and, under the heading for Austin life, names Austin Metblogs as a resource.
• The June 29 issue of Business Week, with a cover story “Housing Market 2012,” highlights the Austin real-estate market, naming it “the price magnet” and describing it as “affordable” and therefore attractive to price-conscious buyers from elsewhere. In fact, the on-line version of the segment devoted to our town is entitled “Affordable Austin.” Sound like anyplace you know?
• Metropolitan Home employs Austin’s SOL development as an example of sustainable subdivisions, highligting the work of Chris Krager and KRDB, his design-build firm (“The New Village Green,” byline Karrie Jacobs).
• The Atlantic calls its current July/August issue “the ideas issue” or “15 Ways to Fix the World,” and Austinite Bruce Selcraig has something to say about long-distance high-speed rail travel.

I’ve skipped over national coverage of the high-profile Voting Rights Act opinion handed down by the Supreme Court, as well as the sad story of the couple who paid for health insurance but found it to be lacking when they needed it and the results of an appeal in an Austin murder case that continues to make news, plus the lighter story of the couple who married frugally by serving sno-cones to guests at the wedding reception.