Why "English Teacher" is set in Austin

Asher here. I've lately been watching the appealing new FX comedy series "English Teacher," about an Austin teacher trying to navigate the professional, personal and political dynamics of a contemporary high school.

The big picture: I wanted to know why Brian Jordan Alvarez, the show's creator and star (and who happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to Elon Musk), set the show in Austin — as opposed to, say, Dallas or Tulsa or Minneapolis or any number of cities.

• There are Austin touches here and there — the show is partly about being gay in the suburbs of a liberal city; it makes mention of getting out of teaching in favor of tech work; and in one scene, the teacher in the title meets with his ex-boyfriend for tacos.

The intrigue: Apart from a credit sequence shot in Austin, the show is actually chiefly filmed in Georgia , which famously has more generous tax incentives for film production than Texas.

What they're saying: Alvarez was kind enough to send Axios a note from overseas, where he's working on a project, describing his decision to set the show here.

• "When I wrote 'English Teacher,' I'd been spending a lot of time in Austin and had really come to love it," he wrote. "It's a liberal outpost in a more conservative state, which is similar to the town I went to high school in (though it was much smaller), Sewanee, Tennessee. A setting like this makes for a lot of interesting dynamics.
• "I also love the lake in the middle of downtown, and I always had this image of the opening credits over the Congress Avenue Bridge, with the sun reflecting on the water."

The bottom line: In its spirit and feel, "English Teacher" is recognizably Austin.