Steve Adler

Hot Seat  - Hot City

Hot Seat – Hot City is former Austin Mayor Steve Adler’s first-person account of leading one of America’s fastest-growing cities through extraordinary change and crisis. From the serial bombings and COVID-19 pandemic to homelessness, policing, affordability, and political polarization, Adler takes readers inside the difficult decisions that landed on the mayor’s desk.

​

Using Austin as a case study, the book explores the realities of local leadership when the stakes are high, consensus is elusive, and there are no easy answers.

 

Our Guest Interviewer

Kerry Tate is an Austin business and civic leader with a career spanning public relations, entrepreneurship, homebuilding, and philanthropy. A former chair of the Austin Community Foundation, the Austin Chamber of Commerce, and Leadership Austin, she has received numerous honors for civic leadership and mentorship and remains an active advocate for women, affordable housing, and the Austin community.

​​

About the Author

Steve Adler served as the 52nd Mayor of Austin from 2015 to 2023, leading the city through a period of extraordinary growth, change, and challenge. Before taking office, he practiced law for more than 30 years, with a focus on trial advocacy, eminent domain, and civil rights.

A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Texas School of Law, Adler now teaches public leadership, urban policy, and strategic change management at universities in Austin.

 

He and his wife, Diane Land, live in Austin and have three daughters and six grandchildren. Hot Seat – Hot City is his first book.

​​