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They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

texasmonthly.com

91–100 of 502 posts

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#91

A variation of this rinsing out of any local culture is going on in Sacramento County California, where arguably gentrification has resulted in a 2019 autocratic edict that residents are not allowed to work on cars in their homes except fluid changes, with fines if you are found to have professional tools on the premises. https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/it-is-illegal-to... Since Sacramento County is appro…

Do white people not work on their cars? The most obnoxious (and awesome) cars I’ve lived next to were owned by white people. There is definitely a latino car culture where I live but I’ve been other places where it’s all old white dudes. Seriously wtf Sacramento?

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#92

"The new arrivals have forced many Black residents to move out of the city: In 2000, about 10 percent of the Austin’s 656,000 residents were Black. By 2017, that percentage had dropped to around 7.5" Well, article definitely commits a statistical fallacy there. Austin is one of the fastest growing cities, especially from 2000-2017 period. The fact that the percentage went down (from 9.5 to 7.5), while the city's popu…

And this is extremely common, pretty much sums up modern days journalism, or the lack thereof.

And the political side of journalism, but I think we should avoid derailing the discussion.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#94
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think increasing housing density is the answer. We really don't need more luxury apartments or million dollar condos. This was my first natural instinct maybe 5 years ago, but seeing the differences in gentrification stories has made it clear it's far worse to keep density the same. If nothing in the city changes and rich people decide they want to flock to your city (in this case, tech workers), it's a giv…

What about the people who own houses? For all their faults, those houses were affordable and many residents owned them. Now they've been forced out by increased property taxes. Those luxury buildings are going exclusively into poor neighborhoods because they have the cheapest land and least restrictions.

I don't see where I say anything about those, you might be assuming things here. The whole point is to maintain many of those houses affordability and current residents. If done right, property taxes should not increase significantly, and the local government has the levers to ensure that if they make it a priority.

> Those luxury buildings are going exclusively into poor neighborhoods because they have the cheapest land and least restrictions.

That sounds like what the cities should precisely fix. Use zoning and legislation to herd these buildings into more desirable places. Real estate will still come and build. Many cities have done this before, this is very much possible.

If not private, then we get back to the idea of public housing being built. This is much more of a political longshot, but I think it would actually be quite interesting to see public housing at the top of the market. "Affordable housing" approaches are a bandaid on the issue. By the city building the luxury buildings themselves, they can select the exact places they want them instead of just generally herding.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an asphalt factory 10 miles from where I live, on the access road to a major highway, and in the middle of lots of urban development. The factory has been around since the mid 80s. There is a nearby new housing development with residents complaining about the air pollution (apparently it is really smelly) - and their response is "yeah, we've been here since before you were born, so whatev". It cracked me up.…

> Edit: Oh! I almost forgot, there are people who built their house next to a NASCAR track! WHO thinks that is a good idea? People who don’t mind noise and want to make a shitload of their mortgage back on Airbnb.

Airbnb is the least of it I'd guess. More like parking, camping and vendors' rent, depending on how close they are.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#96
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good callout, but it's important not to fudge the numbers here. Using this source[0], it seems like the population doubled, not tripled, from 911K to 1.84M. If we use that 10% to 7.5% drop, the city's black residents went from 91K to 138k. Hardly tripled, in fact only a 50% increase compared to over 100% population size increase. So the comparative growth was half as fast. I'd still say thats notable to the article's…

Difficult thing is sometimes you look up a source for a city's population and they will show you the exact population of the city limits and sometimes they will show you the population of the metropolitan area. The article rounded up the actual census data from 9.5% to 10% for the 2000 numbers, but left the 2017 number at 7.5% (fudging with precision). At any rate, if someone moves from East Austin to Del Valle or Ma…

Yeah, I choose to live in the metro area, but not in the city limits, because the taxes are much lower.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#97
Well, if you are at home putting a baby to sleep and suddenly some guy blasts some music from their car and wakes up your baby, what would you do? it's not a hard decision.

There's a hierarchy of needs. Being able to be at peace in your own property ranks higher than someone else's need to blast music from their car.

I do not have anything against the guy or his music, there are just some things that are more important than others.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#98

Doesn’t matter who came first, you can’t generate a bunch of smoke and noise. I’m sure Austin has a noise ordinance. Easy solution is to move the event to a better location.

Then build a new condo there because of the rich culture and force the festival to shut down at the new location.

I've had to deal with gentrification before, the only time I've seen it lose was when someone took a tractor and ploughed asbestos into the ground around the proposed site. The clean up costs were in the billions and the projects died because of all the bad publicity. The site getting known as the toxic exclusion zone was just the cherry on top.

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#99
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many areas of Texas and California have had large, stable, resident latino communities for over a hundred years or more, and thus far greater percentages of property ownership than in most other areas.

The distribution of property owners is not the same as the distribution of renters (most obviously with respect to class), even in a subpopulation like "Latinos".

[deleted]

Re: They Just Moved to Austin. Now They Want to End One of Its Traditions

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine one's views on gentrification are largely shaped by which side of the gentrification they're on.

As long as they personally don’t have to throw grandma down the stairs, they’re ok with it. The price of progress. Since TX doesn’t have Prop 13, they are going to be annoyed with the tents cluttering their views.

If progress is Karen calling minorities and the original residents “toxic males” for enjoying life and community then call me a reactionary, perhaps Trump should have built the wall around the bay area
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