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

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

#161

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?

>Do white people not work on their cars?

Rich (mostly) white people who want these kinds of laws and draft them on behalf of their constituents don't.

This is basically a blue collar vs white collar thing.

The people who are really rich don't care either. Their houses are more than the minimum setback apart and they can afford fences if they don't wanna look at something and they can afford big garages and barns to work in so as not to annoy their neighbors to the point of building fences.

Caring about what your neighbors do is solidly the purview of upper middle class busybodies.

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

#162

There are ways that people talk about gentrification that always makes me slightly uncomfortable. As a non-white person, something always feels like gentrification is something that “good” white people like to blame “bad” white people for doing, when the real problem tends to be wider and more systemic. In this particular instance I find myself asking why it matters that the Weaver residents were originally not from…

I think one important part of Gentrification means there are people with more money moving into a neighbourhood. The real estate agents just showed the building to them on the quiet day and they bought their piece of it, believing it's like this all day every day. And when they move in, they realise the quietness was rather the exception than the rule. If they were from the area before, they would have known. But bec…

Having had a few nights out in the Knaack, that was sad to read. I lived in Prenzlauer Berg for a short while in the mid-nineties and the clubs were a larger part of what Prenzlauer Berg such an interesting/happening area to live in. Before that, I had lived between Biesdorf and Marzahn – which was a quite a different experience (for a bearded, long-haired “auslander”).

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

#164

There are ways that people talk about gentrification that always makes me slightly uncomfortable. As a non-white person, something always feels like gentrification is something that “good” white people like to blame “bad” white people for doing, when the real problem tends to be wider and more systemic. In this particular instance I find myself asking why it matters that the Weaver residents were originally not from…

"Don't hate the player, hate the game."

It's almost a tautology that only long term residents are around long enough to feel the negative effects of gentrification directly. I've been in my home for 15 years and only in the last 5 or so have I come to really understand what this trend has done to the community.

My initial response to the current wave of millionaire neighbors is to resent the gentrifiers with all that wealth who don't see what they're doing. But a quick look in the mirror confirms the awful truth... I was just like them when I moved here 15 years ago.

Sure I wasn't as rich as the current crop, but the exact degree of wealth surely would not have been terribly meaningful to the lifelong renter residents who were slowly being displaced by middle class people looking for a bargain on a home at that time.

The system we have created around real estate and home ownership is optimized to erode culture and atomize community. We like to pretend that this is somehow inevitable, the will of the market, but we need to own it - this is the world we have built for ourselves.

So yeah, I do understand the anger at individuals - because there's nothing else to be angry at. It feels like being angry at the system itself is futile.

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

#165

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?

I think they bring this up because race issues are the Achilles heel of the bourgeoisie. Tell the 2021 bourgeois that he hates dirty working class people working on their satanic internal combustion engines and he will agree with you readily. Tell him he's r*cist for doing it, and he'll cry and moan and do whatever you want to shuck the charge.

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

#166

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…

Why does it seem like people feel the need to make anything they can about race? (Maybe I'm just overly sensitive and it doesn't happen as much as I perceive, to be fair) I don't agree with the law, but literally every race owns vehicles. Why complicate the issue with racism if there doesn't need to be any complication? Seems like a clear cut issue that people can unite over that instead is being made into a minority only issue for no reason.

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

#167

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…

https://code-enforcement.saccounty.net/Programs/Pages/AutoRe... These rules are draconian. "[Prohibited if conducted] outside a fully enclosed garage or accessory structure and resulting in the vehicle being inoperable for a period in excess of 24 hours." On the other hand, if you're rich enough to live there, you're probably rich enough to have a large enough enclosure where you can skirt the law anyway.

It's even worse than that. Major repairs are prohibited even in a fully enclosed garage.

Minor repairs are prohibited in a great many cases as well.

If I use a torque wrench to reinstall my wheels (even in a garage), I'm in violation. If I change the brakes on a friend's or girlfriend's car (even in a garage), I'm in violation. If I plug a flat tire for a neighbor or a passing motorist in my garage, I'm in violation. If I start a brake change in the driveway on Sunday morning and need a part from the parts store that I get and install on Monday, I'm in violation. I've certainly done all of those things and am not seen as a "bad neighbor".

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

#168

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 importa…

Doing some research on the place you're about to sign a lease on seems like an important step. I've done this for every place I've ever chosen to live and it usually works out great. "We were here first" is plenty of justification of a whole lot of things.

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

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, this again. This law was written to give code enforcement a cudgel against unlicensed repair shops. All the auto enthusiast blogs and forums immediately lost their minds, but there hasn't been a sweep of the neighborhoods with officers asking to look inside of your garage for uncommon tools. The one complaint I could find online [1] was from a dude whose handle was "nimblemotorsports" and he said he had a car lif…

I'm sorry but this is difficult to believe. The site says that it's unlawful to do "minor vehicle repair [...] Using tools not normally found in a residence". If it was just a zoning law, why does it have to include that stipulation? I've seen plenty of people who own tools "not normally found in a residence". It's hard to guess exactly what the authors' intentions were, but it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to…

It's basically unenforceable, if the general public can buy the tools.

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

#170

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…

Oh, this again. This law was written to give code enforcement a cudgel against unlicensed repair shops. All the auto enthusiast blogs and forums immediately lost their minds, but there hasn't been a sweep of the neighborhoods with officers asking to look inside of your garage for uncommon tools. The one complaint I could find online [1] was from a dude whose handle was "nimblemotorsports" and he said he had a car lif…

Why not just require that a car being worked on is registered to an owner at the address?

edit: All good points in response. I'm convinced that there is no point in trying to tune the wording of a bad law.

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