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

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181–190 of 502 posts

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

#181

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…

Are you saying that the law is specifically designed to be selectively applied, with the enforcement authorities more or less arbitrarily deciding what does and what doesn't warrant a crackdown?

But that's exactly the kind of law that tends to be enforced in ways that manifest various majority biases in society.

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

#182
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 w…

I live in a neighborhood and one guy has 6 cars in different states of repair and a boat on his property. Nice guy but I feel for his neighbors. Trailers and fish houses are not uncommon either but not permanent. We have ordinances against it but they aren't really enforced. We went from $200k houses to $400k houses so I expect things to change. I want the sidewalks fixed etc.. I want nice property values. 95% of the…

Why do cars on his property bother you?

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

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is property taxes control (similar to rent control) a thing? It seems it would avoid some of the issues of rent control (lack of maintenance for instance), since they actually own and live in the house, so they have an incentive to keep it nice.

That's what California's Prop 13 is. It works as originally intended to prevent people being priced out by rapidly rising property taxes but has other, necessarily linked negative effects. Lots of reading and analysis available by googling California Prop 13.

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

#184

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…

> However it doesn’t mean anyone has to listen to you.

IMO this is the lesson that a lot of people never seem to learn.

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

#185

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 gentrification is simply a vague way to put a face on something people don't like: because of fluctuating wages and rents, people are often forced to leave their communities and homes. People notice the gentrification side of it, because it involves a lot of large and imposing buildings, visible cultural artefacts, etc - and they notice the most extreme examples of it - refugees, etc. There's no clear discour…

I mean, even in LA and the Bay area this is true. You are stuck renting unless you can get enough for a down payment. All of the 1950 apartments are being torn down.

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

#186
post #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…

Everyone might own cars, but if one population can only afford them if they do their own work on them, such a ban overly impacts that group.

"AH", you might say, "but that is just discrimination against poor people, there are poor whites as well!". Yes. But if you look at the total wealth distribution in the US, last time I checked non-whites are much more likely to be on the bottom tiers than whites, given their skin color and nothing else. So the class issue is also a (systemic) racism issue.

"Sounds like poor whites and non-whites are natural political allies" you might say. Yes actually. But that does not erase the racism issue, since the different parties in that political coalition will have different needs and interests which need to to treated with respect by all members in order to give a lasting coalition.

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

#187

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…

Neighborhoods change so they have a right to complain!

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

#188
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.

Texans could, you know, opt for income taxes in lieu of property taxes.

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

#189

Real estate law has this concept of “Coming to the nuisance” where if you know that there is some kind of “nuisance” nearby and you move next to it anyway, you can’t complain about it later. I’m not a lawyer so I’m probably pedantically wrong about it in some way but that’s my understanding of it. People do this with small local airports all the time. They move in, knowing full well (or should know full well) that th…

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.…

Hereabouts, there's an open rifle & shotgun range that has been around since 1940s. When it was built originally, it was a rural area. Since mid-90s, there were a bunch of suburban neighborhoods developed around the range, some of them right down from where the backstop berm is... and now the people who moved there are complaining that the range makes them unsafe.

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

#190

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…

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.

Because working on a family members or friends car isn’t the same thing as running an unlicensed repair shop.
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