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

texasmonthly.com

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

#281

Post by scarecrowbob »

caseysoftware wrote: post #250

Longtime Austin resident.. to all the people moving here, I always say: "Remember what compelled you to move here and defend it."

I dunno... I moved town to Manchaca and 1626 from Fredericksburg, cause I thought it might be easier to get gigs.

IMO that place is terrible to get paying musical work, so I left to go play in the mountains. Where, ironically, it is much easier to find paying musical work.

All the folks I had been playing with out in the hills (literally, 'the boys' from that Luckenbach, TX song) all had a similar feeling, though they all left Austin in the early 80s.

IMO, it's a city like any other at this point, and has been since, say, they closed the Armadillo. But even if that point doesn't work for you, the development around the Broken Spoke is a pretty visual representation of that same feeling.

I wish you much luck with your thought here, cause maybe I am just cynical about the place... my feeling is that mostly people move there cause it is a city with a lot of well-paying jobs and because TX funds itself with property taxes.

But I'd prefer to be wrong about that.

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

#282

Post by steve76 »

Oh yeah. Big tough gangsters. Got shut down by the neighbors and realtors and now cry to the press. Boo hoo hoo. Bother me and I'll spike your lemon juice with elephant tranquilizer.

Look everyone. Look how these tough guys cry when they wet their diapers. These wannabes are nothing. Drive them out. Drive them to the gutter, to the wild, to the sea. Just drive them out.

Why didn't the car show buy up the real estate? They had the same opportunity as their neighbors? Oh yeah. They're illiterate junkie diseased bums. F** 'em.

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

#283

Post by xapata »

whatshisface wrote: post #263
xapata wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, the risk of retaliation may be too high. While the likelihood may be low, the magnitude of the consequence is great.

The sooner you do it, and the more joviality you can approach it with, the less mad they will be. Hence the parent's admonition to not "[...] let it boil over until you're so upset you can't talk to them rationally."

I'm referring to the irrational, perhaps insane neighbor, not someone who behaves normally.

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

#284

Post by throwaway0a5e »

gambiting wrote: post #219
sokoloff wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Seriously, how does any and all of this(along with the whole idea of HOAs) mesh at all with the "land of the free" idea that Americans are constantly broadcasting to the world. It's meant to be the most "free" country in the world and yet so many people are happy to live in communities that restrict them severely in what they can do with their own property. How is the response to any of this anything other than "mind…

The freedom isn't evenly distributed.

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

#285

Post by vitaflo »

brundolf wrote: post #90
techsupporter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I held out a small hope that covid and the remote-work wave would stem things a little bit, but it's hard to say whether that's happened. If anything, the influx could have increased due to the exodus from SF. This is exactly what we're seeing in the Seattle area. A lot of people in the various circles I'm in thought, as we entered the early stages of this pandemic really settling in for the long-haul, "well, phew,…

Similar feelings here. I simply don't know where else to go; it seems like every nice-to-live-in medium-sized city that isn't SF is going through this same song and dance. Money comes in like a flock of locusts, consumes the city, and SF is one of the first examples we're seeing of the husk that gets left behind. Then they move on to the next one. Where's a person supposed to lay down roots, without retreating deep i…

>Where's a person supposed to lay down roots, without retreating deep into a suburb? I don't need or want a job at FAANG or the next "unicorn"; I'm happy with my normal tech job/income and the life it affords. Why couldn't those things stay confined somewhere else and leave the rest of us in peace?

Literally anywhere in the upper midwest. "Oh but the winters are brutally cold and the summers are too hot and humid" you say. Well, there's a reason you can get a $150k/yr tech job and a nice $300k house in a good neighborhood. And there's no aversion to building homes up here.

Way too many people think the only place to make a living in tech is on the coasts. But you can get tech jobs in any major city. And some are ridiculously cheap to live in. Just look outside the "normal" places.

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

#286

Post by bluntfang »

dionidium wrote: post #209
airhead969 wrote: post #175

To be fair, I'm a middle-aged white engineer raised in San Jose, CA relocated to ATX in Dec 2020. I live at the corner of I-35 east-side frontage and 5th in a mega apartment complex. I've tried meeting many of my neighbors and most are asocial/antisocial. There are 2 women roommates and an African-American kid who are legit cool that I've met so far. Also, I don't even know the people across the hall. My conclusion f…

> Heck, my upstairs neighbor complained about my music on the weekend during the day without introducing themselves and not diplomatically. Tangential (and probably just a perennial old guy complaint), but it seems like people have forgotten how to do this. If you have an issue with something your neighbor is doing, then go talk to them . Don't leave an aggressive note. Don't let it boil over until you're so upset yo…

One thing to consider, since this post is about Texas...visiting your neighbors with a complaint in a strong castle doctrine state can be intimidating.

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

#287

Post by chmod600 »

howinator wrote: post #238

I live in this neighborhood, about three blocks north of where the car club meets. I’m white. I’m a homeowner. You get the picture. Honestly, these people complaining in Weaver sound insane. They moved into a community and it’s their job to integrate with the community. We have a Brit who lives on my street that does community organizing and he’s been wonderful about building a sense of community that integrates the…

"They moved into a community and it’s their job to integrate with the community."

Is that a broadly-accepted opinion? Does it apply consistently to all cultures -- e.g. does it apply when nonwhites move into a white area?

And, does it reflect reality? Do new populations really preserve the prexisting culture in practice?

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

#288

Post by mindslight »

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #86

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…

> In this particular instance I find myself asking why it matters that the Weaver residents were originally not from Austin. If you’re born in Chicago, shouldn’t you still have the same rights as someone who was born in Austin?

Not necessarily. It's not about where you're born, but about whether you've been somewhere long enough to be part of its community. You have the same natural rights, obviously. But not the same standing in the community, input into cultural norms, or right to legal enforcement contrary to those cultural norms.

Going with the principle of live and let live, when you visit or move to some place with a different culture, it's on you to accept that culture. Showing up, planting yourself, and then demanding everyone else conform to your own culture will rightly create pushback.

This is a conservative stance, and it can be taken to the extreme to justify a whole bunch of horrible shit as you mention ("newcomers are of a different nationality, or race than current residents"), which I am certainly not condoning. But the same goes for every heuristic turned into a political axiom - the tamer form is still valid.

(edit: I changed "fit in" to "accept that culture", because the former bites off too much, and can too easily turn into an indictment of a person who others consider different even though they aren't acting to cause a problem)

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

#289

Post by patcon »

wl wrote: post #274
dionidium wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck, my upstairs neighbor complained about my music on the weekend during the day without introducing themselves and not diplomatically. Tangential (and probably just a perennial old guy complaint), but it seems like people have forgotten how to do this. If you have an issue with something your neighbor is doing, then go talk to them . Don't leave an aggressive note. Don't let it boil over until you're so upset yo…

The risk of a confrontation escalating makes dealing with such things myself a very unattractive option, especially if it's a stranger. I've had a simple, polite request to turn down the thumping music at 1 AM end with me blocking punches, retreating to my unit, and calling the cops. Better to leave it to people who do such things professionally.

> Better to leave it to people who do such things professionally.

I empathize, esp if you're of the generation (like me) where we've grown accustom to distance in time and space via async messaging.

Having said that, I would respectfully push back: negotiating everyday conflicts of life with others (who are most often strangers) is NOT something we should allow to be overly professionalized. Yes, it's true that some extroverts find this easier, and that's a privilege we don't all have. But we can't pass this to landlords and tenant associations and governments to do, while we stay at a fully-intermediated distance. We need to learn and grow in how we relate to one another, ESPECIALLY now that the distance of the internet is working against us and causing our social muscles to atrophe.

Anyhow, I'm not trying to be argumentative -- I almost feel like I'm pleading here. It will be really bad if we "specialize" in this way. Losing our ability to navigate everyday conflicts with one another, and deferring it to higher powers, that's the worst sort of "vendor lock-in" I could ever imagine for a society.

Fwiw, I am a collectivist who values institutions, so I don't share this from a hyper-individualist perspective that distrusts these actors <3

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