As we embark upon celebrations commemorating the enactment of the Fair Housing Act, it may be useful to look more deeply into some of the details of American housing history from this period. Fifty years on, it is important for us to take stock of what worked and what didn’t. On April 11, 1968, President […]
Continue ReadingConventional wisdom holds that gentrification is something that a lot of people “feel” but rarely take the time to actually document. Studies about gentrification are often too wonky to influence policymakers, who want a nice, clean definition of the term “gentrification” served to them on a silver platter. Accordingly, allow me to take you through […]
Continue ReadingThe word “gentrification” does not appear in Imagine Austin or in CodeNEXT. This seems odd, given that Austin has had multiple commissions over the past seventeen years meant to study and address the issue. The policy analyses and recommendations made by these task forces and commissions have been sitting on the shelf gathering dust. So […]
Continue ReadingAn impressive propaganda campaign has been orchestrated by pro-CodeNEXT boosters to confuse the public mind about the potential consequences these proposed changes to how Austin regulates land development will produce. The time has come for some historically grounded critical thinking that can help cut through the misinformation, half-truths, distortions and lies that have been promulgated […]
Continue ReadingCertain members of Austin’s black bourgeoisie are perturbed. They are perturbed because the recent political fight over the future of the Montopolis Negro School has exposed some of their ruling class privileges and has also unveiled some of their neoliberal elitism. More to the point, the 2015-2017 fight to preserve the Montopolis Negro School–much of […]
Continue ReadingMap of Austin’s Urban Freedmen’s Communities, Circa 1900 Austin last took a hard look at its historic preservation program in the early 2000’s, where a joint task force made up of Planning, Zoning and Platting, and Historic Landmark Commissioners made some recommendations to upgrade but not fundamentally alter the city’s program as originally established by […]
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