Gentrification – Fred L. McGhee

Download a Copy of my Rosewood Courts Historic District Nomination to the National Register of Historic Places — And a Copy of My Response to the Texas Historical Commission’s and the National Park Service’s Efforts to Scuttle It

Posted on June 14, 2026June 22, 2026 by Fred McGhee

A little more than a week ago I wrote a letter to the editor of the Austin Chronicle correcting another of the many puff pieces about the historic Rosewood Courts public housing project located in Austin. I’ve held off publishing the voluminous record of my efforts to preserve Austin’s public housing over the years. When […]

Montopolis Wants Its $8 Million Dollar Museum and Cultural Center

Posted on August 30, 2024August 30, 2024 by Fred McGhee

Seven years ago the Austin City Council passed a resolution directing the city manager to utilize hotel occupancy tax dollars to acquire the Montopolis Negro School with the intent of repurposing this “historic asset” into a cultural center and museum. This decision did not spring up out of the political ground from nowhere; it was […]

Austin’s Housing Department Hates Families

Posted on November 5, 2023November 8, 2023 by Fred McGhee

The recent Affordability Impact Statement produced by city housing staffers for the proposed “Phase 1” of single family lot use modifications (Case Number C20-2023-024) furnishes useful insight into current thinking inside the city’s housing department. While the document proclaims that the proposed resolution would produce “mixed results” and that “market driven” solutions grounded in dogmatic […]

Upending the Neoliberal Segregation Narrative

Posted on October 2, 2020October 12, 2020 by Fred McGhee

I live and am raising my family in the Montopolis neighborhood of Austin, Texas. Montopolis, also known as “Poverty Island,” is a low-income community of families whose population is 74% Hispanic and 10% African American and whose per capita income is $18,683. The Coronavirus pandemic has hit us hard. Even worse, we are currently facing […]

Austin Doesn’t Give a Shit About Dead Negroes Either

Posted on December 11, 2019December 15, 2019 by Fred McGhee

It is a burgeoning scandal that is as unfortunate as it was predicted. The City of Austin is facing fresh questions about the handling of renovations to the “Chapel” at Oakwood Cemetery, the city’s oldest official burial ground. Facts have arisen that appear to indicate that the city not only gave the go-ahead to excavate […]

Setting the Record Straight About the Austin People’s Plan

Posted on August 20, 2019August 21, 2019 by Fred McGhee

The Austin Monitor’s recent story about the City of Austin’s Plan to “mitigate” displacement correctly quoted me as not seeing much of the People’s Plan reflected in the city’s anti-displacement strategy. But there is more, of course, to the story. City staffers in the Neighborhood Housing department as well as members of the city’s Equity […]

We’ve Imagined an Austin Without the Poor

Posted on July 29, 2019October 5, 2019 by Fred McGhee

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies released its 2019 State of the Nation’s Housing report, and it makes for interesting reading. Once you get past the standard neoliberal fare about how “there isn’t enough housing” or not enough “choice” or “opportunity,” you can unearth some nuggets. Two Austin findings stand out: 1.) Real home prices […]

Butthurt Jayme Mathias Doesn’t Like How Democracy Works

Posted on May 12, 2019June 3, 2019 by Fred McGhee

It is a noted axiom of political theory that elites prefer the type of democracy that benefits them and their cronies. The role of the electorate is to choose from a pre-screened and selected slate of issues and candidates whose role, if they do their job well, is to appear to be fighting the man, […]

My Final Community Development Commission Meeting

Posted on March 14, 2019May 22, 2019 by Fred McGhee

Tuesday, March 12, 2019 marked my final meeting as a member of Austin’s Community Development Commission. The Montopolis community will elect a replacement at its March 25, 2019 meeting. My service on this commission first began after the 2014 city council election, in which I strongly supported Steve Adler for mayor over his primary opponent, […]

Redefining “Progressive” as Neoliberalism

Posted on December 12, 2018January 17, 2019 by Fred McGhee

This new book by the Berkeley based author Randy Shaw about the housing crisis is currently making the rounds. It is even being featured on left wing websites such as Counterpunch as a “progressive” take on the affordability question. Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The book features chapters […]