In a sign of how backwards and behind the times historic preservation is in Austin, the newly installed (permanent) director of Austin’s Parks department issued this memo to the Assistant City Manager about the burials desecration “burgeoning scandal” at Oakwood Cemetery. Sadly and predictably, the memo does not address the concerns and questions I have […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
Continue ReadingHarvard’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 […]
Continue ReadingIt 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, […]
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 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 […]
Continue ReadingThanks to my long-suffering and loving wife and children I was able to attend yesterday’s Austin City Council Audit and Finance Committee hearing. The centerpiece of the meeting was the presentation of the city auditor’s most recent audit of the historic preservation department. Jo Clifton of the Austin Monitor also attended the meeting and filed […]
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