Gentrification – Fred L. McGhee

Austin’s Latest Example of Whitesplained and Elitesplained History — How the Omission of One Word Reveals Much About How They View the History of Segregation

Posted on October 26, 2025November 6, 2025 by Fred McGhee

It has come to my attention that certain City of Austin officials wish to strip the word “Negro” from official designations and commemorations of the Montopolis Negro School. They prefer to refer to the school as the “Montopolis School” despite the fact that one of the most important things that makes the school historic is […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Austin People’s Plan to Fight Displacement

Posted on April 8, 2018April 10, 2018 by Fred McGhee

On January 15, 2018 — Martin Luther King Day — I was privileged to help spearhead the unveiling of what has since become known as the Austin “People’s Plan” to fight displacement and to help mitigate gentrification. We called ourselves the Austin Poor People’s Campaign and held our press conference at the Montopolis Negro School, […]

How Austin Gentrification Operates in My Neighborhood

Posted on December 11, 2017December 12, 2017 by Fred McGhee

Conventional 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 […]

Austin Gentrification and Human Rights

Posted on November 12, 2017November 12, 2017 by Fred McGhee

The 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 […]