7 ms·

At the general level, I doubt anyone is surprised to see this story, and there will likely be more to come as tech flocks to Austin (though it was already a not

At the general level, I doubt anyone is surprised to see this story, and there will likely be more to come as tech flocks to Austin (though it was already a notable tech hub with some of these pressures already before the billionaires decided to give it the seal of approval). To me, the more interesting question here is how does Austin avoid what happened to SF, where tech hollowed out nearly all of its existing culture and then tech workers began to complain it was bland. Real estate and zoning policy is going to be key here. I've seen a decent deal of discussion about "Yuppie Fishtanks" [0] recently and generally it seems to be supported that massively increasing the housing supply is one of the best ways to keep rents intact and avoid hollowing gentrification. For the existing Austin residents here, how is the city approaching it thusfar? Do people think this is another SF gentrification story in the making, or is something different? [0] http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2018/07/yimbyism-explained-without-supply-and.html http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2018/07/yimbyism-explaine...

vorpalhex 6y ago
Those traditional black neighborhoods were bought up, demolished and turned into luxury apartments at insane prices. At one point I was on the east side and saw an old black woman rocking on her front porch in front of a 70's shotgun shack, next to an ugly post-modern 2 story house with a lambo and a tesla sitting outside of it. I don't think increasing housing density is the answer. We really don't need more luxury apartments or million dollar condos.
- adjkant 6y ago
  > I don't think increasing housing density is the answer. We really don't need more luxury apartments or million dollar condos. This was my first natural instinct maybe 5 years ago, but seeing the differences in gentrification stories has made it clear it's far worse to keep density the same. If nothing in the city changes and rich people decide they want to flock to your city (in this case, tech workers), it's a given that the existing poorer people will be forced out and prices will increase. Measures like rent control only slow the process, holding back a rising tide. I've seen this personally in my backyard in Brooklyn. What has happened there is that massive luxury towers have been built along a busy street (central to transit but still not "neighborhoody"). While rents have still gone up, it seems this real estate and luxury market has helped stave off the insane hikes SF has seen, for example. Million dollar condos, probably not a good idea. But luxury buildings with high density turn into normal real estate in 20 years, and that top of the market ease keeps a lot of that tech money out of existing minority and poor neighborhoods. The question for Austin if they accept that is where to put them. Finding a balanced place would be key here IMO.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    What about the people who own houses? For all their faults, those houses were affordable and many residents owned them. Now they've been forced out by increased property taxes. Those luxury buildings are going exclusively into poor neighborhoods because they have the cheapest land and least restrictions.
    - adjkant 6y ago
      I don't see where I say anything about those, you might be assuming things here. The whole point is to maintain many of those houses affordability and current residents. If done right, property taxes should not increase significantly, and the local government has the levers to ensure that if they make it a priority. > Those luxury buildings are going exclusively into poor neighborhoods because they have the cheapest land and least restrictions. That sounds like what the cities should precisely fix. Use zoning and legislation to herd these buildings into more desirable places. Real estate will still come and build. Many cities have done this before, this is very much possible. If not private, then we get back to the idea of public housing being built. This is much more of a political longshot, but I think it would actually be quite interesting to see public housing at the top of the market. "Affordable housing" approaches are a bandaid on the issue. By the city building the luxury buildings themselves, they can select the exact places they want them instead of just generally herding.
      - PeterisP 6y ago
        Cities generally want poor neigbourhoods to get developed and upgraded; if a poor neighbourhood becomes a rich neighbourhood, that's a win for the city, no matter if it's populated by the same or different inhabitants. Cities can focus and redirect development in various ways, but they are explicitly redirecting that development to the poor neighbourhoods because they don't want these neighbourhoods to stay poor.
      - hindsightbias 6y ago
        For many in SF, they should imagine a Fillmore district with ~3000 more Victorians. Because that's what got bulldozed by enlightenment. https://hoodline.com/2016/01/how-urban-renewal-destroyed-the-fillmore-in-order-to-save-it/ https://hoodline.com/2016/01/how-urban-renewal-destroyed-the...
- Gimpei 6y ago
  When the population of a city suddenly jumps, increasing density is the ONLY answer. Without extra housing, where do you think all those extra people will live? In the apartments of current residents of course. This is not a view held solely by freemarket enthusiast or "neoliberals" or whatever. Even the DSA understands this. Their only disagreement is that they think the government should be the ones building the housing. I can't get my head around the prevalence of this anti-density view. It's the climate denialism of the left.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  > We really don't need more luxury apartments or million dollar condos. Of course we do. If condos are a million dollars we need more of them so that the price decreases. All housing is "luxury" housing when there isn't enough housing.
brundolf 6y ago
I've been here for seven years. It definitely feels like we're on the track toward what people describe SF as. Several cultural institutions have gone out of business in my time here, everything's getting more shiny and less weird, the homeless camps are growing enormous due to rising rents/displacement, etc. We're not SF yet, but we will be before long if nothing changes. 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. Overall I don't feel optimistic.
- techsupporter 6y ago
  > 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, at least it'll put a breather on housing costs." Nope. Because of the "work wherever you want" and Seattle and Puget Sound still being a wonderfully attractive place to live, the pace has accelerated. Housing prices here have shot up by double-digit numbers, even inside the city limits from which people are supposedly "fleeing." Both the north and south ends of Seattle, even West Seattle where the main road link has been severed for a year (as of today), have seen massive upticks. The Department of Licensing has released statistics that show that the number of California driving licenses and vehicle titles exchanged for Washington ones is the second-highest it's been in ten years, with only 2018 being higher, and that's with most DOL offices being closed or heavily restricted due to in-person limits from the virus. (The influx of cars isn't going to do our "pristine environment" any favors, either, and I look forward to the even-louder rants about how terrible traffic is driving by oneself from Marysville to Queen Anne for a hockey game). Meanwhile, people around here continue to insist that building is bad and, I shit you not, that if we simply don't build then the people will stop coming. I don't know why anyone still thinks this; it hasn't been true for twenty years, why should now be any different? And the new arrivals aren't keen on building more or making sure newer arrivals have space because, well, they moved here, to this spot because they liked it that way and, gosh-darn-it, this space is going to stay like this forever. It's getting quite frustrating. After many, many years of waiting and hoping and moving around, I finally live near where a light rail station will be opening in the coming year-ish and I fear, even on my moderately good tech salary, I'm not going to be able to afford to live here before the train arrives, or shortly thereafter.
alexashka 6y ago
> To me, the more interesting question here is how does Austin avoid what happened to SF It doesn't. There is a limited number of cities with weather conditions humans prefer. Some people think others care about culture - no, they mostly don't. They care about weather conditions, safety and job opportunities. Culture is a nice to have feature. Unless governments get busy building new cities/towns, every existing city with favorable weather conditions will turn into rich people, next to homeless people, or just rich people, if they enact laws against homeless people to get rid of them. By the way, if governments get busy building new cities/towns, you don't get rid of the problem, you just delay it until every favorable location has a city, and then you're back to having this same problem. It's the same as dating - we can't all have miss universe, because it's a zero sum game. If you live in a small town and got to date miss universe, who didn't get discovered yet, you shouldn't get mad when a talent agency visits your town and takes your miss universe to New York to be a fashion model and date a super athlete. You should be grateful that you got to date miss universe for a while not due to merit in a zero sum game, but due to pure luck. But, you know, good luck explaining that to the guy who lives in a small town, had a beauty and now doesn't anymore. Those fucking talent agencies, maaan.
- hindsightbias 6y ago
  This. I do look back at Austin in the 80's and 90's wistfully. Was fully cognizant how lucky I was but realized where it was heading and had to let that pretty girl go.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >Some people think others care about culture - no, they mostly don't. They care about weather conditions, safety and job opportunities. Culture is a nice to have feature This does not track at all with what happened to the Bay Area. Silicon Valley historically means the peninsula. GOOG, FB, AAPL and most of the other tech giants are all closer to San Jose than to San Francisco. Yet it’s San Francisco (and to an extent Oakland) who have experienced incredibly growing pains. If the culture factor didn’t matter then people would have been happy to live in San Jose which has identical (if not better) better weather, safety and job opportunities.

vorpalhex 6y ago

Those traditional black neighborhoods were bought up, demolished and turned into luxury apartments at insane prices. At one point I was on the east side and saw an old black woman rocking on her front porch in front of a 70's shotgun shack, next to an ugly post-modern 2 story house with a lambo and a tesla sitting outside of it. I don't think increasing housing density is the answer. We really don't need more luxury apartments or million dollar condos.

adjkant 6y ago
> I don't think increasing housing density is the answer. We really don't need more luxury apartments or million dollar condos. This was my first natural instinct maybe 5 years ago, but seeing the differences in gentrification stories has made it clear it's far worse to keep density the same. If nothing in the city changes and rich people decide they want to flock to your city (in this case, tech workers), it's a given that the existing poorer people will be forced out and prices will increase. Measures like rent control only slow the process, holding back a rising tide. I've seen this personally in my backyard in Brooklyn. What has happened there is that massive luxury towers have been built along a busy street (central to transit but still not "neighborhoody"). While rents have still gone up, it seems this real estate and luxury market has helped stave off the insane hikes SF has seen, for example. Million dollar condos, probably not a good idea. But luxury buildings with high density turn into normal real estate in 20 years, and that top of the market ease keeps a lot of that tech money out of existing minority and poor neighborhoods. The question for Austin if they accept that is where to put them. Finding a balanced place would be key here IMO.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  What about the people who own houses? For all their faults, those houses were affordable and many residents owned them. Now they've been forced out by increased property taxes. Those luxury buildings are going exclusively into poor neighborhoods because they have the cheapest land and least restrictions.
  - adjkant 6y ago
    I don't see where I say anything about those, you might be assuming things here. The whole point is to maintain many of those houses affordability and current residents. If done right, property taxes should not increase significantly, and the local government has the levers to ensure that if they make it a priority. > Those luxury buildings are going exclusively into poor neighborhoods because they have the cheapest land and least restrictions. That sounds like what the cities should precisely fix. Use zoning and legislation to herd these buildings into more desirable places. Real estate will still come and build. Many cities have done this before, this is very much possible. If not private, then we get back to the idea of public housing being built. This is much more of a political longshot, but I think it would actually be quite interesting to see public housing at the top of the market. "Affordable housing" approaches are a bandaid on the issue. By the city building the luxury buildings themselves, they can select the exact places they want them instead of just generally herding.
    - PeterisP 6y ago
      Cities generally want poor neigbourhoods to get developed and upgraded; if a poor neighbourhood becomes a rich neighbourhood, that's a win for the city, no matter if it's populated by the same or different inhabitants. Cities can focus and redirect development in various ways, but they are explicitly redirecting that development to the poor neighbourhoods because they don't want these neighbourhoods to stay poor.
    - hindsightbias 6y ago
      For many in SF, they should imagine a Fillmore district with ~3000 more Victorians. Because that's what got bulldozed by enlightenment. https://hoodline.com/2016/01/how-urban-renewal-destroyed-the-fillmore-in-order-to-save-it/ https://hoodline.com/2016/01/how-urban-renewal-destroyed-the...
Gimpei 6y ago
When the population of a city suddenly jumps, increasing density is the ONLY answer. Without extra housing, where do you think all those extra people will live? In the apartments of current residents of course. This is not a view held solely by freemarket enthusiast or "neoliberals" or whatever. Even the DSA understands this. Their only disagreement is that they think the government should be the ones building the housing. I can't get my head around the prevalence of this anti-density view. It's the climate denialism of the left.
dodobirdlord 6y ago
> We really don't need more luxury apartments or million dollar condos. Of course we do. If condos are a million dollars we need more of them so that the price decreases. All housing is "luxury" housing when there isn't enough housing.

brundolf 6y ago

I've been here for seven years. It definitely feels like we're on the track toward what people describe SF as. Several cultural institutions have gone out of business in my time here, everything's getting more shiny and less weird, the homeless camps are growing enormous due to rising rents/displacement, etc. We're not SF yet, but we will be before long if nothing changes. 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. Overall I don't feel optimistic.

techsupporter 6y ago
> 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, at least it'll put a breather on housing costs." Nope. Because of the "work wherever you want" and Seattle and Puget Sound still being a wonderfully attractive place to live, the pace has accelerated. Housing prices here have shot up by double-digit numbers, even inside the city limits from which people are supposedly "fleeing." Both the north and south ends of Seattle, even West Seattle where the main road link has been severed for a year (as of today), have seen massive upticks. The Department of Licensing has released statistics that show that the number of California driving licenses and vehicle titles exchanged for Washington ones is the second-highest it's been in ten years, with only 2018 being higher, and that's with most DOL offices being closed or heavily restricted due to in-person limits from the virus. (The influx of cars isn't going to do our "pristine environment" any favors, either, and I look forward to the even-louder rants about how terrible traffic is driving by oneself from Marysville to Queen Anne for a hockey game). Meanwhile, people around here continue to insist that building is bad and, I shit you not, that if we simply don't build then the people will stop coming. I don't know why anyone still thinks this; it hasn't been true for twenty years, why should now be any different? And the new arrivals aren't keen on building more or making sure newer arrivals have space because, well, they moved here, to this spot because they liked it that way and, gosh-darn-it, this space is going to stay like this forever. It's getting quite frustrating. After many, many years of waiting and hoping and moving around, I finally live near where a light rail station will be opening in the coming year-ish and I fear, even on my moderately good tech salary, I'm not going to be able to afford to live here before the train arrives, or shortly thereafter.

alexashka 6y ago

> To me, the more interesting question here is how does Austin avoid what happened to SF It doesn't. There is a limited number of cities with weather conditions humans prefer. Some people think others care about culture - no, they mostly don't. They care about weather conditions, safety and job opportunities. Culture is a nice to have feature. Unless governments get busy building new cities/towns, every existing city with favorable weather conditions will turn into rich people, next to homeless people, or just rich people, if they enact laws against homeless people to get rid of them. By the way, if governments get busy building new cities/towns, you don't get rid of the problem, you just delay it until every favorable location has a city, and then you're back to having this same problem. It's the same as dating - we can't all have miss universe, because it's a zero sum game. If you live in a small town and got to date miss universe, who didn't get discovered yet, you shouldn't get mad when a talent agency visits your town and takes your miss universe to New York to be a fashion model and date a super athlete. You should be grateful that you got to date miss universe for a while not due to merit in a zero sum game, but due to pure luck. But, you know, good luck explaining that to the guy who lives in a small town, had a beauty and now doesn't anymore. Those fucking talent agencies, maaan.

hindsightbias 6y ago
This. I do look back at Austin in the 80's and 90's wistfully. Was fully cognizant how lucky I was but realized where it was heading and had to let that pretty girl go.
nemothekid 6y ago
>Some people think others care about culture - no, they mostly don't. They care about weather conditions, safety and job opportunities. Culture is a nice to have feature This does not track at all with what happened to the Bay Area. Silicon Valley historically means the peninsula. GOOG, FB, AAPL and most of the other tech giants are all closer to San Jose than to San Francisco. Yet it’s San Francisco (and to an extent Oakland) who have experienced incredibly growing pains. If the culture factor didn’t matter then people would have been happy to live in San Jose which has identical (if not better) better weather, safety and job opportunities.