Austin’s redevelopment and gentrification

As part of my morning ritual, I sleepily look through The Guardian’s must-read stories delivered to me via email. A few weeks ago, one article written by Eva Wiseman really caught my attention: Wiseman highlighted the wording of advertisements of new-build sites and redevelopments in London. She found several reoccurring words, some of which included ‘decanting’, ‘revitalised’, ‘vibrant’, ‘innovation’, ‘fresh’, ‘luxury’ and ‘authentic’. This made me start to think of Austin. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, when I moved to Austin I knew very little about the city. However, I have now lived here for almost three months and unsurprisingly within that time, I have noticed a few things.

Austin is experiencing redevelopment. The US Census Bureau has cited Austin as one of the fastest growing cities in the United States (Cohen, 2015). As a current resident of the city, this is very much apparent; one does not have to look far to see a crane, to hear the noise of drilling, and/or to experience consequent traffic from road closures. I have wandered downtown and experienced all of this on the way, but most importantly, I have seen the affluent boutiques on 2^nd Street arguably selling pointless (yet aesthetically pleasing) products; I have drunk in coffee shops that serve ridiculously priced lattes; and I have read newspaper articles that have condemned the increased prices of rent and the displacement of lower income groups (e.g. Rahmen 2016). All this evidence helps point to one conclusion: gentrification is occurring in Austin.

And perhaps most surprising to me is that this gentrification is receiving academic attention (e.g. Lavy et al., 2016). One specific area of controversy is Rainey Street District; the neighbourhood is located north of Colorado River, southeast downtown. Rainey Street neighbourhood traditionally exhibited a mainly Hispanic population (Dase and Ward, 2000). However, due to initiatives of the local authorities and their urban redevelopment policies that enabled the location of profitable and high-density housing in the area, Rainey Street has now become home to entrepreneurial businesses (Lavy et al., 2016). In turn, this has resulted in increased land value and a consequent displacement of the mainly Hispanic and lower income community (Lavy et al., 2016).

I decided to visit Rainey Street myself, specifically keeping in mind the list of words Wiseman (2016) had found and whether I would see these words myself.

I approached Rainey Street from the north and instantly came across a block of apartments named The Millennium. An advertisement in the window boasted of ‘luxury apartments’ and ‘downtown views’; this was similarly the case on their website, where the word luxury was commonly used in addition to ‘dream home’, ‘trendy’ and ‘swanky’. The website even described Rainey Street as ‘vintage bungalow houses that have transformed into quaint, cool backyard bars.’ The Millennium was just one of the high-rise apartments within Rainey Street; SkyHouse Austin and Windsor on the Lake are others which also exhibit similar wording The Millennium used and Wiseman (2016) found.

The Millennium

As I travelled further down Rainey Street, I came across these vintage bungalows The Millennium had so aptly described; they were small and quaint and if I’m being honest, pretty cool. I saw Rainey Street during the day but I can imagine that the atmosphere at night has a certain lively vibe. However, significantly all of these bungalows were either bars or restaurants: there seemed to be no sign of residential bungalows. And as I carried on wandering, it become more apparent that Rainey Street had (and is currently still is) experienced dramatic change. Cranes and construction works were abundant and the area just in general screamed gentrification; quirky and expensive bars, high-rise apartments boasting of luxury living that contain rooftop pools, gourmet kitchens and even ‘granite top bath vanities with custom lighting’, funky food trucks, and well-gardened infrastructure.

One of the bars on Rainey Street

A juxtaposition of two bungalows within the neighbourhood

My friend and I spotted an interestingly shaped building and decided to explore. We soon realised that it was the Mexican American Cultural Center, which I found to be quite ironic. The building is supposedly dedicated to preserving, creating, and promoting the cultural arts of Mexican Americans and Latinos but instead, is now no longer located in a predominately Hispanic community. This building is perhaps the final piece of evidence that confirms Rainey Street District, and thus Austin, has been subject to the hands of gentrification.

Food trucks on Rainey Street

References

Cohen, D.T. (2015) Population trends in incorporated places: 2000 to 2013 – Population estimates and projections. Washington DC: U.S. Census Bureau.

Dase, A.E. and R.B. Ward (2000) The peculiar genius of Rainey Street: A social and architectural history. Austin: Heritage Society of Austin.

Lavy, B., E.D. Dascher and R.R. Hagelman (2016) ‘Media portrayal of gentrification and redevelopment on Rainey Street in Austin, Texas (USA), 2000–2014’, City, Culture and Society, Vol. 7 (4), 197-207.

Rahman, M. (2016) Gentrification worsens Austin’s diversity problem [Online]. Austin: The Daily Texan. Available at: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2016/08/31/gentrification-worsens-austins-diversity-problem [Accessed 31st August 2016].

Wiseman, E. (2016) Beware the vibrant, emerging, misleading language of gentrification [Online]. London: The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/oct/09/beware-the-vibrant-emerging-misleading-language-of-gentrification [Accessed 10th October 2016].