“The Austin City Council’s vote to rezone 1,308 affordable apartment units gave the green light for the largest tenant displacement project along the East Riverside corridor — and one of the largest in Austin’s history.“ “With the Domain on Riverside, the city council missed an opportunity to mitigate the wholescale displacement of low-income residents from the East Riverside corridor. ” “Meanwhile, since the initiation of the corridor planning process, more than 1,000 affordable rental units have been demolished and thousands more are in the pipeline to be razed. Other apartments have been remodeled into higher-end developments with ramped up rents.” https://www.statesman.com/opinion/20191022/city-must-halt-displacement-on-east-riverside-corridor

Blanket upzoning is “not going to do is solve the housing crisis for the middle classes and lower-income people. Even with so-called affordability set-asides, the trickle-down effect will be small. It could even be negative in the highly desirable areas, if the set-asides (which are in the range of 15-25 percent in current legislative proposals) are lower, or the income threshholds higher, than the current pattern of lower-income, lower-cost housing in those areas compared to the new housing profile. This is just one example of the many unintended consequences that proponents of blanket upzoning don’t take into account, and that is why it will fail.” https://www.planningreport.com/2019/03/15/blanket-upzoning-blunt-instrument-wont-solve-affordable-housing-crisis

“Because I’m from another country where it is not legal for the government to just increase your taxes and make you move, I think the gentrification was so startling to me because it’s such a loss of culture. Bear is still there and he still has all these things he’s collected through the years, and so he’s kind of a living monument of East Austin.” https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/arts/2019-10-16/new-multimedia-exhibit-captures-east-austin-then-and-now/

Since 2017, 12 families a day on average have been evicted from their homes here. Many people had lost a job, experienced a medical emergency or had a roommate leave without notice. http://stories.kut.org/evictions/

“Sadly, Hoboken’s story was far from unique. Wherever young professionals moved, existing residents faced eviction — or worse — as landlords pursued profit.” https://beta.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/13/how-gentrification-caused-americas-cities-burn/?outputType=amp

“In San Francisco, a series of suspicious fires in 2015 and 2016 led many to suspect that landlords were using arson to displace low-income residents and convert their buildings to condos for highly paid tech workers.” https://beta.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/13/how-gentrification-caused-americas-cities-burn/?outputType=amp

“If you’re looking for a prime example of Austin’s skyrocketing home prices, look no further than the 78721 ZIP code in Far East Austin…” http://austin.culturemap.com/news/real-estate/09-05-19-rising-home-prices-austin-zip-code-78721-east-side/

Austin American-Statesman article about a upcoming web series on how gentrification in East Austin has affected three black millennials. https://www.statesman.com/news/20190706/gentrified-web-series-tells-story-of-austin-gentrification

Link to help fund production of the web series on gentrification in East Austin: https://www.gofundme.com/help-gentrified-with-post-production-costs

Scholarly article on displacement associated with transit oriented development: “The development of transportation is once again acting as a mechanism by which poor people are displaced from their homes, repeating a history in which those who would most benefit from the improvements are shut out from enjoying them, once or even before the developments reach them.” https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1233&context=jlasc

From Nick Barbaro’s Public Notice column in this week’s Austin Chronicle: “Zoned Out: The Legacy of CodeNEXT is award­-­winning Austin documentarian Steve Mims‘ direct response to the debate thus far and the gentrification threat he feels to his Rosedale neighborhood. It’s staunchly pro-preservationist and got a rave reception from a near-full house at AFS Cinema on Labor Day, and I heartily recommend it to anyone wondering what all the fuss is about. It’s just 29 minutes long, and you can stream it free on YouTube; see www.zonedoutfilm.com.”