Thursday, November 20, 2014

Observations of the East Side




Gentrification, simply put, is the shift in a community that arises from new wealthier residents and an increase of rising property taxes or increased rent, which puts financial strain on the residents currently in the area.  Further changes come in the form of new businesses both following and inspiring the influx of new residents. What follows is generally a push of the current residents beyond the boundaries of their community to even poorer areas, as their previous neighborhoods make the move from lower to middle class.

Our mission was to map the effects of the gentrification occurring in the East Austin community by analyzing the architecture, building patterns, and landscape of the area.  We sought our goal by allocating a portion of East Austin, boxed in by I-35 and Pleasant Valley Rd. in the West to East, and Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. from South to North.

19th street was renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in 1975. It wasn’t until 1993 that East 1st Street was renamed Cesar Chavez, following his death in April of that year.


We chose five smaller areas within this location, and through photos, selected conversations, and online research, were able to gather a profile of the community.  In addition, we gathered data from the housing website, Zillow, from which we were able to gain a perspective on historical prices of houses as well as the fluctuations in prices over the years, the rate of turnover, and the average age of the houses.  We also took the Hispanic origins of the names of street signs into consideration when analyzing the historical minority make-up of the East Austin neighborhood.

The origin of segregation within the Austin area can most markedly be traced to the 1928 city plan wherein city officials decided to purposely make the east side a minority segregated area.


While the plan only refers to African-Americans, it has become clear that over the following years there grew to be a high level of Hispanic population concentrated in the neighborhoods as well.


In the section of the city we observed, 20 of the 47 street names were of Spanish origin. Many of the Spanish street names were named after people or saints, such as Cesar Chavez, Adam L. Chapa Sr., Medina, San Bernard, San Marcos, Santa Rosa, Santa Rita, and a few others. On the other hand, there were only a very few street names named after people who were not of Spanish origin, such as Bob Harrison and Olander. The majority of the non-Spanish streets were more often named after environmental surroundings, such as plants. Examples of such street names in this section of the city include Cotton, Myrtle, Branch, Juniper, and Catalpa. The number of Spanish street names is significant because it shows which population of people was originally represented in this area, and it also serves as evidence of the gentrification process currently occurring.

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The progression of homes throughout the history of this area can be seen to reflect the needs of the inhabitants as dictated by their socioeconomic statuses. The older homes we found, many in disarray, were mostly bungalow craftsman style.

Craftsman homes, with signature details such as brick based porch columns topped with graduated wood pillars and pitched roofs as shown here, came out of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The Arts and Crafts movement wished to focus on traditional craftsmanship with simple forms and materials. While the original focus was on individual craftsmanship, the style became popular due to its low economic demands for materials and design. Metal filigree porch posts were popular replacements in the 1960’s for the wooden columns, which were known for rotting, due to their pre-fabrication and very low required maintenance.



These latest additions to the area, some remodeled and some blatantly new, reflect the diversity of people moving to the neighborhood through the variety of combined style elements. Many of them have stripped away awnings and porches, redoing old houses to appear more contemporary. The brand new homes reveal modern styles, where form follows function, showing right angles, exposed structures, and more industrialized materials such as concrete and steel. Having the financial ability to choose from such a variety of directions to go is not something that residents of the area have previously had.

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 Pictured are a Hispanic church and a medical center, on opposing sides of the same street.

The sign for the church is in Spanish, showing the services are held for a primarily Hispanic population.  As can be implied, the church then caters to a largely Hispanic population as well.  The hospital is very small, seems worn and outdated, and most likely preforms basic health services to a population primarily paying with Medicare and government funded healthcare.  The question arises: do the wealthy middle class residents of this neighborhood attend this church or receive treatment from this hospital? Probably not.  Certainly, it is possible that the wealthy population that lives in the area goes to Brackenridge or St. David’s across I-35.  Will this church and hospital still be here ten years from now? Or will they be replaced with expensive modern facilities catering to the burgeoning wealthy transplanted white, English-speaking population staking its claim to the area?



The Lifeworks Community Center, opened in 2010, is another project funded by Zach Topfer, the man behind the Topfer theater on Lamar and Barton springs.  Its mission is to provide counselling services to families, ranging from career counselling, family service, youth guidance, and rehabilition services.  It is not an unusal place for a community center: down the street is an ACC campus, a public park and recreation facility, and a hospital.  Though it certainly is the most modern and artistic of the community centers in the area.  The building consists of three panels stacked atop each other with three uniform textures: wood, metal, and stone.  Surrounding the building are thin piping, supporting an awning, presenting a radical modern spin on columns of antiquity.  The architecture is particularly interesting in that it reflects the image that many of the modern and wealthy developers of the area are employing, yet the building itself caters to the traditional East Austin population, those in need of community assistance.  It seems like a blurring of the lines that the housing developers of late have been so quick to draw.  Whatever the case, modern facilities and directed initiaves aimed at the wellfare of the East Austin community indicate that the radical changes occuring on the East side are not all resulting in one side’s loss.

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The gentrification process can be noticed simply by observing the neighborhoods located in the east side of Austin. As we were walking around, we often observed the situation where a brand new, modern house would be sitting directly next to a run down, old-styled house of a much smaller size.  One case in particular was that of what looked to be a hoarder, with junk and trash piled on the lawns, literally across the street from a very modern-looking house worth somewhere in the half million dollar range.  The shift in the types of businesses in the area was another sign of gentrification. There were still some small businesses, such as two vendors selling piñatas along Cesar Chavez. However, you could see that some of the small businesses were being turned into small office buildings, or new apartments, such as the one located at 1305 E 6th Street.  These small Mexican businesses were no doubt under pressure from many of the more recently built office buildings and coffee shops, and retail shops encroaching on the area.


On the corner of E 2nd street, we briefly interviewed a man who was re-painting one of the houses on the street. He told us that he was contracted to renovate the house and the individual who had bought the house was not intending to live there, but had instead bought it as an investment. He explained how this was common of those buying property in the area. He also stated that often these houses are worked on to the minimum, just enough to justify upon reselling, indicating that those purchasing are not necessarily the upper class, but instead middle class residents able to buy into the market on the East side.  Additionally, since they are able to live elsewhere during the repairs, they would most likely be somewhere in the upper middle class.


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The East Side Neighborhood in Numbers

Within the last year there were 391 properties sold, ranging from $120,000 to well over $500,000.



Currently Available:
       For Sale: 29
       Foreclosed: 2
       For Rent: 14


Houses Sold:
       Pre 2005: 185
       Post 2005: 94 (33%)


Time Spent on the Market 
(of houses currently for sale):
       1 month: 6
       3 months: 9
       >3 months: 3








Shown is a graph indicating the shift in price of one particular home on the Eastside located at 1407 Leon St. over a 10-year span.  Adjusted for inflation since 2005, the house would be worth about $140,000 today.  As shown, the value of the house, since 2005, has increased by about 1.75 times.

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So why the East side at all? It is general knowledge that Austin has been, and is continuing to be, one of the fastest growing cities in the nation. As more people rush to reap the benefits of this weird oasis of a town in the vast desert of Texas, decisions must be made. Being close to the downtown area of any city is an attractive location due to the convenience of proximity to social activities and job opportunities. As this town becomes more of a city, it is inevitable that a pattern of densely packed environments will continue to erupt all over. However, just north of downtown has long since been dictated by the expansive University of Texas (Hook’em Horns!). Following west of the inner city are the ever-affluent upper-class neighborhoods such as Clarksville and Westlake, which have no need for gentrification. The south side itself has gone through a much milder form of gentrification, that started slowly before the big boom of central Texas, and is already a solid territory of the middle-class.

There are several positive aspects that can be realized through this growth and change time period. Neighborhoods become safer and cleaner. Businesses, following the change in demands among the more stability socioeconomic crowds, move in and bring more jobs with them. However, these benefits cannot overshadow the growing pains that have thrust the low-income minority residents out of their homes. While more money may be coming into these areas, the lower income families are being pushed further east. The social class of the neighborhood may be changing, but it is not the individuals whose social status is changing.


Gentrification is a controversial topic in that it deals with the very nature of progress.  Isn’t the influx of wealth and efflux of poverty an event to be celebrated? How can a community, previously in disrepair, suddenly flourish, and this be a bad thing?  Gentrification is in equal parts the injection of wealth and the displacement of a people.  The unfortunate truth is that for all the fruits of an urban evolution - artisan bakeshops, tapas bars, and million dollar homes made out of recycled shipping containers - a community is systematically uprooted and forced out of what may have been their hometown.  Generations of their family may have lived there.  Before these poorer communities received the help they needed or achieved a natural growth, they were displaced and brushed aside by a system governed by “winner-takes-all.”




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