This article talks specifically about Austin at the end. Contrasting Austin and San Antonio is remarkable -- in both places, African-American populations are no doubt having issues as their labor pool gets overtaken by the even cheaper one coming out of the south. But only in Austin do we see the massive decline. Gentrification factors?
Love to hear thoughts.
The neighborhood I work and previously lived in is rapidly changing. Within two blocks three, four to five story expensive apartment/condo buildings are going up. The area has been gentrifying for a decade but the pace just skyrocketed. When I first came to the neighborhood fourteen years ago there were plenty of boarded up businesses, very few thriving businesses, nothing better to eat than pizza and a bit of decent Ethiopian food. The Ethiopian place just got knocked down to build one of the condos, one of Portland's most respected restaurants is in the neighborhood now. You can buy all kinds of worthless crap on either of the hip main drags. The gentrification isn't mainly by race. I know many Black professionals and small business owners who are doing just fine, they both like seeing their home values go up and and having access to more consumer options while the bemoan the destruction of the old line Black neighborhood culture. Less affluent whites are getting pushed out as much as Blacks but the people who are replacing them are primarily White. Black men with criminal records have a hard time finding work around here. They will be priced out of the market and the next market down. I've known some of them who go out four or five days a week applying for work, they almost never get an interview. Doesn't matter that the crimes happened ten years ago, they don't get hired. When things get slim they were the first to get cut. I know a few guys like this who should be making their future but instead are getting ground down to nubs. About five years ago I was hoping for a few more murders so I might be able to buy a house in the neighborhood but now there really aren't any murders and prices are through the roof. I just bought a house last year in a neighborhood I could afford. Tax assessment says it went up 17k this year and I suspect that we are only seeing a start on a real savage jump up in prices. They are saying that the Portland area will gain about a half a million people every twenty years and we already have an urban growth boundary that is holding back sprawl but pushing up land prices. I expect this town will be like a half San Fransisco in twenty years price and density wise. I have no idea how the poor are going to be able to cope with it.