Of Toxic Tours and What Makes Austin, Austin

This chapter compares the mainstream (mostly white) environmental movement and the subaltern (mostly minority) environmental movement in Austin in the 1980s and 199s. It argues that, while each group responded to similar issues like sense of place, health, community cohesion, and development, disparate histories led to very different conceptions of what constituted the environment for different the different groups. While whites tended to imagine the environment as something outside human society that humans sometimes used, minorities tended to imagine the environment as something that humans were squarely inside of and often as something that was a factor in discrimination. While both movements were largely successful in their own rights, they rarely found common ground.

A Mighty Bulwark against the Blind and Raging Forces of Nature

This chapter describes Austin’s natural features and hazards, concentrating on the Colorado River system. It then investigates how Austin’s early twentieth century business and political leaders struggled to fund dams to make the river safer and to profit from it via hydroelectricity, recreation, and water supply. Finally, it demonstrates how early environmental improvements benefited whites but not other groups.

Epilogue

The epilogue looks at Austin in the twenty-first century, as the city has become a model of sustainable urban development based largely on its active and vociferous environmental community. These sustainability policies incentivized higher density growth in the urban core, which caused intense gentrification in many long-time minority communities. Minority environmental groups were unable to convince Austin’s political or environmental leaders that gentrification was an environmental issues, and thus many residents were displaced. The epilogue ends with some suggestions for mitigating the deleterious effects of the possessive investment in whiteness for Austin’s minorities.

Building a City of Upper-Middle-Class Citizens

This chapter explores intensifying segregation in the postwar era and argues that segregation was an important component of the city’s growth model. Even in a relatively liberal city like Austin, racial relations took a backseat to economic and demographic growth. City leaders used federally-sponsored urban renewal to remake the landscape, but doing so necessitated dispossessing thousands of minorities and destroying their neighborhoods. African Americans, in particular, had trouble finding new homes. By the 1970s Austin was more segregated than at any time before.

A Distinct Color Line Mutually Conceded

This chapter looks at racial geography in Austin prior to World War One. It argues that natural and manmade hazards defined the city’s geography. Minorities lived in areas that were more dangerous, dirtier, and more crowded than whites. They were forced to live among refuse and progressive reformers accepted that their lifestyles were to blame for their condition. As such, minorities were also much less healthy than whites.

Introduction

In the “new economy” we have to make sure we do not create unintended results. —Austin mayor Kirk Watson, quoted in Rosenblum, “Mayor Offers Strategy” In the twenty-first century, Austin, Texas, has become a model of dynamic, sustainable urban development. While most American cities declined under the weight of the Great Recession, Austin flourished. A litany of sources, such as ...

More and More Enlightened Citizens

This chapter looks at the nascent environmental movement in Austin in the 1960s and 1970s. It argues that, while early environmentalists achieved many victories and set the tone for later environmental issues in Austin, they also demonstrated a lack of understanding of minority issues and sometimes directly undermined minority communities. Environmentalists fought the business community and worked to maintain public open space, beautify the city, and stave off undesirable development. They sponsored a public planning initiative, Austin Tomorrow, which gave citizens a greater voice in planning Austin’s growth. But their plans often imagined minority places as sites of white middle class leisure. They also failed to incorporate minorities into Austin Tomorrow.

Industry without Smokestacks

This chapter looks at Austin’s emergent tech industry in the 1950s and 1960s and the role that the University of Texas at Austin played in that grow. It argues that the city promoted a natural landscape and environmental amenities aimed at attracting knowledge workers and non-industrial businesses. A close relationship between city leaders and university leaders emerged, personified in J. Neils Thompson who directed a university research facility and also served on the chamber of commerce. Tracor emerged as Austin’s first nationally-recognized spinoff company. The city and region grew dramatically.

Technopolis

This chapter looks at Austin’s economic and demographic growth from the 1970s to the 1990s. The University of Texas, and especially Dean of the Graduate School of Business George Kozmetsky, were central to this growth. The city, state, and university worked together entrepreneurially to generate growth in the high tech industry. The most important event was the decision of federally-sponsored research consortium Microelectronics and Computer Corporation to locate in Austin in 1983. Many other tech companies came to Austin as well, leading to dramatic growth. This growth, however, reshaped the city physically and became the impetus for a more robust and widespread environmental movement in the city.

The Playground of the Southwest

This chapter explores how abundant water because central to Austin’s identity, social life, and economy after World War Two. The dam system impounding the Colorado River allowed for business people and politicians to remake the region. New suburban areas were developed along the watershed. Tourism increased markedly and a robust economy emerged focusing on water-based recreation. By the 1960s the region began to promote its water via Aquafest, an annual celebration of the area’s water resources and local cultural attributes.