I hear you.
I am with you on this.
Austin had voted a few years ago to decriminalize public camping.
Gubner Abbott then gave Mayor Adler an ultimatum or two, so the City of Austin ended up having to clear out the encampments you saw and can still see today to a lesser extent.
It’s a very bad sandwich of priorities.
There was a push in the 1990s to densify Austin’s urban core. Part of this was to try to reduce impervious cover over the Edwards Aquifer, the water source for much of central Texas and Austin itself.
UT-Austin, ACL Fest, SXSW, ATX’s laidback culture and Texas’ “business-friendly” regulatory sphere all played a role in ratcheting up population inside the city.
https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/22926/austin/population
There were several boom-bust-boom tech bubbles. (Elon Musk’s projects are but part of the latest tech-bro iteration.)
So affordable housing is super-double-extra borked. All this you surely know, or knew, or got the drift in 2015.
https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/tx/austin/
Back on topic: this is why that raising of minimum wage for City workers is such a big deal. It’s pretty much a drop in the bucket especially for a single-income household family of four. But the City understands that paying a living wage, or coming closer to paying it, has real consequences, including putting pressure on other local employers. “We’ve upped our standards–up yours!” … as the saying goes.
There are plenty of us here pushing for more positive changes.
The work continues.
Have you seen what the rich eat? Blech!
Compost the rich.
Too many bioaccumulated toxins for direct consumption. Not worth the risk.
