Do Texas cities care about gentrification?
The problem of the displacement of low-income families from long-established inner city neighborhoods has become a major issue in the Texas news media. But there is reason to doubt that local governments care about the problem. Recent stories in the Austin, Houston and Dallas newspapers have all pointed out the rapid displacement of long time low income residents from neighborhoods near the downtown areas. In Houston it is Freedman’s Town, in Dallas it is West Dallas and in Austin it is East Austin. The forces at work are a combination of real estate speculators, public investment in infrastructure and the pressure of property tax increases on low-income homeowners. A conference call today with community leaders in Dallas crystallized the problem for me. The bottom line is that city governments may give lip service to concern over low-income residents being pushed out of these neighborhoods, but local officials are actually more than happy to see an increase in their property tax bases
