AUSTIN -- A new study by the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis reveals the number of dogs in an East Austin neighborhood outnumber children two to one. Researchers say gentrification is to blame.
Ashley Goudeau sat down with University of Texas professor Eric Tang, PhD., who led the study, to discuss the details and what this says about the city's future.
Goudeau: "Dr. Tang, tell us a little bit about what prompted you all to do this study."
Tang: "Well, a few years ago, we did a survey in the neighborhood that looked at the impact of gentrification on long-term residents, people who lived there for more than 20 years. And when we put together our findings, we noticed that a good number of these residents commented on how dogs seem to be taking over children in this one neighborhood. Dogs being like a symbol of gentrification. So, we thought we'd go back and count it, figure out whether the perceptions of these long-term residents was correct. And it turned out to be correct. Dogs outnumber children two-to-one in this one East Austin neighborhood."
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Goudeau: "Let's go a little bit more into those findings. What does that say? What does that mean?"
Tang: "Well, at first we thought maybe there's just an abundance of dogs in this neighborhood. What we found is that it's not really about excessive dog ownership. Dog ownership in this neighborhood is on par with national averages. But the real story is the complete absence of children in this downtown, residential area that was, in many ways, designed with children in mind. So, between 2000 and 2016, the 17-and-under population has decreased by more than half in this area. Families who once lived there, and this was the historic so-called Negro District of Austin. An area to which many African-American families were forcibly segregated during the early part of the 20th century. This neighborhood used to be teeming with children, and as gentrification set in and as black residents were displaced from the area, so too were children. In fact, the 17-and-under population accounts for the majority of losses among African-Americans between 2000 and 2010 in this one area. So what this points to is how gentrification, or an index of gentrification, is childless neighborhoods. And one could say, 'Well, is it because the newer residents are just choosing for economic reasons not to have children, it's costly?' Well, no, because the median family incomes have more than doubled during that same period in which children have vanished from the neighborhood."
Goudeau: "Some might ask, 'Well why is this a problem?' There are just some people who decide they don't want to have kids, they'd rather have dogs. Why is that a big deal?"
Tang: "Well, the truth is that Austin has consistently, or the Austin Metropolitan Statistical Area, has consistently held steady at 25 percent children. So children have consistently comprised a quarter of the metropolitan area's population. So the question isn't are people in Austin as a whole having less kids. That's not the case. This is still a destination city for families. The real question is why are those families being priced out of the urban core? Right? And your question about what's the long term impact or why does this matter, well, if the urban core becomes increasingly wealthier and without children, that means families, or working families with children, are being pushed to the outlying areas. And this creates a condition of economic segregation, right, where our communities are not diverse economically in different areas and the likelihood of a family of, you know, working folks living next to someone with upper middle class or wealthy incomes is increasingly less likely in a city like Austin. And when you have that economic segregation, the city as a whole becomes a place where social mobility is very difficult. Whereas once we thought of cities as places where, you know, a poor kid comes and he makes good and he climbs this social ladder. Cities no longer function like that if they are this economically segregated."
Austin made headlines in 2015 when an analysis by the University of Toronto's Martin Prosperity Institute identified it as the most economically segregated city in the United States.
Goudeau: "When we look at what happens when these types of things happen, when there's not children in the urban core, when we have economic segregation, you feel it makes cities unsustainable."
Tang: "It does, it does, because people who work in the city need to be able to live in the city as well. You can't expect them to commute from an hour out. And mind you we live in a city where mass transportation, it's not known for mass transportation, let me just put it charitably. Right. And in addition to that though, what you have are schools which become more economically segregated, which means that certain areas are known as opportunity areas and other places are low opportunity areas and that is a problem as well because cities tend to thrive, communities do better when there's more diversity within different neighborhoods. And that's what cities are about, you create this density, you create class heterogeneity, right, racial heterogeneity and cities tend to do better, they function better as a result. It is unsustainable to create a situation where the urban core is reserved for those who come with means and the outlying areas are places where there's less access to health care, supermarkets, so on and so forth, are reserved for families. In the end, a city like that will not, you know, will not be beneficial for all."
Goudeau: "The other thing that's not beneficial is the impact it has on children. There are studies showing that children benefit when schools are diverse."
Tang: "Absolutely. If you look at the data, and it's a complicated analysis that one has to render, but it's true enough to say that schools that are less segregated, that are more diverse, will provide students with a more quality education than those which are more racial homogenous or segregated. In addition to that, we have to think about how some of these students who were living in neighborhoods that got gentrified, then get displaced, their education disrupted as they go to new schools. And that can't be good for their long-term achievement. And if you think about it, the extent to which gentrification moves from one neighborhood to the next, some of these children may be subject to multiple displacements, and that's something else that we need to study. What happened to these children between 2000 and the present? What happened to their educational opportunities, where did they go? Did they go to areas with greater opportunity or less? How are they fairing? These are all the things that our study doesn't quite answer but I think it provides some ground upon which other people can start doing research and figuring out what the long-term impact of displacements are."
Goudeau: "What do you hope really comes from this information? This is not simply to call Austin out, what do you really hope happens with this?"
Tang: "So, in order for this community and other communities in Austin to maintain their 17-and-under population, or perhaps even repopulate with children, you need affordable housing. Families need to find housing that is commensurate with their incomes. And right now we're seeing a widening gap between what's on the market and what people can actually afford. And so what I hope this study does is encourage city leaders, because I do believe it requires some level of public intervention, to preserve existing affordable housing, helping families who want to stay, stay and to create new affordable housing for people who make anywhere from 70 to 50 percent or below median family income. There's no way the market can provide that on its own. It can't make up for that gap on its own. We do need public, private partnerships, which, again, preserve and create new affordable housing."
Goudeau: "Have other cities been able to accomplish and achieve this?"
Tang: "You know, that's a great question. It's difficult to compare cities because each one has its own dynamics and character, but I will say that I'm heartened by some of the things I see in places like Denver where they've created a fund for affordable housing. And they use this fund, which is based off of fees from new construction, right, to create new units. You have places like Portland which have a right to return policy that prioritizes families that have lived in historic neighborhoods, like the one that we studied here in Austin, that prioritize families that have been displaced when it comes to, when new affordable housing comes on the market and becomes available, those who were displaced are prioritized for occupancy. So things like that are encouraging to me. Again, it's too soon to tell what the long-term impact of these interventions are, but it's heartening to know that some cities are at least attempting to do it, and I do hope that Austin follows suit."
Austin's rapid growth, rising property taxes and gentrification were subjects of two KVUE News Specials.
Click here to watch Boomtown, KVUE's first Live Doc that explores Austin's rapid growth.