> The very places that made Austin so hip are being demolished to make room for the hotels and office spaces needed to accommodate the flood of tourists and newcomers
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> When we arrived in Austin in
Sigh...
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> When we arrived in Austin in
Sigh...
It's a deeply human and very understandable response. Of course, that isn't the same as making good policy.
Just because something is a net gain doesn't mean some people don't lose.
> Just because something is a net gain doesn't mean some people don't lose.
See also free trade. Consumers benefit, but some workers lose.
It's possible that improvements to this public good are capitalism in action, destroying something beautiful and wonderful. But, some might see this scenario as someone attempting to capture public resources (the trail and its maintenance) for their own gain, which is one of the worst expressions of capitalism.
It's perhaps less easy to empathize with that.
I follow your line of thinking, but I think it's a bit out of context.
Yet, perhaps a government-maintained trail that someone feels entitled to treat as their private property is something less than a shining example of virtue.
> When we arrived in Austin [in 1980]
This is a game anyone can play.
What about NYC? Think it hasn't changed? It's changed a ton. Why not complain about that? How about L.A.? The whole world has changed, and will continue to change, and you can be as certain of this as of anything else.
What Austin is experiencing is a severe case of what's happening to cities all over the country. For many this is uniformly good thing but for a place like Austin, with a strong identity and cultural history (and, since the 60s, a liberal enclave in a deeply conservative state), it has very specific costs.
Far more specific than a vague sense of 'things changing'.
A lot of what's happening in Austin is a result of public policy too, and it's been so for at least two decades. The city has actively pursued its transformations. Though even if it hadn't, Austin would still have been a huge draw for refugees from California and the East Coast.