“One-way flight to Austin” (Page A1, Oct. 15) presents the Texas city’s growth through the eyes of two young professionals who moved from Boston, kept their existing jobs, and received 10 weeks of free rent in a luxury apartment building. Their experience may illustrate professional mobility, but it should not be mistaken for broadly shared prosperity.
What is missing is sustained attention to the people who were already there. The article acknowledges that redevelopment displaced generations of Mexican-American residents, yet quickly treats this as the “pain” Austin accepted in exchange for cheaper housing and economic growth. The newcomers receive the story’s aspirations, personalities, and future. The displaced residents receive a few paragraphs explaining the cost.
This is class and professional privilege viewed through the gentrifier’s gaze. It is an immigrant-success narrative that celebrates climbing the economic ladder without asking whether that ladder remains available to people with fewer resources, less mobility, or no Boston salary to bring with them.
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Boston certainly needs more housing, and Austin’s construction policies deserve examination. But falling rents for affluent newcomers are not, by themselves, proof of an equitable city. A fuller comparison would ask: Affordable for whom? Who benefits from development? Who is displaced? And why must longstanding communities bear the cost of making a city attractive to mobile professionals?
Growth should be measured not only by who arrives, but also by who was already there.
James A. Lomastro, PhD
Conway
I went to the University of Texas and lived in Austin for more than a decade. If you live in Austin for a long time, you will say that the city was at its greatest when you arrived. It just grows and grows and grows. With that, you get suffocating gridlock, which makes it hard to enjoy the city’s great parks and swimming pools. Try getting to Deep Eddy or Barton Springs for a cool dip from East Austin in the late afternoon and it is almost impossible. The city is unbearably hot from May through September — if you are a New Englander, the change in climate is nice during the first years but then it saps your energy.
In Austin, you soon run out of interesting things to do within a reasonable drive after you’ve done San Antonio, Fredericksburg, Enchanted Rock, etc. By comparison, Greater Boston and New England yield endless possibilities for exploration. Austin also only has a handful of walkable neighborhoods — Travis Heights, Clarksville, Hyde Park, and parts of East Austin. Those are all now very expensive because it is where the quality of life is highest and it’s where everyone wants to live. After that, it is dull urban sprawl. Lastly, the property taxes in Austin are sky high — watch out and pay attention before buying.
bnixon
BostonGlobe.com
While two young, unmarried men might find Austin appealing, the article didn’t happen to mention the flight of young women from Texas due to the life-threatening abortion laws. People training to be obstetricians and gynecologists are avoiding Texas, too. And in health care overall, Massachusetts places No. 2 and Texas is No. 30, according to US News and World Report rankings.
What life is like for two young, single men is not enough of a reason to tout Texas. And by the way, it’s boiling hot.
Lana Carlsson-Irwin
Wayland
Are young professional women reluctant to move to Texas because they know they won’t always be able to access reproductive health care, and may, in some instances, be prevented from traveling out of state for health care? What will happen when the men move to Austin and the women stay in Boston?
Teresa Bowers
Chelmsford