The Hispanic population of all three cities grew between 2000 and 2010, but in Austin, that growth has been tempered by a simultaneous gentrification of the East Austin barrio / black neighborhood, both just across I-35 from downtown. According to U.S. Census figures, the Hispanic presence in Central East Austin declined by 9.3 percent, and that of blacks by 27 percent. (Both groups have been pushed to the burbs.) At the same time, the white population boomed by 40 percent.
Many of those white people are hipsters, but to Patoski, that "hipness" comes at a dear price. "As hip now as east Austin appears, what made it cool was the black and Mexican ethnic aspects, and that is now basically gone," says Patoski. "They've run it all out."
Alex Scott
Jeff Liles and friends have transformed a section of Dallas's South Oak Cliff into a place even the hippest Austinites envy.
Troy Fields
Designer Judy Masliyah followed her soon-to-be-husband from Los Angeles to Austin, but quickly determined that Austin's creative scene was "just for show." Now she runs a boutique on Houston's Main Street and loves the Bayou City's cosmopolitan flair.
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This odd phenomenon has been replicated in other progressive cities such as Portland and Minneapolis. Attracted by stuff white people like such as farmers' markets, bike lanes and hipster culture, they flock in from slightly stodgier yet much more diverse cities like Houston and Dallas. Once ensconced in their ivory bastions, they look back at the chaos and hurly-burly of the places they left behind with smug self-satisfaction.
Writing on the Web site Newgeography.com, Aaron Renn wonders if they have earned the right to such snobbery. He believes that what they see as progressivism could also be interpreted as "White Flight writ large." Say you grew up in the suburbs of Dallas or Houston and would love to be in the middle of the action of the big city, but places like Oak Cliff or Houston's East End are just a little too real for you, with their methadone clinics, police sirens and 24-hour cantinas.
In Renn's view, that's where places like Austin come in. Why move to or stay in the suburbs of your square city to escape minorities and get slammed as a bigot for doing so, when you can move to some hep place like Austin and win praise for your progressivism?
"They often think that by moving to Austin they have done something great for humanity," notes Youssefnia.
Smugness about their monochromatic progressivism is just one aspect of "Austitude," a collective municipal narcissism shared by so many Austinites. To them, Austin is better, smarter, friendlier and utterly unlike everywhere else in Texas. Austitude is very prevalent not only in Austin but also in California, a prime source of migrants to Austin since the 1990s tech boom.
Tell Austinites that you live in Houston, and some will actually say to your face, "Oh, I'm so sorry." Delia Swanner, a Houston native now living in California, says she is sick of hearing Californians — even ones who've never been to any city in Texas — tell her Austin is the only place in Texas they'd consider living.
Other manifestations of Austitude drove Judy Masliyah right out of town. Back in the 1990s, Masliyah, a California native and designer of quirky, retro clothing, met her soon-to-be-husband Glover Gill in Los Angeles. Gill is a Houston-bred, then-Austin-based musician and composer whose tango-infused keyboard work appears in Richard Linklater's films. They would seem to be the perfect Austin couple, and Masliyah followed Gill there and set out her designs. At first, Masliyah enjoyed Austin somewhat, even if she chafed at Austin's creative-class hive mind. "I just really hate being told what's what, this expectation of what I am supposed to like or believe," she says.
Those misgivings turned to terror once Masliyah and Gill tied the knot, and it suddenly dawned on her that she might be living in Austin for the rest of her life. "I would have to somehow identify with it," she says. She says she "lost it" after a fashion show she put on. "After it was over, one of the models said, 'I really love your clothes. If I lived in New York or L.A., I would wear them.' That was just it for me," she says. "Austin is just for show. They want to have all this stuff like fashion shows, but only so they can say they can. Nobody wanted to wear it, but they wanted to say they had it. They weren't there, but they still wanted to act like they were there."
Later that day, Masliyah told Gill she couldn't live in Austin anymore. "So we started this half-and-half thing, living in both places. (She now owns the My Flaming Heart boutique on Main Street in Houston.) "And it's not that I don't like it there, but it's complicated my life so much, and his life, but I'm totally willing to do that. I don't have any snobbery against Texas. It's just Austin that gets under my skin."
"I'm not from here / but people tell me / it's not like it used to be / they say I should have been here / back about ten years / before it got ruined by folks like me." — James McMurtry, "I'm Not From Here" Austin boosters can say all they want about the nerd chic of the new tech sector and the reflected Hollywood glamor of the city's growing film industry, but the jewel in Austin's crown of cool has long been the music scene. And oddly enough, Austin has the shortest musical history of any big city in Texas. As late as 1963, Austin's pop music scene consisted of touring old-school country bands and cover bands working the frat-house circuit. The Austin of that time had a lot in common with Baton Rouge — both were formerly Confederate state capitals and seats of learning. About all that was different was the rainfall and the fact that chili ruled Austin and gumbo Baton Rouge.
