Email, Neesha Davé, chief of staff, Office of Council Member Greg Casar, May 25, 2018

4:08 p.m.

I’m replying to you on behalf of CM Casar. Shelby is out of pocket at the moment, so I am passing this along to you. CM Casar is traveling and hard to reach today, but he offered the following responses to your questions. It’s extremely unlikely that we would be able to get anything further from him today, due to his travel. We’ve copied your questions in bold and CM Casar’s responses follow in italics.

Thank you!

Neesha

It looks for the moment like Austin has been among the more economically segregated cities but its level of division by this indicator might be on the slide. Make sense?

Yes. We have a responsibility to combat Austin's high level of segregation and gentrification, and to make sure that we become more integrated every year, rather than more segregated. That's why I'm promoting the most significant affordable housing bond in Austin's history for the ballot this year, and that's why my colleagues and I proposed the Housing Justice Agenda.

If I read right, just one study placed Austin No. 1 by this metric and that was by limiting the focus to populous areas. Agree? Is it accurate to say that all the studies consider metro areas, not just the cities proper?

The Urban Institute “Inclusive Recovery in US Cities” studied Austin as the city proper, but other studies evaluate the MSA or commuting zone. It makes sense, when studying housing segregation, to look at segregation of neighborhoods, regardless of political and taxing boundaries.

You could see how looking beyond the city proper makes sense. Consider, for example, that it’s commonplace for smaller municipalities within a larger metro area to show segregation, with some predominantly higher income and others predominantly lower income. It's also a problem that some central city neighborhoods see higher income people leave to suburbs nearby, thereby exacerbating segregation. It's also common for some lower income people to be pushed out of city limits, further away from services, also exacerbating segregation. So, while at least one study researches Austin city proper, it makes a lot of sense to me to study segregation at the MSA/commuter zone level.

Also, I am sharing below a response we fielded from John Logan of Brown University.

Other thoughts?

I believe it's accurate to say that Austin has been ranked as the most economically segregated area by one study and has repeatedly been found to be highly segregated by other studies. Whether we are the "most segregated" (as Dr. Florida describes us), or instead on the "high end" of economic segregation (as Dr. Logan describes us), we have a responsibility as a community to work hard to get off any list of most segregated cities.

Neesha Davé

Chief of Staff

Office of Council Member Greg Casar