Building “A City of Upper-Middle-Class Citizens”

Abstract

This essay documents labor market and residential segregation in Austin, Texas, in the three decades after World War Two, arguing that despite the city’s relatively progressive culture it was as racially segregated as most Northern and Southern cities during the period. In Austin, being progressive usually meant supporting New Deal policies, encouraging strong ties to the federal government, and promoting responsible, nonindustrial growth much more than fighting racial inequality or rejecting the sanctity of private property rights. Segregation, ironically bolstered by federally supported urban renewal, which undermined black property rights, helped maintain a nonindustrial image that city leaders used to market Austin as a pleasant place to live and do business for knowledge workers. The resounding defeat of open housing in 1968 maintained de facto segregation and demonstrated the fallacy of race-neutral housing policies in the South. Today, the deleterious effects of segregation and dispossession are still felt among the city’s African American and Latino residents; current economic trends mirror those from the 1960s.