Eliot Tretter - Shadows of a Sunbelt City

SERIES EDITORS

Deborah Cowen, University of Toronto

Nik Heynen, University of Georgia

Melissa W. Wright, Pennsylvania State University

ADVISORY BOARD

Mathew Coleman, Ohio State University

Sapana Doshi, University of Arizona

Zeynep Gambetti, Boazii University

Geoff Mann, Simon Fraser University

James McCarthy, Clark University

Beverly Mullings, Queens University

Harvey Neo, National University of Singapore

Geraldine Pratt, University of British Columbia

Ananya Roy, University of California, Berkeley

Michael Watts, University of California, Berkeley

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, CUNY Graduate Center

Jamie Winders, Syracuse University

Brenda S. A. Yeoh, National University of Singapore

Shadows of a Sunbelt City

THE ENVIRONMENT, RACISM, AND THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY IN AUSTIN

was originally published in different form as Sustainability and Neoliberal Urban Development: The Environment, Crime and the Remaking of Austins Downtown, in Urban Studies 50, no. 11 (2013): 22222227, and online before print March 6, 2013, doi: 10.1177/0042098013478234.

was originally published in different form as Contesting Sustainability: Smart Growth and the Redevelopment of Austins Eastside, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37 (January 2013): 297310. Urban Research Publications Limited.

2016 by the University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

All rights reserved

Set in 10/12.5 Minion Pro by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus

Printed and bound by Sheridan Books, Inc.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence

and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines

for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Most University of Georgia Press titles are

available from popular e-book vendors.

Printed in the United States of America

20 19 18 17 16 p 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Tretter, Eliot M.

Title: Shadows of a sunbelt city : the environment, racism, and the knowledge economy in Austin / Eliot M. Tretter.

Description: Athens : The University of Georgia Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015023654 | ISBN 9780820344881 (hardcover : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9780820344898 (paperback : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9780820349091 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Urban ecology (Sociology)TexasAustin. | RacismTexasAustin. | Knowledge economyTexasAustin. | City planningTexasAustin. | Austin (Tex.)Environmental conditions. | Austin (Tex.)Race relations. | Austin (Tex.)Economic conditions. | University of Texas at Austin. | Universities and collegesSocial aspectsTexasAustin. | Universities and collegesEnvironmental aspectsTexasAustin.

Classification: LCC HT 243. U 62 A 9795 2016 | DDC 307.7609764/31dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015023654

It is hard to thank everyone I have relied on to write this book, but below I would like to acknowledge the generous help and support of a number of people and institutions.

I would like to thank the following librarians for research assistance: Evan Hocker and Roy Hinojosa at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History; Mike Miller, Gloria Espitia, Molly Hults, Karen Riles, and Daniel Alonso at the Austin History Center; Stanley Fanaras from the National Archives; and Servando Hernandez at the Travis County Records Department. These people provided their time and support and often went out their way to find additional sources of information for me. The descriptive richness of many of the cases studies found in this book can be attributed directly to their assistance.

I also wish to thank the following individuals for allowing me to interview them: Susana Almanza, Bill Bunch, Bill Spelman, Frank Cooksey, Pike Powers, Robert Knight, Will Wynn, Jerry Rusthoven, Mark Yznaga, Glenn West, Mike Clark-Madison, Bruce Todd, Daryl Slusher, Ron Kessler, Oscar Garza, Marcos de Leon, Charles Heimsath, Mary Arnold, Cory Walton, Max Nofziger, and Michael Wilt. I learned a great deal about Austin from my conversations with all of them. Additionally, I thank Michael Kanin, Elizabeth Pagano, Nora Ankrum, and Heidi Gerbracht for connecting me with people to interview and for offering interesting interpretations of Austin events.

Several institutions and colleagues helped in various ways with this project. First, I would like to thank the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin, where I was a lecturer for many years. In particular, thanks to Leo Zonn, Kenneth Young, and Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach for supporting my affiliation with that department. In addition to conducting research with that departments support, I enjoyed teaching many classes there, especially The Modern American City. Teaching afforded me the opportunity to put a lot of the research contained in this book into a macro-analytic framework. I would also like to acknowledge the generous grant I received from UT -Austins Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis, and I thank King Davis and Eric Tang for supporting my research on segregation. Thanks also to the Department of Geography at the University of Calgary, especially John Yackel, and to the Faculty of Arts, which provided some financial support for research. Finally, I appreciate the support of current and former staff of the University of Georgia Press, and including Derek Krissoff, Beth Snead, Mick Gusinde-Duffy, John Joerschke, and Jennifer Comeau. Series editor Nik Heynen has been a real supporter of this project since I first proposed it to him many years ago. Thanks also to Erica Schoenberger and my other, anonymous reviewer, who read an earlier version of this book and provided me with valuable insights and comments.

I would be remiss not to acknowledge the myriad contributions of several professional friends. I am grateful to Richard Heyman, Benjamin Brower, Andrew Busch, Byron Miller, Robert Resch, Roger Baker, Joshua Long, Sarah Dooling, Marie Le Guen, and Bo McCarver for their feedback on earlier drafts of my manuscript. I would also like to give a special thanks to Elizabeth Mueller, who, in addition to always giving me great feedback, provided some of the data used in .

Finally, I would like to recognize the invaluable support I received from lifelong friends and family. I thank my childhood friends Joshua Rosenblatt, for his excellent copyediting, and Francis Cody, William Nelson, and Michael Roller for being intellectual peers since we were wide-eyed teenagers. I would like to thank my parents, Carl and Beryl Tretter, my grandparents, Ruth and George Tretter, and my brother, Robb Tretter, and his family for their support over the last decade. Finally, I want to thank my partner, Nevena Ivanovi, who read and edited many chapters and provided endless support and intellectual contributions. I dedicate this book to her.