Austin city proper help. (Dallas, Fort Worth: middle-class, real estate, condos)

[yeahthatdude]

Hi, was wondering if anyone could help me with the city proper demographics, not based on statistics but what you have seen personally or from anyone who resides there. My questions are as follows:

1.)What would you say (roughly of course) the demographics of those living within the city proper are?

2.) In comparison to the above question, what would you say the demographics are during the day/night time in the city proper for shopping/eating out/nightlife etc.

Thanks for the help.

[EzPeterson]

You're probably going to need to be a little more specific about what area of the city you're looking at, as it can vary pretty dramatically.

On the whole, you have everything from students to elderly retired, although the city does skew a bit younger overall. I'd say highest population density is likely somewhere between 24-45. Racially, Austin is predominately White and Hispanic (think it's somewhere around 80-85%) - that part will hold pretty true in the "nightlife" areas, although the top end of the age range isn't as prevalent, mostly young professionals and students between 20-40.

[10scoachrick]

Unusual questions to be asking in the Fort Worth and Austin forums. I'm not sure of the size of FW, but I can drive 25 miles south of my home and still be in 'Austin proper'. Hard to estimate demographics in such a large area.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by yeahthatdude

Hi, was wondering if anyone could help me with the city proper demographics, not based on statistics but what you have seen personally or from anyone who resides there. My questions are as follows:

1.)What would you say (roughly of course) the demographics of those living within the city proper are?


2.) In comparison to the above question, what would you say the demographics are during the day/night time in the city proper for shopping/eating out/nightlife etc.



Thanks for the help.

1) not counting animals, I would say 100% human
2) during the day generally speaking I would say (again not including animals) that those eating out/nightlife/shopping are 100% human. At night I heard it may drop a bit but probably still is 99% human vs maybe 1% vampire. It is hard to say, I hate to be un-pc but do you count werewolves as humans or animals?

[Aquitaine]

Why on earth would you want to know anecdotal rather than statistical demographics? You are purposefully asking for somebody's firsthand experience which could be totally dependent on whether they decided to go out on a Thursday or a Friday, to 6th st or the Domain, or at 6:00 PM versus 11:00 PM?

Do you realize that your question is "please don't tell me how things actually are, just tell me how they seemed to you that one time"?

[yeahthatdude]

Originally Posted by EzPeterson

You're probably going to need to be a little more specific about what area of the city you're looking at, as it can vary pretty dramatically.

On the whole, you have everything from students to elderly retired, although the city does skew a bit younger overall. I'd say highest population density is likely somewhere between 24-45. Racially, Austin is predominately White and Hispanic (think it's somewhere around 80-85%) - that part will hold pretty true in the "nightlife" areas, although the top end of the age range isn't as prevalent, mostly young professionals and students between 20-40.

Thank you greatly for your assistance.
To the others:


I'm doing research on the topic of white flight to the suburbs from the innercity proper in what is/was highly segregated states/cities, and what age range and proportion of peoples have moved into or stayed in soon to be majority minority cities. This is why I am asking of anecdotal views over statistics, as I would like to see how the demographics are percieved not statistically accurate. I live in Dallas so Texas is the first on my list for obvious reasons.

So to clarify, when I say city proper I mean inner-city proper, and inner-city housing. And by demographics I mean age (young adult, adult, elderly) and specific skin color (white/hispanic/black/mixed)

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by yeahthatdude

Hi, was wondering if anyone could help me with the city proper demographics, not based on statistics but what you have seen personally or from anyone who resides there. My questions are as follows:

1.)What would you say (roughly of course) the demographics of those living within the city proper are?

2.) In comparison to the above question, what would you say the demographics are during the day/night time in the city proper for shopping/eating out/nightlife etc.

Thanks for the help.

//www.city-data.com/city/Austin-Texas.html

If you want to focus on just one part of town, click on the zip code map to find the demographics for each zip code.

[supernaut112]

To the OP:

One thing that you'll find is that many people on C-D disagree with the definition of "Austin Proper." Some will tell you that it extends to the far-flung exburbs in Williamson County, while others will stick within parameters that are close to the city center (downtown).

Anecdotally? I live in West Austin. (Newcomers refer to this as "downtown," but I actually live in a suburb.) I've never lived more than five miles away from the downtown area in my life. There are vast differences between the type of people who live "downtown" and those who live in the exburbs, to my mind.

But the best way to figure out if you want to live in a certain area is to visit it yourself. There's nothing like getting on-the-ground experience.

[homeinatx]

Originally Posted by yeahthatdude

Thank you greatly for your assistance.
To the others:


I'm doing research on the topic of white flight to the suburbs from the innercity proper in what is/was highly segregated states/cities, and what age range and proportion of peoples have moved into or stayed in soon to be majority minority cities. This is why I am asking of anecdotal views over statistics, as I would like to see how the demographics are percieved not statistically accurate. I live in Dallas so Texas is the first on my list for obvious reasons.

So to clarify, when I say city proper I mean inner-city proper, and inner-city housing. And by demographics I mean age (young adult, adult, elderly) and specific skin color (white/hispanic/black/mixed)

I think your research premise is not going to apply to the historic growth patterns in Austin. There has historically been very little white flight to the suburbs. The historically whiter areas around downtown west of 35 have always been and mostly still are the most expensive and desirable places to live in the city. There has been massive suburban growth, but that has largely been from the influx of people from the rest of Texas, the rest of the country and increasingly internationally, not from people leaving the city of Austin for the suburbs.

If anything there has been in recent years black movement from central East Austin to the suburbs under the pressures of gentrification in that part of Austin. The suburbs of Austin are increasingly racially diverse. Downtown Austin (I am not sure what you mean by inner-city: within the city limits or downtown itself?) is experiencing a residential boom with the construction of many high-rise condos, which are pretty yuppy. There are almost no public housing projects in downtown Austin, and the residential demographic there is upper-middle-class to rich. You might want to look at the City of Austin's website, which has a pretty good history of racial segregation in the city - the dividing line was the highway running through the center of the city, never the city limits and the suburbs.

If anything Austin's spatial demographics look more like a classic European city, with the wealth and power concentrated in the center and real estate getting progressively cheaper as you move further away, with the exception of areas with particularly attractive topographical features - the hills and lakes on the far west side. Many American cities now look increasingly like this. White middle -class migration to the suburbs which characterized many American cities from the 1960s to the 1980s, but never really happened in Austin has in many places been reversed. Dallas to me looks like a bit more of an anomaly here, but even there there are trends of middle-class people moving back into the city - the boom in Uptown, North Oak Cliff etc. AISD has some bad schools but many more good ones, people raise families all over the city, but for obvious reasons the suburbs may be more popular for that phase of life.

While Austin does indeed have a shameful history of racial segregation, it was never organized along the dividing line of city vs. suburb. If anything, racist policies worked to move and keep black and brown people out of the city or at least east of 35. Increasingly where you live is more determined by your income level and lifestyle choices. 200K can get you a big, new suburban house or a a small condo in central Austin or a bit of a shack in East Austin within a mile or two from downtown. How do you want to live?

That said, the big Texas cities experientially strike me now as much less racially segregated than the other U.S. cities I have lived in : NYC, Chicago and L.A. I am not saying Austin is a racial panacea - it certainly is not, but the white suburban flight as an explanation for the city's racial demographics has very little explanatory power here as far as I can see.

[austin-steve]

Originally Posted by yeahthatdude

Thank you greatly for your assistance.
To the others:


I'm doing research on the topic of white flight to the suburbs from the innercity proper in what is/was highly segregated states/cities...

When was Austin a "highly segregated city"?

Even if it once was, Austin has experienced the opposite of white flight, which is inner city gentrification.

I think you're looking at the wrong city for the research you describe.

Steve