Clarksville, founded in 1871 by freedman Charles Clark as a settlement for former African-American slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War, couldn’t hold onto every part of its history. Despite the neighborhood’s roots, its demographics shifted heavily in the early 1900s as land values increased alongside city-enforced segregation. The neighborhood now occupies Austin’s second most expensive zip code , with home prices…
Austin’s Tower Vaporware: An Extremely Sad Downtown Field Guide
As the Austin skyline undergoes exponential growth, sometimes it feels like plans for new towers downtown show up every week. If you like that sort of thing, there’s never been a more exciting time to live in this city — and judging by the name at the top of this site, you can count us…
Austin Parks Department Plans Makeover for Zilker Botanical Garden
Citing a need for better use of space and traffic improvements, the City of Austin recently began a search for a consultant to help produce a master plan for the Zilker Botanical Garden . Remarkably, the request for proposals filed by the city noted that there has never been an approved master plan for the park. In 1962,…
Austin City Council Approves Delivery Robot Pilot Program
A resolution adopted unanimously this morning at a meeting of the Austin City Council will allow the deployment of personal delivery robotic devices, or PDDs , on city sidewalks. The resolution authorizes the creation of a pilot program by the Austin Transportation Department to partner with private tech companies and PDD operators to test the feasibility of battery-powered…
Two-Way Conversion on Colorado Street Hits a Speed Bump
Call me a nutty guy, but for my money, there’s no greater production house for entertainment than local government. Besides being free, which is nice, the spectacle delivers pretty much the same ballgame as national or state politics sans the escalating moral depravity you’ll often find as you scope up to those levels. Just like…
A First Look at the Line Hotel, Reinventing Austin’s Midcentury Downtown Radisson
I’ve been waiting patiently for word on the Line Hotel project remodeling the downtown Radisson at Congress Avenue and Cesar Chavez Street for the better part of a year. I’m so patient, in fact, that I mocked up some terrible renderings of what the hotel project might look like post-remodel. With these new promotional renderings from the Line Hotel’s parent…