Why Housing in Austin is so expensive....

"Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness,"
2 Corinthians 9:10

[Author's Note: In the map above, the parts shaded yellow are the parts of Austin that are zoned 'single family.']

We don't agree with everything in this piece, but this is ABSOLUTELY spot on:

If you look at the laws in effect in Austin’s central neighborhoods, in the vast majority of them, they say you can only build the most expensive type of housing: a single-family home with a big yard. Mixed-income neighborhoods in the core of the city are essentially illegal. But if you look at the statistics about what kinds of homes people live in, it will show you that the vast majority of white families live in single-family homes in Austin, a minority of black and hispanic families live in single-family homes....And we’re surprised we have an affordability problem!

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New homes don’t create new wealthy people. They don’t appear out of thin air when a new home gets created. The people who are here already, if there isn’t a shiny condo for them, they’ll buy a single family home.

Look at the East Side. That’s exactly what happens when you have a restrictive housing laws. People with money will look at the housing supply there and say “Hey, this is a good place for me. I’ll just make this a shiny home and live there.” Most of the East Side is zoned for single family homes, so all that did was set it up for this wave of exclusion, because other types of housing are illegal.

Again, we don't agree with everything in there, but we still recommend reading the whole thing here.