Part
01
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Part
01
Austin, TX: Issues and Challenges
The key issues/challenges that are being tackled by leaders in the U.S. city of Austin, Texas are traffic congestion and affordability.
Traffic Congestion
- Even though Austin Texas has been voted as the number one place to live in America and ranked as the fastest-growing large city in the U.S., the city leaders are reported to be tackling the major issue of traffic problems in the city.
- Due to its bad traffic congestion, Austin Texas has been recently named as one of the most traffic-congested cities in the world by TomTom.
- The problem of traffic in Austin Texas is due to the fact that it has only one interstate passing through it (Austin Texas Insider), along with a major need for financial resources for building major roadways that traverse the city to create more routes to getting around. Also, there is a need to promote more active transit to encourage people not to drive for short commutes that they could walk or bike.
Importance to the Community
- According to the Tomtom report, "Austinites spend an average of 25% more time stuck in traffic than other drivers."
- In a community survey report, it was found that 75% of the people responded that the city can't build enough roads to solve their traffic problems and 50% said that "they would rather get around town in something other than their own car." Indeed, a large percentage (79%) also was willing to support businesses that showed commitment to solutions beyond cars to improvise this condition.
What is Being Done
- The city leaders are creating volunteer initiatives such as Austin City : One Challenge, which is intended to encourage the public to think of ways to solve transportation issues, along with promoting carpooling, riding the bus, e-bike, and other mediums of transportation.
- The leaders in Austin launched the group 'Move ATX' to tackle the issue of traffic congestion involving residents to participate in adopting active commuting and ways to include financial incentives for certain businesses that show commitment to solutions beyond cars.
Stakeholders Involved
- The primary stakeholders involved in tackling this issue of traffic congestion and mobility in Austin, Texas include the city leaders from transportation naming Austin Mayor Steve Adler, Robert Spillar, Director of Transportation of the city, Austin City Manager, and Austin Assistant city manager, along with officials from North American City solutions
- Additionally, the residents of the city are involved in the initiatives taken up to overcome this challenge of traffic congestion in Austin, supported by businesses and community groups.
A Question to City Leaders
- How is the city planning to overcome the financial investment required to look for options for building new and more highways and skyway system?
Affordability
- Austin has been facing a major challenge of the affordability crisis in terms of housing supply failing to keep up with demand due to the increasing disparity in Austin’s median income and its affordable housing stock.
- The city leaders are increasingly tackling the issue of affordability to accommodate the influx of people in the city, which has become a highly desirable place to live by many people willing to move to the city for growth opportunities.
- The Austin Economic Indicators highlight that the "Austin’s affordability index fell from 54.5 to 54.3, while the national index increased from 56.4 to 56.6" and has shown a decline since 2013.
Importance to the Community
- Due to the increasing disparity in the median income of Austin residents as the demand for houses rises, it is making the property values rise and also increasing property taxes, but not with an equal amount of income rise. This has led to housing affordability crisis and most of the residents unable to afford their own homes.
- On average "about 150 people move to Austin each day while many current families are being pushed out to surrounding cities where housing is more affordable."
What is Being Done
- Austin leaders are proposing to build more affordable housing through a new plan, which would help to ease the permit requirements for developments that have at least 50% "low-income housing" in their project.
- Many community foundations have come in front to offer affordable housing and supportive services for low-income families.
- 23 affordable housing communities consisting of nearly 3,000 units have been deployed along with promoting affordability with sustainable options to homeowners.
Stakeholders Involved
- The major stakeholders involved in tackling the challenge of the affordability of Austin include city leaders, such as Austin Council members along with city real estate developers.
A Question to City Leaders
- Do we have any plan to boost the median income level /spending power of the Austin workers?
Research Strategy
To obtain the information on the key issues/challenges that are being tackled by leaders in the U.S. city of Austin, Texas, we examined various credible news articles from the city to explore the most pinching pain points being faced by the communities and being tackled by the city leaders through sources such as KVUE, Forbes, CBS Austin, Fox 7, among others.
Through the above research, we found that most of the news articles reported the major issue/challenge of affordability and traffic being handled by city leaders, which was largely affecting the residents and businesses in the region. Further, by researching through each issue in detail and exploring the reports from city council, Austin Economic Indicators, and others, the details on issue, its importance to the community, its effect, reasons, stakeholders, initiatives being taken along with one question in this subject area that can be posed to city leaders has been provided above.