Austin Housing unveils online displacement 'story map' showing demographic shifts and service reach

Austin Housing staff on July 21 introduced a public online 'displacement story map' designed to show how displacement and neighborhood change have unfolded across the city and where city programs are reaching residents.

Marla Dorado (housing division manager) said the map mixes data and qualitative accounts to explain what has changed and how the department is responding. Senior planner Will Swinton Ginsberg showed maps comparing 2000 to today for predominant race/ethnicity and industry of employment and said the map uses multiple proxies to tell the displacement story because there is no single data source that directly measures who has been displaced.

Will highlighted a stark trend in the maps shown to commissioners: he said there are "no longer any census tracts in all of Austin that are predominantly black or African American," a change he attributed to decades of policies and economic change, including redlining and redevelopment. Staff also displayed program reach maps showing that services such as I Belong in Austin, community-initiated solutions and home‑repair efforts cluster in displacement-risk areas notably east of IH‑35.

Housing staff said the story map is live on the Austin Housing landing page and contains resources for residents seeking assistance, descriptions of displacement-prevention programs (including a displacement navigator program), and maps of the affordable housing portfolio. Staff asked commissioners to help share the resource; they said they will update it as new data (including census updates) arrive and welcome commissioner feedback.

Quoted: "There are no longer any census tracts in all of Austin that are predominantly Black or African American," Will Swinton Ginsberg said, summarizing patterns shown in the story map.