I've argued before that the McMansion ordinance is anti-family. By making large homes in central Austin more scarce and therefore more expensive, it will drive families with children -- households that put a premium on living space -- to the suburbs in search of affordable housing.
This very cool map prepared by the City's demographer backs me up, at least indirectly. It graphically confirms what I've always suspected: The neighborhoods that generated the most noxious support for the McMansion ordinance are disproportionately populated by singles and DINKs. The outer neighborhoods, the ones heavily populated by married couples with children, showed little interest in the McMansion ordinance and are not covered by the McMansion ban.
This map color codes individual neighborhood blocks by the percentage of married couples with children. Here's the key:
Now take a look at the Bouldin/Travis Heights neighborhoods (the area bounded by blue), both bastions of rabid support for the McMansion ordinance:
Those swaths of yellow and pink are city blocks where MWCs make up less than 20% of the households. Note there are very few areas where MWCs make up even 30% of the households.
Let's go a little farther out, to the South Lamar area (bounded by blue):
More pink, bigger splotches of the darker colors, but MWC's are still relatively sparse. Significantly, SLNA is also covered by the McMansion ban.
Now a little farther south, where the houses are a little cheaper and a little bigger. This is roughly the Westgate/St. Elmo area:
Sharp increase in the percentage of MWC's. Very little pale yellow (0-10%), unlike Bouldin/Travis Heights, which had huge swaths. Westgate and St. Elmo are not covered by the McMansion ordinance (although they were covered by early proposals).
Last in the line: The Slaughter/MoPac area, with even bigger houses:
Family city. Needless to say, no McMansion ordinance here.
You will see a similar progression -- a gradual "thickening" of MWCs -- if you start north of downtown and work your way up to 183.
This distribution of families was not caused by the McMansion ordinance; this map is based on 2000 Census figures. But the correlation between single/DINK density and support for the McMansion ordinance is obvious and dramatic. And I think it largely explains the McMansion ordinance. The most virulent activists came from the central neighborhoods grossly underpopulated by families with children.
The neighborhoods populated by families were excluded from the discussion early on. The activists pulled this off by defining the McMansion "danger" zone to be the central Austin neighborhoods dominated by singles and DINKs. The Task Force was duly constituted with representatives from these neighborhoods. No one bothered to poll the outlying neighborhoods or give them representation on the Task Force.
We got what one would expect from looking at the demographer's map. The central neighborhoods have been "fixed" so they will become increasingly inhospitable and unaffordable for families. Many families that want to move closer to downtown will stay put. Austin will increasingly resemble places like San Francisco, where families with children have all but fled the central city.
Three other points:
1. This map is based on 2000 Census figures. My guess is that MWCs' share of the inner neighborhoods has decreased since 2000.
2. MWCs aren't the only families with children. There are lots of single-parent households and unmarried couples with children. But I'd expect neighborhoods with sparse populations of MWCs also to have sparse populations of single-parent and unmarried couple households. This map roughly corroborates this claim. It shows that the census tracts with the lowest percentage of children under 5 were grouped in central Austin.
3. The central Austin neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of married couples with children tend to be in East Austin. East Austin, perhaps coincidentally, was poorly represented on the Task Force.
