Interpreting City Planning in Austin’s Neighborhoods

What Are You Going to Do When They Run You Out? / ¿Qué Va Ud. a Hacer Cuando Lo Corran? East Town Lake Citizens bilingual comic on urban renewal, 1979

East Town Lake Citizens used this bilingual comic to explain urban renewal from the perspective of residents who were being asked to live with its consequences. The title, “What Are You Going to Do When They Run You Out? / ¿Qué Va Ud. a Hacer Cuando Lo Corran?,” frames redevelopment as a direct threat to remaining in place. The comic asks residents to think about rent, taxes, city plans, jobs, and whether they would still be able to afford their homes. Its format matters because it avoids the technical language often used in planning documents and instead turns urban renewal into a set of questions that residents could connect to their own lives. English and Spanish appear together, making the message accessible to residents who may have been excluded from formal planning discussions or city meetings. Rather than presenting urban renewal as improvement, East Town Lake Citizens connects it to displacement, rising costs, industrial expansion, and reduced community control. The comic shows residents that redevelopment could bring new investment while still leaving current residents with fewer choices and less security. Its directness makes the planning process feel less distant and more urgent.

Placed within Austin’s longer planning history, the comic speaks to how East Austin communities were repeatedly shaped by decisions made outside them. Earlier city planning had already helped concentrate communities of color and public services in East Austin, and urban renewal added another layer of pressure by threatening the stability of residents already living there. East Town Lake Citizens responded by creating a public-facing document that plainly named those pressures. The comic presents the community as something residents had to defend together, especially when the official language framed displacement as progress

Austin’s Neighborhood Design Manual and Neighborhood Planning Materials, November 2, 1981

Austin’s Neighborhood Design Manual presents neighborhood planning as something residents could learn and carry out themselves. The pages use diagrams, handwritten notes, planning cycles, and visual examples to explain how a neighborhood could move from identifying problems to creating resources and developing solutions. The opening page critiques rapid urban growth in Austin, especially development driven by outside investment, and links that growth to pressure on city services and a decline in neighborhood quality of life. The document does not read like a finished city report. It feels more like a guide meant to help residents understand the steps involved in organizing around planning issues.

The emphasis on “resources” is important because the manual treats neighborhoods as places with existing knowledge, relationships, and skills. Residents are encouraged to identify what already exists in their community, recognize problems, and collectively work through planning questions. Other pages use diagrams of housing layouts and neighborhood design to suggest alternatives to conventional development patterns, particularly regarding density, shared space, and local control. Planning becomes a process residents could return to repeatedly, rather than a one-time decision made by city officials.

In the context of Austin’s official planning efforts, the manual reflects a broader attempt to make participation more meaningful at the neighborhood level. City programs could create meetings, zones, and reports, but residents still needed tools that translated planning into something usable. These pages show that neighborhood organizing had an educational aspect, as residents navigated city affairs and relied on heavily illustrated materials from community leaders when using civic avenues.