Why Austin Residents Are Saying No to Tech Skyscrapers

The rise of offices for Elon Musk and Oracle has sent living costs soaring. Now local residents are demanding a halt to vertical expansion.

AUSTIN, Texas – Five years ago, this city was a magnet for young musicians and families looking for something cheaper than California. Today, Austin’s skyline is crowded with cranes. Major tech companies have built glass towers downtown, and with them came rents of 2,500 dollars for a 500-square-foot studio.

What used to be a local motto, Keep Austin Weird, now competes with another unofficial one: Keep Austin Housed. And the battle is being fought block by block.

The neighborhood that no longer recognizes its own people

East Austin has been the heart of working-class and Hispanic culture for decades. Its streets still hold family taquerias, auto repair shops, and single-story houses with front yards. But among those houses, empty lots with signs reading Future Mixed-Use Development or luxury apartment buildings with names like The Willow or The Archer are appearing more and more frequently.

I opened this taqueria in 1998, says Laura Mendez, 54, drying her hands on her apron. Before, my customers were construction workers, cleaning staff, single mothers. Now I get engineers asking for cauliflower tacos. I have nothing against them, but my daughter cannot afford rent here. She had to move to Kyle, 40 minutes away.

Mendez is part of East Austin United, a neighborhood coalition that started with meetings in a church and now has over 1,200 members. Their main demand is to stop construction of buildings over 20 stories in residential areas until the city presents a real affordable housing plan.

The numbers behind displacement

City data backs up the concern.

Average rent in Austin increased 43 percent between 2019 and 2024. More than 10,000 Hispanic families have left East Austin since 2018. The city approved 300 million dollars for affordable housing, but experts estimate at least 2 billion dollars are needed to offset the tech impact.

It is not that we are against economic growth, says David Chen, an urban planner and author of the report Silicon Hills, Real Consequences. The problem is that US tech cities repeat the same pattern: attract capital, build for newcomers, and push out long-term residents. Then, five years later, they wonder why they have a homelessness crisis.

The moratorium that divides opinion

Last March, the Austin City Council approved an 18-month temporary moratorium on new permits for residential buildings over 20 stories in certain eastside districts. The measure was celebrated by East Austin United and fiercely criticized by the Chamber of Commerce and several developers.

This moratorium halts investment and worsens the housing shortage, said Mark Hollinger, spokesperson for the Central Texas Builders Association. If we do not build upward, we build outward, and that means more sprawl, more traffic, and more pollution.

But residents have a simple question: build for whom?

I see new towers and I ask: where are the 1,000-dollar-a-month apartments? They do not exist, says Mendez. There are studios for 2,200 dollars and two-bedrooms for 3,800 dollars. A public school teacher cannot afford that. Neither can a waiter. What is the point of a city full of offices if the people who clean them have to drive two hours to get here?

Silicon Hills vs. the real city

The nickname Silicon Hills once sounded fun. Today, for many, it sounds like a threat. Tesla expanded its gigafactory. Oracle moved its headquarters. Google, Apple, and Meta have massive campuses in the suburbs. Average tech salaries exceed 150,000 dollars per year, while the median household income in East Austin is around 45,000 dollars.

The gap is visual and emotional. On the same avenue, a family can walk past a glass tower lit up 24/7 and, three blocks later, see a parking lot turned into an encampment of people who lost their homes during the pandemic.

I do not hate tech workers, Mendez clarifies. I hate that my city decided they matter more than us.

Is there a solution?

Several cities have tried mixed responses. Portland established fees on developers to fund social housing. Minneapolis eliminated minimum parking requirements. San Francisco, well, San Francisco remains the example of what did not work.

Austin is now trying a middle path: the temporary moratorium, an assistance fund for renters at risk of eviction, and a pilot community housing program on public land. But community leaders say it is not enough.

We need the big tech companies to pay their share, Chen demands. If Tesla or Oracle benefit from this ecosystem, they should contribute directly to an affordable housing trust. Not with voluntary donations, but with a tax tied to the number of employees they bring.

So far, none of the major companies have publicly supported that proposal.

An uncertain future

The moratorium ends in September next year. By then, East Austin United hopes to have pushed through a citizens’ initiative that permanently limits building heights in residential zones.

We do not want more feasibility studies, Mendez says. We want results. Either the city listens to us, or in ten years Austin will just be another glass bubble where no one who cooks the tacos can afford to live and eat them.

As she speaks, the taqueria’s bell rings. Two young people with laptops walk in. They order vegan tacos and pay with a card. Mendez smiles, serves them well, but her gaze drifts for a second toward the window. Outside, a crane lifts a steel beam toward what will be another building without a name yet.