Why I Chose East Austin — And Why I'm Not Leaving

I'm a Black man who chose East Austin on purpose. Not because it was the cheap option, and not because I stumbled into it — but because of what this side of I-35 is, what it survived, and who still calls it home. This is the honest version of that story.

Most neighborhood blogs lead with walk scores and brunch spots. I'll get to the good stuff — and there's a lot of it — but I can't write honestly about loving East Austin without telling you why this neighborhood exists in the first place. Because the same history that makes my choice to live here personal is the history that makes this one of the most culturally important six square miles in Texas.

The Line That Built a Neighborhood

For most of the late 1800s, Austin's Black residents lived all over the city — in more than a dozen freedmen communities like Clarksville, Wheatville, and Masontown, established by formerly enslaved people after emancipation. By 1870, Austin was 37% Black. The city was, by the standards of the era, racially mixed across its geography.

That changed deliberately. In 1928, the City Council adopted a master plan — drawn up by a Dallas firm — that recommended concentrating all of Austin's Black residents into one district east of a road called East Avenue. The planners were blunt about why: racial zoning had been ruled unconstitutional, so instead they proposed building every school, park, and public service for Black citizens only in East Austin, as an "incentive" to draw the Black population there.

The push was just as deliberate as the pull. The city withheld paved roads, sewer lines, and utilities from Black neighborhoods elsewhere, and real estate redlining did the rest. Within a few years, nearly every Black resident in Austin had been funneled to the east side. Decades later, when Interstate 35 was built directly along the old East Avenue, the highway turned a line on a planning map into a wall of concrete.

I think about that number a lot. The neighborhood I chose was, in a real sense, chosen for people who looked like me almost a hundred years ago — by people who meant it as a cage. Living here on my own terms, as an owner, is its own kind of answer to that.

Why I Still Said Yes

Knowing all of that, you might ask why I'd want to plant myself here. The answer is simple: because the people who were pushed to this side of the highway built something extraordinary out of it. East Austin isn't defined by the harm done to it. It's defined by what the community made anyway — the churches, the businesses, the music, the block-by-block knowledge of who's who and what came before.

Within a few blocks of my front door is a history most people will never hear about. To understand why I said yes, you have to understand the specific neighborhood I landed in.

I live in McKinley Heights, and the story of my particular pocket of East Austin is one I wish more people knew. For decades this neighborhood was something close to a Black Mecca in Austin — the place where, if you could buy a home here, you had arrived.

The McKinley Heights I Want You to Know

This wasn't a neighborhood defined by what was withheld from it. It was defined by who chose to build a life here. McKinley Heights was home to doctors and nurses, police officers and firefighters, teachers and small business owners — a concentration of Black professional and working achievement that made an address here something to be proud of. Families put down roots, raised children, opened businesses, and looked out for one another across generations.

I won't pretend the neighborhood's arc has been a straight line. Like much of East Austin, McKinley Heights has been through real transition, and it weathered some hard stretches along the way. But the pockets of difficult years never erased what this place fundamentally is: a neighborhood with a rich, beautiful history and a deep well of community memory still living right here on these blocks.

That's why I'd ask anyone curious about this part of town to do one thing — walk it. Don't drive through McKinley Heights as if it's a thoroughfare on the way to somewhere trendier. Get out, take the sidewalks, and talk to the people who've lived here for thirty and forty years. They are the history. The folks watering their gardens and sitting on their porches carry stories most newcomers will never hear unless they slow down and ask. You can read about a neighborhood's median price all day; you can only understand McKinley Heights by meeting it on foot.

If you want the lay of the land before you walk it, our East Austin neighborhood guides are a good companion — and I'd point you to the McKinley Heights guide specifically.

The Honest Part: Gentrification

I'd be writing propaganda if I stopped there. The same desirability that drew me here has pushed many longtime residents out. As property values have climbed, families who held this neighborhood together for generations have been priced away from it — the displacement chapter of a story that started with forced concentration and is now being written in reverse.

I don't have a tidy resolution for that tension, and I won't pretend to. What I can do is be honest about it, buy and live here with respect for what came before, and use this platform to point people toward the history rather than paper over it. If you're considering a move to this side of town, I'd rather you come in with your eyes open than sell you a postcard.

If You're Thinking About East Austin

Whether you're drawn here for the history, the culture, or the simple fact that it's one of the most alive parts of the city, I'd love to help you find your place in it. Start with our East Austin neighborhood guides to get the lay of the land, browse our current featured properties, or reach out directly and we'll talk through what you're looking for.