Understanding City of Austin Politics
There is a strong faction of anti-progressive, liberal libertarians who stymie every action that could make Austin a better place to live by voting similarly to anti-progressive, conservative libertarians, meaning the libertarian block always wins, very little progress happens, and global market forces and corporations run rampant over the city. This creates the scenarios that both of those political groups hate: more traffic, more Californians (a generic term for wealthy globe trotters who buy up property for one of their many homes, or to lease out or rent), more gentrification, and erasure of the Austin culture they, like all of us, love. Thus they maintain a cycle that only creates frustration, leading them to solidify their anti-progressive positions even more, attacking the solutions to the very problems they are, in fact, complicit in creating. All because they fear change.
