For us to improve affordability in our city, and reduce congestion, we need to make
more room for people throughout Austin—remembering that we’re not just talking about
transplants from California or wherever, but new children being born in Austin all the
time. We just have to make sure that making that space comes with a real and tangible
commitment to community benefits; affordable housing, and minimizing displacement of
current residents in our communities. For this to occur, the process must be inclusive
and all voices must be heard… We must proactively reach out to all communities.
In order to do this better online, we need to remove some of the city’s bureaucratic
hurdles to doing so—for example, I don’t believe that there should be a restriction on
having a Facebook group for a city board or commission. But we also need to move
from online conversation to offline conversation; I believe the real barrier to our reaching
communities with these messages is not digital, but rather not going out into
communities and talking to people where they are.