Our neighborhood has a lot of small, older buildings, a lot of new modern buildings, some of them ugly, some of them really cool looking. There's restaurants and bars close to us, also a few big cemeteries and small parks. We're close to downtown, close to the river... Most of all our neighborhood is home to a whole bunch of our friends. The house prices and rents are lower here than most other parts of Austin, and certainly lower than other parts that are so centrally located. So it's home to a lot of artists, musicians, and people in building trades. We live a couple blocks away from a metal studio where a bunch of our friends work, and we can often get to a friend's house for dinner by walking there. Our house is also on a street that carries a lot of bike traffic, which is nice.
Trinity has recently started getting more involved in the Chestnut Neighborhood Association, working to keep developers honest. There's been a lot of new projects that involve outside money coming in and cashing in on the great central location without much regard for the scale and character of the neighborhood. We strongly support the idea that people should be able to build new projects and increase the density of the urban center, but feel that there are ways to do that without compromising the integrity of a neighborhood.
