I'm currently shopping for a home in Austin. I've lived here my
entire life and have seen the growth from the ground up. I've
watched the highway fill up with cars. There's no such thing as
back roads. I've watched old neighborhoods with their old vintage,
lovely homes torn down to nothing to build modern houses. What's
been the hardest to see is new houses, new neighborhoods built on
land that had been untouched for so long. The Green Belt cluttered
by soulless houses. Builders justify the massive destruction by
saying they are energy efficient and making them very easy for
lower income people to afford.
It doesn't make sense to me to build an energy efficient home by
destroying land to do it. Why aren't Department of Housing and
Urban Development homes made energy efficient for low-income
families? Why aren't sellers motivated to get energy efficient
upgrades to increase selling power?