Austin Contrarian

Mark your calendar

Jeff Jack and I will appear in-studio on David Kobierowski's "A Neighborly Conversation" (KOOP 91.7) on September 2 from 12:00-12:45.  We will discuss the Austin Neighborhoods Council, Austin development, and anything else David asks us about.

Comments problem?

A couple of readers have complained that since I switched to threaded comments, some comments are being cut off at the right margin.  Are others having this problem?  E-mails appreciated.

Raking it in

If you hadn't noticed, I started running Adsense ads this weekend.   I've often bragged that I've never earned one penny from my blog, but I can no longer honestly say that.   From this morning's Adsense report:

Do women read this blog?

If the comments are a fair sample, no.  Of the last 400 comments, 382 were left by men, 4 were left by women, and 14 were left by an indeterminate sex.

Or do women just not like to comment on blogs like this?

New look

I'm still fiddling with the colors.  But I like the 3-column format.  I switched fonts.  I'd gotten really tired of Trebuchet.

Good news on comments.  They're now threaded.  And you don't have to use captcha.

Facelift

I can not stand this blog's design.  I just can't look at it any more.  I will be giving it a facelift tonight.  Or reconstructive surgery.

Why help build someone else's web site for free?

Kevin Brass at the Chronicle has a piece questioning the start-up Austin Post's business model, which is, "Write for us for free in exchange for exposure."  Spike Gillespie, a professional writer, understandably takes exception: 

"If I want exposure, I'll hop up on the bar and take my shirt off, thank you very much," wrote Gillespie, the author of several books and a columnist with national credentials. "And how soon will the promised exposure net me invitations from still more websites willing to not pay me for my writing in exchange for still more exposure?"

I'm occasionally asked to write for other websites, and occasionally I agree.  And sometimes I agree but later regret it.

I'm not a professional writer (except when I'm writing for stuffy old judges), and I've never made any money off my blog.  I write just to be read.

So you might think that I view any exposure as good exposure.  I don't.  Exposure costs.  It takes time to write a piece -- sometimes, a long time.  Even if I'm doing little more than cross-posting, I have to rewrite my entries for the site's specific  audience.  The exposure has to be worth this cost.

The kind of exposure matters.  Obviously, the size of the other site's audience is important.  But it also has to have a bunch of readers who care about the type of stuff I write about.  Mine is a niche blog.

And exposure is not the end all and be all.  I want people to be exposed to the sum of my work, not a stray entry that they might scan for 15 seconds before the next click.  If I can't entice them to my blog with back links, I won't waste my time.   

It took me nearly three years to settle on these criteria.   But they have helped and will help me ration my time wisely.  They tell me that writing for free for a start up with a small circulation is a bad use of my time budget.    

If every blogger had my callous attitude, of course, there would be no start ups like the Austin Post.

Shrug. 

My new blog

Urban Returns.

I started Austin Contrarian to write about Austin land-use issues.  Land-use fights are bloodsport in this town; I enjoy writing about them and will continue to do so.  

But over the last three years, I've branched out.  I'm now as likely to write about urban economics, demographics, New Urbanism or some other topic that has nothing to do with Austin in particular.  Lately, I've been writing about these other things more frequently because development has dried up in Austin.

Today, about half of my readers are out-of-towners.  I don't imagine they care one jot about Austin's noise ordinance, the Waterfront Overlay Ordinance, the McMansion Ordinance or the VMU Ordinance.  On the other hand, I doubt most of my Austin readers care about the more esoteric economics or demographics I like to write about.  They started reading this blog for detailed coverage of zoning disputes.

It's gotten harder and harder to juggle these two audiences without alienating one or the other.  So I will divide my blogging.  In this blog, I will write exclusively about Austin -- zoning disputes, water rationing, city politics, congestion and all the other Austin-related topics I've covered over the years.  If an entry has a significant Austin angle, i will post it here.

At Urban Returns, I will write about everything else.

There will be some overlap.  If I think one of my Austin entries will interest out-of-towners, I will cross-post.  An example would be my entry on cul-de-sacs.  I will err on the side of cross-posting.

So:  If you read my blog for the zoning coverage or other local issues, don't go anywhere.  If you don't care about Austin zoning disputes or ponderous exigeses of the noise ordinance or the land-use code, go to Urban Returns.  You won't miss anything here.

If you're one of those who likes both, then you'll just have to add another blog to your feed reader.  Sorry.

You can subscribe to my Urban Returns feed here:

Subscribe in a reader

Or by e-mail here:

Subscribe to Urban Returns by Email

One bit of housekeeping:  I don't want separate comment threads when I cross-post.  When I cross-post I will close comments here and include a link to the cross-post at Urban Returns.  Urban Returns will have threaded comments, though (if the software is working right).  I hope that's some compensation for the inconvenience.

What does blogging crowd out?

Matthew Kahn wonders whether blog reading crowds out book reading.  He believes there are two types of blog readers:  the nerdy "Wikipedia" types who like variety and suffer from slight attention deficit order, and the "deep readers" who want to dig deep in a few subjects.  He speculates that books are substitutes for the Wikipedia nerds and complements for the deep readers.

I read more books since I've started reading blogs.  I don't buy more books, but I read more of the books I do buy.  I've always bought books on impulse but then let them sit on a shelf.  The real reason I read more books now, I think, is that I blog myself.  Books stimulate ideas for new posts, of course.  But, more importantly, I can only say the same thing a few times without getting bored.  I long ago exhausted my own stock of ideas so I have to rip off others'.  

What does my blogging crowd out?  Baseball.  Football.  I used to watch two or three baseball games a week.  I don't anymore.

Some TV, but, honestly, not that much.  My prime TV watching time has always started at 10 pm with the Simpsons.   I used to watch TV before 10, but I can't really remember what I watched, so I guess I'm watching TV more "efficiently."

Blogging crowds out some work.  I used to hustle harder for new business when I was slow.  I haven't sat down to estimate my lost earnings from blogging -- that might make me quit (blogging, that is, not work).  Still, work is work; there hasn't been too much to take from there.

I think my blogging has mostly crowded out dead time.  I don't know whether I used to just sit around staring blankly at a wall or what, but when I do the math, the time I spend on blogging and reading exceeds -- by a lot -- the time I used to spend on activities since crowded out.

My piece at Newgeography

Here.

My thesis:  Central Austin has a strikingly low percentage of families compared to the suburbs.  None of the usual explanations applies -- i.e., central Austin families (except for those in a few neighborhoods) have not abandoned central Austin because of crime, overcrowding, post-industrial blight, bad schools, or the flight of jobs to the suburbs.  The only explanation, I think, is that Austin's suburbs have better, bigger and cheaper housing.

I did not offer a prescription.  Anyone who reads this blog can guess, though.  We need more multi-family in central Austin to relieve the price pressure on single-family homes and to give households more options.  (Multi-family has many other benefits besides these, of course.)  And we need to make it easier to upgrade central Austin's generally older, smaller and inferior housing stock.   The McMansion ordinance did not cause this divide, but it certainly won't help.  (For those who don't know, the McMansion ordinance bans even relatively modest homes on some lots, homes no one would call a McMansion.)

I often experience buyer's remorse after writing a piece like this because I'm afraid my single friends will take it the wrong way.  I don't think families with children are more important or "better" than other households.  I merely think Austin's core must have a good mix of households to remain healthy.  (The suburbs would be healthier, too, if they offered singles or couples something other than inexpensive  housing in compartmentalized pods.)  Balance matters, if for no reason other than allowing us to continue using the expensive assets (like schools) already in place.  I don't think we have a good balance now.

For those interested, here is my previous piece at Newgeography.