West Campus, Austin, Texas
[1] Wheatville, encompassed by modern day West Campus, was Austin's first post-Civil War Black community.
The city excluded Wheatville from essential amenities such as trash collection, electricity, paved streets, and water services.
These discriminatory practices, combined with the influx of students and rising property prices, led many Black residents to leave Wheatville in search of better living conditions elsewhere, particularly in East Austin.
The passage of the National Housing Act (1934), a key component of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, aimed to stimulate mortgage lending and encourage construction activity to counter the economic challenges of the Great Depression.
[4] The late 1940s witnessed a significant influx of students at UT Austin, propelled by the GI Bill, which provided returning service members with access to higher education.
[5] This surge in enrollment prompted private developers to convert single-family residences into larger apartment complexes, meeting the growing demand for student housing.
The trajectory of West Campus was further shaped by the Austin Plan of 1958, which rezoned the area to accommodate dense apartment developments, setting the stage for rapid urbanization.
[4] Throughout the twentieth century, West Campus underwent continuous expansion, becoming a sought-after destination for real estate investment.
In 2004, the University Neighborhood Overlay (UNO) initiative was introduced, aimed at revitalizing the area through incentive-based redevelopment plans.
UNO incentivized developers to provide a small percentage of affordable housing in exchange for permission to construct high-rise buildings.
Despite initial concerns about preserving the neighborhood's character, UNO facilitated the construction of 52 projects since 2005, comprising over 5,000 units and 12,000 bedrooms.
As of 2009 many young professionals, faculty members of the University of Texas at Austin, and retirees live in West Campus.
As of 2009 the Austin Police Department (APD) places about half of the patrol officers from its central-west division in West Campus.
SafeHorns President Joell McNew has emphasized the urgency of addressing these safety concerns, advocating for proactive measures to ensure the well-being of students.
[14] One of the first American mass school shooting incidents took place in Austin on August 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman shot 43 people, killing 13 from the top of the University of Texas tower.
Two months later, William "Trey" Ehrhardt, a fourth-year (senior) University of Texas at Austin student, was shot dead in a robbery at his apartment.
[3] The incident prompted calls for increased safety measures at construction sites in the area, with advocacy groups like SafeHorns urging the City of Austin to inspect ongoing projects to prevent similar accidents in the future.
Greystar, the company responsible for the construction project in question, stated that it is cooperating with the Austin Police Department's investigation into the incident.
[19] In 2024, Zacharia Doar, a 23-year old Palestinian-American man, was attacked and stabbed in the chest on West 26th Street after returning rally in support of Palestinian Human rights.
[22] At approximately 10 a.m. on Sunday, March 3, Austin-Travis County EMS responded to a call at the 2500 block of Leon Street where a dead body was found in an alley.
