Bouldin Creek, the neighborhood you are walking through, is one of South Austin's most beloved and contested communities, a grid of craftsman bungalows and cottage-style homes that housed working-class families for most of the twentieth century, among them a significant Mexican American population who arrived in the same waves of migration that shaped the rest of East and South Austin. The neighborhood takes its name from the creek running along its western edge, a tributary of Barton Creek that flows through a limestone gorge thick with live oaks and cedar. Bouldin Creek Café — the vegetarian institution on South 1st Street that has served tofu scrambles and house-made granola since 1995 — became a cultural anchor for the neighborhood's bohemian phase and remains crowded every weekend morning.
But Bouldin Creek has gentrified dramatically. The craftsman bungalows that once housed working-class families now sell for well above a million dollars, and the demographic shift has been nearly total. New residents coexist uneasily with the remaining long-timers, arguing over everything from short-term rentals to tree ordinances to the pace of infill development.
Bouldin Creek is a neighborhood that loves its character while struggling to understand who gets to define it.