Exiled in Austin, TX

To live in temporal exile is to exist outside of time, confined through deliberate social, development, and infrastructural policy to a no man’s land that erases history and forecloses the future. It is a sophisticated form of oppression, whereby certain communities are not merely segregated in space but imprisoned in a warped timeline—their past achievements denied, their present needs ignored, their futures perpetually postponed for the benefit of others. 

Stand at the intersection of East 12th Street and Airport Boulevard on a July afternoon, and you'll feel temporal exile melting the rubber outsoles of your sneakers. The asphalt radiates at 120°F, with sparse mesquite and hackberry trees offering meagre shade against the punishing Texas sun. A mile away, Interstate 35 divides the city like a concrete scar, eight lanes of perpetual traffic creating a physical and psychological barrier between East and West Austin. Drive a few minutes north-west to the leafy enclave of Hyde Park, and temperatures drop by 8°F under a cathedral-like canopy of live oaks and cedar elms that the city has cultivated for generations.

This thermal divide isn't accidental. It is a manufactured chasm created through decades of systematic denial of green infrastructure to communities of colour, a direct legacy of the 1928 Master Plan that formally segregated Austin along racial lines. The stark contrast between tree-poor East Austin and verdant westside neighbourhoods like Tarrytown, where landscape architect Christy Ten Eyck creates healing gardens with “100-plus-year-old live oak trees” for wealthy homeowners, embodies the city’s racialized relationship with time itself.

Studies detail this violence, showing that Austin's traditionally Black and Hispanic Eastern Crescent communities face significantly higher heat vulnerability and related health risks than Western neighbourhoods, with heat vulnerability mapping revealing stark disparities firmly rooted in historical disinvestment and segregation patterns. The predominantly Black and Hispanic neighbourhoods east of I-35 show 68 per cent less tree coverage than affluent western areas, creating an environmental apartheid where infrastructure decisions determine which communities face heightened mortality risks.

For communities in East Austin, these patterns of environmental racism aren’t just historical artefacts—they’re active mechanisms that continue to shape who has access to breathable air, flood protection, shade, and even, ultimately, who is allowed to exist in the future city.