Developers Seeking City Lease Label East Austin 'Tortilla Canyon'

AUSTIN, TX — Officials hoping to coax the city to relocate its municipal court to their office development indirectly refer to East Austin — a fast-gentrifying part of the city that has historically been largely populated by Hispanics — as "Tortilla Canyon" on their website.

Zydeco Development officials are trying to convince city officials to relocate the municipal court to one of their properties, a 550-acre mixed-use office space development dubbed MetCenter on Metropolis Drive near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

The office park site is well within what's referred to as Austin's "Cool Zone," as outlined by what appears to be a novelty, satire-suffused map used on the developer's website — a geographical descriptor most likely would agree is a flattering moniker. But it's when website visitors zero in on sub-sections within the so-called "Cool Zone" that terms used to describe other portions of the city could be viewed as offensive/racist at worst, culturally insensitive/tone deaf at best.

The predominantly Hispanic part of the city — particularly a portion of East Cesar Chavez near the Govalle neighborhood — is labeled as "Tortilla Canyon" on the satirical map pitching the MetCenter site. likely an allusion to the heavy Latino influence found there. While a culinary staple in the Hispanic kitchen, tortillas and other food used used as cultural metaphor is considered offensive to many.

In a Thursday article, the Austin American-Statesman was the first to report on the novelty map being used to promote the municipal court relocation plans. Patch visited the site to independently verify the map's existence and take a screen shot. Subsequent efforts by Patch to reach Zydeco Development, 901 Rio Grande St., were unsuccessful late Thursday.

The novelty map makes similar wholesale references to entire city swaths, also contingent on perceived demographics. North Austin and the northern suburbs, for example, are referred to as a "Sea of Sameness." Within that particular zone are the "same dull neighbors," "not so Jolleyville" and other pejoratively labeled geographic subsections.

Other parts of the city are referred to as the home of hippies, liberals, hipsters or techies. The map also denotes a "white fight landing zone," with attendant warnings from official warning residents against moving to the "skanky boonies."

Use of the novelty map on the website is reminiscent of a January 2016 controversy centered on a City of Austin employee's use of a similar visual aid during a formal Zoning and Platting Commission presentation. Following his suspension for use of a "Judgmental Austin" novelty map as a projected visual aid, Transportation Department consulting engineer Scott Gross ending up resigning altogether in the controversy's wake.

Related story: Investigation Launched Over City Staffer's: 'Gays, Mexicans, Blacks' Map

In that earlier incident, chunks of Austin were similarly labeled satirically based on reductive assessments related to prevailing perceptions on demographics — the city's northern portion marked as a "boring gays" zone, South Austin re-cast as "South Mexico," East Austin categorized as “blacks resisting gentrification” and the like.

Map showing the city's "Cool Zone"

Detail of "Tortilla Canyon."

>>> Uppermost image: Screen shot of satirical map found on developers' website