Three of six neighborhoods near the outskirts of Austin will be removed, or “disannexed,” from the city limits following voter approval in Saturday's election.  Are they fed up with the liberal stupidity of Austin?

https://www.kut.org/austin/2024-05-05/may-4-2024-election-disannex-city-of-austin-lost-creek-blue-good-road-river-place

They are fed up with high taxes and no to little services.

Now me, I escaped because of high taxes, city harassment and homeless stealing anything not nailed down.
Last straw was me nearly ending a homeless bum breaking in and a 12 minute apd response time.

There's a bunch of weird-ass bills passed by the lege lately on this kind of freedom theme opposing town overreach, that could be shortsighted by the people using them.  On the development side I have seen a number of developers using the recent 2023 law that allows them to basically opt-out of being in a town's ETJ (Extra-territorial jurisdiction, the area where a town expects to annex sometime soon).  Then the news article is the wealthy neighborhoods wanting to form their own suburbs.  There's a big fight right now in Georgia now for one of Atlanta's big suburbs I think.  This all seems fine to have more control over your local government, and maybe lower taxes not being in a town at all, but then you are on a pretty small island of self-responsibility.  The water, sewer and roads seem nice when the developer has just built them and bundled them into the cost of your house.  But in 30-50 years they will need to be replaced with a very large bill.  If you're in town there's a larger pool to pull from, at the cost of you paying for other people's stuff sometimes too.  But in your independent neighborhood it's just you and the neighbors.  That's where you see the horror stories of giant bills for road, water, sewer repairs.  At least in a condo building when there are joint expenses there will rules for a special assessment to pay for the vital infrastructure.  I don't know how it works in a neighborhood like that.

The real bitch-ass move is when a developer cheaps out on the private roads and utilities on a site, then the people petition to be annexed into a town.  Then the town is on the hook for fixing and then maintaining the infrastructure, while the homeowners get the advantage of cheaper houses to start.  But this is not related to the recent legislative activity

Bigger towns don't tend to have nicer roads than smaller towns, although just about everywhere I go has pretty bad roads, small, big, highways, interstates.  Good thing we pay high taxes

High taxes with little in the way of city services. Very little law enforcement, long fire department wait times, lack of bulk trash pickup, little attention to municipal services. Why bother being a part of Austin when city hall ignores entire neighborhoods. Some areas go weeks without a single patrol car going through.

Sounds like another area I know.

Is there a theme?

word to wise...

Don't have nicer roads YET.  We will see how the systems work out as more of the suburbs get into the second and third life cycles of their infrastructure.  Most in North Texas are still in the first life cycle.  All cities and suburbs have a development cycle, they are just at different places on it.  Dallas is having to replace all their stuff and is screwed... Richardson and Garland starting to feel the pinch (even my relatively late part of Richardson was 40 years old)... Plano about to start maintaining rather than buildind... Frisco shiny new.  Some places can attempt to get their property values up enough that single family homes can support decent infrastructure and services (Highland Park), or diversity with offices and commercial.

There is an argument that the center of this diagram does exist in "rural living"...  But only at very low levels of services.  
Attached File


For more info, I'd recommend Strong Towns

The vote passed?  Awesome.

Yeah, one neighborhood had 100% vote to de-annex. Of course only one person voted.

Is it possible to bring this to other cities?

I'd rather join the county than be apart of the city.