East Austin, Mueller to Montopolis

East Austin's line is older than the highway that now draws it. The 1928 city plan proposed a district east of East Avenue for Black residents, and in the years after it the City located the schools and parks for Black residents there and not elsewhere; East Avenue later became Interstate 35. Mexican American families settled the blocks south of East 7th Street and along the river, and East Cesar Chavez is that barrio. Mueller, to the north, is the former Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, which closed in 1999 and has been built out since as a planned neighborhood, Windsor Park is the postwar subdivisions north and east of it, and Montopolis sits across the river beside the Montopolis Bridge. 5 guides are listed below.

This is where Austin has changed fastest, and the change is part of what a buyer is buying. Close in, the land has gone from some of the city's cheapest to some of its most sought after, and the new houses on narrow lots next to the old ones are the visible result. Most of East Austin also sits east of the Balcones Escarpment on the expansive clays of the Blackland Prairie, which swell after rain and shrink in drought and move foundations more than the limestone west of MoPac does, so a structural inspection matters more here than a cosmetic one. Mueller is the exception in almost every way: new construction under one master plan, a master association with its own covenants and fee, and a share of its houses sold with income limits and resale terms attached.