As a May 2013 rainstorm inundated the North Side’s Shearer Hills neighborhood, a torrent running down Dellwood Drive nearly swept away a woman and her grandchildren as she tried to navigate the flood-prone street in her car.
Neighbor Erika Noriega spotted the vehicle as it came to rest against a telephone pole. Her husband and brother-in-law risked their lives to rescue the three occupants, battling water so deep and strong that enough that Noriega remembers it churned along chunks of asphalt.
After the near tragedy, the City of San Antonio undertook a $34 million drainage project in the area. However, even once its third and final phase is complete, the upgrade will stop short of the street on which Noriega and her husband’s parents, Linda and Mike Taylor, live.
Noriega’s garage still floods during rainstorms, and the Taylors installed a concrete barrier to keep runoff from washing through their backyard. The neighbors across the street spent $17,000 of their own money to change the slope of their driveway and keep floodwaters at bay, she added.
“Someone else could be swept away,” Noriega said. “It just depends on how bad the situation is.”
As Linda Taylor discussed the improvements installed by neighbors, she pointed out that the curb in some places was as low as two inches, providing little protection from rising water. The repeated flooding also eroded soil around driveways and sidewalks.
“I appreciate that the city has a massive amount of things that need to be fixed, but they need to do it the right way,” Taylor said. “We’ve been here since 1989 and we’re asking for help.”
In recent years, San Antonio’s city leaders have trumpeted efforts to more equitably deliver services while keeping up with a massive influx of new residents. In 2022, voters approved the city’s $1.2 billion bond — the city’s largest yet — which promised major investments in parks, streets, sidewalks and drainage.
However, headlines over the past two years suggest San Antonio still grapples with plenty of urban ills:
- A surge in brutal dog attacks led to the revelation that Animal Care Services was drastically understaffed and couldn’t respond to calls.
- Older neighborhoods continue to experience flooding problems despite significant bond spending on sewer upgrades.
- City officials and environmentalists waged a bitter battle over a Parks Department plan to raze trees in Brackenridge Park due to a lack of upkeep on vegetation and structures.
- Delays and contractor mishaps during construction projects shut down major business districts including downtown’s Broadway corridor and the North St. Mary’s Strip.
Some residents argue that, taken together, those troubles suggest San Antonio is slipping on its promise to deliver better and more equitable city services.
Experts said that without more data it’s hard to quantify whether city services are deteriorating. Even so, San Antonio is playing a constant game of catch-up as it struggles to overcome decades of neglect in spending on public infrastructure, they added.
No matter how large the city’s current flurry of bond projects, no matter how ambitious the work appears on paper, the efforts are seeking to undo profound damage caused by earlier leaders’ failure to equitably fund the city, said Char Miller, a professor at California’s Pomona College who’s written extensively about the Alamo City’s history.
“Overall, San Antonio is still poor. The city’s historically poor neighborhoods and dispossessed communities are still historically poor, dispossessed and unempowered,” Miller said. “So, that’s a frustrating dynamic that puts San Antonio in a very difficult place — a difficult place that it hasn’t figured out how to get out of.”
What the polls say
Miller points to the formation 50 years ago of Communities Organized for Public Service, now COPS/Metro, as a turning point in the city’s willful neglect of low-income, non-Anglo neighborhoods. The grassroots group organized residents to demand drainage, sidewalks, curbs, libraries and other basic services which wealthy parts of town appeared to have an easier time accessing.
While COPS/Metro’s organizing power forced the city to correct course, there’s still work to do, Miller said. Complicating matters, San Antonio’s flooding problems are only likely to worsen due to the climate crisis.
“Even with the amount of money San Antonio has poured into drainage since then, the city still floods,” Miller said. “The larger system in which San Antonio operates — a natural system of climate — probably is going to accelerate some of that flooding, and we’ve got to get ahead of that. Otherwise, it’s game over.”
Officials with the City of San Antonio said they strive to be responsive and transparent about how they carry out infrastructure improvements. They point to the launch of an online portal called the Road to Progress, which lets residents drill down on specific construction projects, including those involving streets, sidewalks and stormwater drainage. The site provides progress reports on the work and how money is being spent.
What’s more, city officials argue, San Antonio’s most recent community satisfaction survey, an annual poll conducted by an outside contractor, shows residents are content with city services.
“In 2022, San Antonio was the highest ranked among large Texas cities in overall satisfaction with delivery of services,” the city said in an emailed statement. “San Antonio is also among the highest ranked nationwide with levels of satisfaction that are 34% above the national average.”
In the poll, residents also said the city is moving in a positive direction — the highest overall satisfaction rate since the survey’s launch 14 years ago.
The 2023 survey won’t be out until later this year, and its results could tell a different story, observers note. For example, the high-profile dog attacks that prompted scrutiny of ACS occurred in 2023, and the delays on the St. Mary’s construction project also reached their flashpoint early that year.
Big-city struggles
As co-chair of the Historic Westside Residents Association, Leticia Sanchez has seen what it’s like to fight for improvements in a long-neglected neighborhood. While her group has won some hard-fought victories, it’s still struggling to get its infrastructure up to the level of more affluent areas.
“As we speak out, we get some funding for our neighborhoods,” she said. “It helps some, but you’re trying to make up for how many years of ignoring our infrastructure needs?”
She points to the area’s Cassiano Park as an example. Although the city’s 2022 bond includes money for its refurbishment, including a new pool, Sanchez said the damage has already been done. The park’s pool sat drained for the past three summers because the city said it couldn’t find lifeguards.
“There’s no shade anywhere at the pool,” Sanchez said. “It’s not a pool anyone would choose to work at, that’s for sure. … We need very basic things here like affordable housing and drainage.”
Pomona College’s Miller said all big cities struggle to make the most of limited resources, and parklands are frequently the first casualties of cuts. That’s a problem because urban canopies like those provided in Cassiano and Brackenridge are essential to mitigating the effects of climate disruption, he added.
While all major urban areas struggle to keep up with residents’ needs, San Antonio’s problems are intensified not just by past neglect but also by its limited ability to raise money. The Alamo City has long lagged not just coastal cities but also Dallas, Houston and Austin in corporate headquarters.
That diminished tax base makes it even harder to keep up, Miller said.
Negative trends
Trinity University urban studies professor Christine Drennon said metros across the country are struggling to address infrastructure needs as federal funding for projects diminish. That also comes as the private sector continues to grow at levels that outstrip the capabilities of existing public resources.
She points to the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge as an example. The cargo ship that struck the bridge was so massive that the structure, built when considerably smaller ships were the norm, simply couldn’t withstand the impact.
“In the public sector-private sector race, the public is losing,” she said. “Our cities are underfunded and we’re starting to pay the price.”
Drennon said leaders in San Antonio and other cities also tend to think of their investments as individual projects instead of stepping back to consider improvements that work across the entire metro. They need to shift that paradigm if they want to undo deep segregation or make it worse.
“It’s not just San Antonio,” she said. “We really have lost the ability to look at the big picture and see things in a systematic way. It’s a sign of the times.”
The current environment is made all the more difficult by Texas’ Republican leadership, which is hell-bent on punishing big cities for electing progressive leaders while balking at spending money on programs such as education or Medicaid expansion, which would help the urban poor, experts argue.
“I think the embedded racism in San Antonio’s physical-built environment is no less glaring today than it was a century ago,” historian Miller said. “It’s still an anti-union town, but that’s true of the state. And I think one of the crippling things for San Antonio is that the recent political dynamics in Austin do not favor a city that is majority-minority. [Gov.] Greg Abbott doesn’t care about those who live in San Antonio that don’t look like him, and that makes it difficult to maneuver within the city.”
Miller argues that the Alamo City’s race to play catch-up is likely to be a losing one until leaders engage in a paradigm shift that includes shutting off public funding for projects like sports arenas and developer-driven schemes couched as economic development.
Even if San Antonio hasn’t emerged as an economic dynamo like some of its Texas neighbors, it’s long prided itself as having a sterling quality of life. That will change if it’s unable to keep up with infrastructure priorities and basic services, he warns.
“If you’re underfunding the very things that make it possible to live healthy, productive lives, if the streets and drainage poses a dilemma for your house or apartment building, that’s a problem,” Miller said. “If animals roam, as animals do, and that poses real, serious health risks to people, that’s not a particularly generous environment in which to raise children and grow a family.”
Sanchez of the Historic West Side Residents’ Association said continued underfunding of neighborhoods undermines residents’ trust in city government and their willingness to take part.
“Our residents are tired,” she said. “They understand the politics, and they understand that money talks.”
Shearer Park residents Taylor and Noriega said they haven’t given up on the public process. Over recent years, they have attended neighborhood meetings, met with city staff and reached out to the District 1 City Council office, including current occupant Sukh Kaur.
They haven’t given up, but Noriega said their frustration is mounting.
“I’d like for my garage to not flood, but I’ve got four kids who I can make squeegee it out,” she said. “What concerns me is that I could have lost my husband and brother, and the problem still isn’t fixed.”
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This article appears in Apr 3-16, 2024.
