You say progress, I say enshittification.

What this article says: *The median apartment rent in Austin has dropped X% over the past 5 years*

What this article does not say: *Apartments in Austin cost X% less to rent now than they did 5 years ago*

It's completely possible for the cost of the average apartment in a city to go down, while the cost of existing apartments increases. How does this happen? The enshittification of rentals. Units get smaller (apartments in Austin are shrinking), they get built near highways (air pollution), they lose amenities like parking, they pop up places where they previously weren't allowed (smaller ADUs, basement units, see article), they get subdivided (landlord throws up a wall and turns a large 1br into a cramped 2br).

If supply and demand were really working the way its heralds claim, then we'd see the price of existing units going down. This article offers no evidence that this is happening. I don't believe for a minute that it is.

Instead, it's the same story as always: your rents will keep going up. You can move somewhere cheaper and shittier if you want. The people who profit will congratulate themselves while decrying the thing they actually fear: rent control.

https://www.statesman.com/story/business/real-estate/2025/05...