How much longer does Austin have? (Mercedes, Kirby: school, wages, live)

[scm53]

Originally Posted by ToddATX

You can live miserable that what you "lost" is "gone" or you can appreciate the city for what it is - which is a pretty amazing place to live. Life is change, all cities change all the time. Growing or dieing. One way or another everything is changing.

1. No one is "miserable". Makes for a nice manichean contrast in an attempt to discount other opinions. Doesn't make it the truth.

2. Population growth doesn't lead inexorably to culture change. You are confusing the two. Charleston, SC has grown rapidly over the last decade and a half, and its culture is intact.

[austin-steve]

Originally Posted by Port Pitt Ash

So it's fair to say the nature of Austin is to transform every 10 -20 years? Wonder why that is, what causes it, and how many other cities are similar?

Originally Posted by Austin97

This is key. It is almost impossible for a city to stay static.

A city is either growing or dying. If a city is growing at a typical rate of 3%/year then in 25 years it will double. 3% is just from people reproducing.

If a city is staying static that means people are leaving to balance off reproduction and so the average age will keep going up.

Static i.e. Japan. 1/3 of Japanese are elderly now, due to low birth rate, low mortality, and low (no) immigration.

Since it's in the news, Baltimore is an example of a city with falling population due to decades of mass exodus. Detroit also.

Austin's problem, as we all know, is that it stuck its head in the sand about preparing for growth. Now it's time to pay the piper.

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by love roses

It's already happening.

People were saying that 40 years ago.

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by austin-steve

Austin's problem, as we all know, is that it stuck its head in the sand about preparing for growth. Now it's time to pay the piper.

BINGO!

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by scm53

1. No one is "miserable". Makes for a nice manichean contrast in an attempt to discount other opinions. Doesn't make it the truth.

2. Population growth doesn't lead inexorably to culture change. You are confusing the two. Charleston, SC has grown rapidly over the last decade and a half, and its culture is intact.

But those types of cities are far and few in-between unless they planned ahead to keep the culture intact.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by scm53

I wouldn't say that at all. The Austin of Billy Lee Bramer's "The Gay Place" in 1962 is fundamentally the Austin of 1982 - which stayed about the same for another ten years.

It was Tech Boom I, which started right after Dell went public in '88, that started the change we see today. After Mort Meyerson took over, there was a massive national recruiting effort to rapidly build staff in sales and operations. Sematech also started operations in '88, and was another factor in the change. By '88, MCC was already spinning off companies, which also contributed. All of these entities brought new wealth - "Dell-ionaires" - to a town that had never seen ostentatiousness because there simply wasn't that much money here.

Slowed a little with the dot.com bust in '00 - did anyone think garden.com or drkoop.com were viable businesses? - then started right back up, producing new Masters of the Universe daily.

So, no - there has been a tectonic shift unlike any before it over the last twenty years.

This sounds pretty accurate to one who lived through it. There was change before, yes, but it was manageable change and didn't threaten the very identity of the city. "Keep Austin Weird" was coined as a phrase , NOT a marketing term but exactly the opposite, right about then, in reaction AGAINST the commercialization of Austin.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by pop251808

The biggest bunch of grumblers, generally speaking, seem to be those who lived or wanted to live in the suburbs 30 or 40 years ago (when Round Rock, et al. was a small town) and who STILL want to live that way. The degradation of the highways and arterial roads that made this possible in the past is the big news and the "change" that many decry. The refusal to accept mass transit for the metro area is head-in-the-sand thinking, but whatever.
For the rest of us, those who couldn't or wouldn't live in those suburban/close in small towns for whatever reasons in the past, the change has been more nuanced. The fact that city streets are somewhat more crowded and parking downtown is more dear, don't make that big a whoop to me. In fact, I suspect the "hipsters" contribute less to this phenomenon than do the huge number of goobers who have choked the suburbs. Rent is up, sure. But that plays out both ways, how many people who have been here for more than a year or two haven't bought something, and profited by it, just because it's obvious housing costs escalate in a growing city?
A static city is a dead city and Texas has plenty of them; take your pick. But leave Austin alone to do it's thing. Most Texans (and others) like it, that's why they move here.

Except that until we moved to the ranch (while still to this day owning the house in Barton Hills - my husband's there right now doing some yard work), the furthest we lived (briefly) from downtown was just north of 183, still in the Austin city limits - other than that the furthest out we lived was Highland Park, south of Northland. Longest was in Barton Hills, five minutes from downtown. Which I guess, depending on whether or not you think Austin=downtown (hint: most Austinites don't, could constitute "the suburbs".

40-odd years ago we were living on 32nd Street or on West a block off of 6th Street (in a single family house, imagine that) or ON 6th Street in a single family home or in Hyde Park (another suburb) and our friends lived next to Eastwoods Park or just off 29th Street between Guadalupe and Lamar, etc.

So, here I am, someone who hasn't ever lived in a suburb in my life, with friends ditto, all grumbling. So much for your stereotype.

[pop251808]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

...So, here I am, someone who hasn't ever lived in a suburb in my life, with friends ditto, all grumbling...

My point was, if you're trying to live on the edge of town, and are working or doing business in town, you're setting yourself up for a structural disappointment on a daily basis. Furthermore, your, and all your cohorts demand for fast roads into town are contributing to the commuter culture that is an much "not Austin" as anything I can name. There are other factors, of course, but that's a big one.

[scm53]

Originally Posted by pop251808

Furthermore, your, and all your cohorts demand for fast roads into town are contributing to the commuter culture that is an much "not Austin" as anything I can name.

Quite the straw man you have created there.

#1 - who are the cohorts demanding "fast roads into town"?

#2 - "commuter culture" is a relative term. Pretty sure people viewed the far flung suburbs of NW Hills, or before that Crestview, or before that Hyde Park as all "commuter culture". Where's the line on the map that says "this side - Austin", "that side - not Austin". Could you point to it, please?

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by pop251808

My point was, if you're trying to live on the edge of town, and are working or doing business in town, you're setting yourself up for a structural disappointment on a daily basis. Furthermore, your, and all your cohorts demand for fast roads into town are contributing to the commuter culture that is an much "not Austin" as anything I can name. There are other factors, of course, but that's a big one.

Let's see, I complain about the push to pave over Austin environs in service to Austin becoming a "big city" and point out that there are many ways to get around Austin that don't involve building new roads but using ones that are already there and you say that is demanding fast roads into town.

Added to your prior claim:

Originally Posted by pop251808
The biggest bunch of grumblers, generally speaking, seem to be those who lived or wanted to live in the suburbs 30 or 40 years ago (when Round Rock, et al. was a small town) and who STILL want to live that way.

which is not at all what you claim above was your point, makes me wonder just exactly how your logic works because it clearly doesn't take into account what people are actually saying, but what you'd LIKE for them to be saying so you can knock down the arguments they aren't making in the first place.