NY Times Article: Can Austin Keep Itself Weird? (Round Rock, Portland: condo, home)

[wehotex]

Originally Posted by migol84

lady, listen to what you are quoting. "paved paradise and put up a parking lot." that's what they did in the days you claim where Austin was at its greatest... putting up a crapload of parking lots everywhere. these days development is gearing towards making a dense urban and compact city without overlapping its natural environment. This isn't so difficult to understand.

Lighten up there, tex. It's a catchy jingle that comes to mind every time this happens to a cherished landmark in a city. It refers to the lot at the corner of Crescent Hts and Sunset Bl in Los angeles. the "Garden of Allah" was there for many years, then made into a parking lot which features a bank and a McDonalds.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by wehotex

Lighten up there, tex. It's a catchy jingle that comes to mind every time this happens to a cherished landmark in a city. It refers to the lot at the corner of Crescent Hts and Sunset Bl in Los angeles. the "Garden of Allah" was there for many years, then made into a parking lot which features a bank and a McDonalds.

Exactly. It's replacing Armadillo World Headquarters with a bank (that failed - karma in action). It's tearing down Liberty Lunch to partially build a building that turned into an eyesore. (Before someone jumps in and says "aren't you glad they're getting rid of the eyesore that the empty building became", yes, but if they hadn't forced the shutting down of an Austin icon, that wouldn't have been necessary.) It's replacing Las Manitas with a hotel that didn't happen and turned into, yes, a parking lot. It's trying to get rid of the Cathedral of Junk. It's surrounding The Broken Spoke with a bunch of condos whose occupants will no doubt complain about the music (and the developers pressuring James White to remove iconic parts of the Spoke). I could go on and on. That's what it means.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by riaelise

I'd rather die sprawled out. I've lived in a dense, urban environment for way too long. How I love stepping outside and not smelling exhaust, not dealing with excessive noise, and overall peace. I'm actually peeved that there is increased development in my part of town, turning a rural area into a true suburban area. Oh well.

The very thing you seem to advocate, sprawl, is the very thing that peeves you, suburbanization. If you want to remain rural then you should advocate for the city encouraging development in the urban core.

[sxrckr]

I don't know. The article puts too much emphasis on Armstrong, a person. Significant person, but not going to make or break Austin. Leslie... again, and not significant. And Houston as "stuffy"? Never heard that before.

I will agree, not a fan of the celebrity worship, which I think should be un-Austin if anything. Keep that in Los Angeles.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by sxrckr

I don't know. The article puts too much emphasis on Armstrong, a person. Significant person, but not going to make or break Austin. Leslie... again, and not significant. And Houston as "stuffy"? Never heard that before.

I will agree, not a fan of the celebrity worship, which I think should be un-Austin if anything. Keep that in Los Angeles.

I do have to agree with this. One of the very reasons that a lot of celebrities have at least second homes in Austin is that we're not all ga-ga over them (or at least we hide it well, if we are) and so they can act like normal people. I once read an interview in which Sandra Bullock said that one of the reasons she loved Austin was that when she went to the coffee shop, everyone knew here there; she was a regular, Sandy who always orders X kind of coffee, not Sandra Bullock the movie star.

Lance being an exception because he seems to want to be idolized. Leslie - well, Leslie personified a kind of Austin weird and the fact that Austin can and does love someone that different and see the person inside.

And musicians - well, yeah, we idolize some musicians, but not in quite the same way, even if we do put up statues to them.

[FueledByBlueBell]

We are all correct. How about better designed sprawl? How about master plans/road maps that can be executed over time? How about planning???

[mark311]

Isn't this really just about what the cheapest option is?

It's cheap and easy to use a "sprawling" model to build out a city. I hate that I have to buy low quality products from China every single day, but most of the time there isn't an affordable option. Go try to walk into any store and find a coffee maker that isn't made in China.

The easy and cheap route always wins out. The densest cities in the US were built up way before the cheap/China model became the norm. Any of the younger cities in the West including Austin started to grow too late. Somebody would have to lose a lot of money in order for the sprawl to stop in areas of new growth where a high density model isn't already established (either individuals, businesses, or taxpayers).

Just like it's not worth it for any companies not in China to make coffee makers, it's not worth it for most cities to promote density over sprawl because it's just too expensive and there aren't enough people that can afford the costs. I'm not saying that I'm for or against sprawl, but the only way that I can get a single family home in a safe neighborhood that feeds into good schools for under $200K is to be part of the sprawl. I don't like it, but just like everybody buying coffee makers from China, I do it because I don't think I have a better option that is affordable.

[Adamson865]

Originally Posted by mark311

but the only way that I can get a single family home in a safe neighborhood that feeds into good schools for under $200K is to be part of the sprawl.

Having just undertaken an apartment search for my move back to Austin next week, I second this comment. Either I could pay double my budget to live in the Gables-ization of downtown Austin and have to leave downtown for all my services (grocery stores and the like - there's the Central Market up at 40th & Lamar although I used to prefer the normal HEB over on Red River), or I could stay within my budget and end up in a run-down area near Rutland or Rundberg or Ben White, or I can pay a bit more and find something a bit cleaner and more secure a bit further north. I chose door #3. In the end, there was no way I could find a clean & decent apartment in a safe & sound neighborhood and stay within my budget without going far outside the "central" part of town. But, I'll be close to all the services and stores I need, and I can't envision ever going downtown for anything, so I'm cool.

[Tralfaz]

Originally Posted by Komeht

Sprawl spreads like a cancerous cell, taking over the formerly easy to get to beautiful areas that used to be a short drive outside our city. It requires more and more roads to further and further locales, over former farms, ranches, and other natural areas.

One man's sprawl is another man's property rights. Density also means having to subject yourself to HOAs, city taxes on every little thing, overlapping tax authorities, etc.

If you want to live somewhere with land planning in its DNA, move to Portland.

Speaking of Portland, there was a documentary on it and the continuous land use battles there, which got me thinking.. If a city/county wanted to have land development boundaries that steal the owners' rights to develop outside of them, the city/county should simply exempt those properties within a certain range from all property taxes. So, those outsiders would be subsidized by the city folks to repay them for the diminished value of the land (stolen by the densityphiles), and the outsiders would be able to petition to have the boundaries extended to include their land but if so they'd have to pay property tax again. Seems fairer to me than the tyranny of the majority that's currently in place in Portland and its surrounding counties.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by FueledByBlueBell

We are all correct. How about better designed sprawl? How about master plans/road maps that can be executed over time? How about planning???

Without addressing the relative merits of master planned communities or not, if you locate development in Buda, no amount of planning will move it to the center city.