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Let's talk about my professional life. I (and other agents I know) have discovered that one of the big demands for homes these days has come to be an office or a room that can function as an office because one or the other or both of the spouses work at home - they telecommute. The number of folks buying homes for whom this is a requirement, not a preference, has increased over the past few years. Just something to keep in mind.
There is also a big demand for homes with nice kitchens, from what I understand. Does this mean that cooking at home represents "out of the box" thinking?
Home offices are a nice and desirable amenity, I'm sure. I wish I had one, frankly. But I don't need it to telecommute (as I mentioned, I do it several days a week at least), and I certainly wouldn't consider an anecdote from a real estate agent (no disrespect intended) to be a definitive statement on major trends in transportation.
It's still 2%, despite the fact that it is in no way "out of the box". It's old hat. It's been talked about since the late 1980s. The technology to do it has existed since that time, and it's only gotten better and more amazing at a faster rate since then. And yet, virtually no one does it.
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Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady
On the other hand, by your own statement, 2% are doing it. If that is, indeed, true, then it is still out of the box thinking. (And in 1991 it was very much out of the box because most people, never mind most workers, weren't on the internet to anywhere near the degree they are today.)
So, the definition of out of the box thinking is now defined as how few people do it? Horses and buggies are still used in places like the Amish and Mennonite country back east for everyday transportation. A tiny fraction of the population uses it. Are horses and buggies "out of the box", then, by definition? Please. Get real.
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Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady
Speaking of professions, I note from your profile that you're a Rail Director/Operations Manager for Lone Star Rail District. That wouldn't color your attitude towards a solution that results in fewer people using cars and mass transit, now, would it?
No. I use what are popularly known as "facts", such as the one that notes that 2% of the total workforce in the US telecommutes.
Does your profession color your attitude toward massive relocations of people and businesses (resulting, one would suppose, in a *lot* of activity in the real estate market)?
Actually, it does. I think massive relocation to any one area beyond what's sustainable based on the ability of the infrastructure to adapt to quickly is bad for the area and, thus, bad for business. I've been quite clear about this in other threads.
But I do think that, given what you do and its focus, what you are able or want to see as possibilities that don't revolve around your focus on that might be influenced by your occupation because that's the direction you're thinking in every work day, at the very least. Nothing wrong with that, it's just something that human beings have to watch when they're looking at larger issues. Sort of the "if what you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" syndrome that we humans are so prone to.
Actually, it does. I think massive relocation to any one area beyond what's sustainable based on the ability of the infrastructure to adapt to quickly is bad for the area and, thus, bad for business. I've been quite clear about this in other threads.
Good to know. So why suggest it as a way to solve transportation problems (as you did in one of your first posts) if it's not sustainable? By the way, your suggested solution is not simply "massive relocation to one area" - it's massive relocation across the landscape. So I'm not sure you even understand the underpinnings of your own opinion.
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Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady
But I do think that, given what you do and its focus, what you are able or want to see as possibilities that don't revolve around your focus on that might be influenced by your occupation because that's the direction you're thinking in every work day, at the very least. Nothing wrong with that, it's just something that human beings have to watch when they're looking at larger issues. Sort of the "if what you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" syndrome that we humans are so prone to.
You make a very large assumption about what I'm "...able or want to see..." without knowing all that much about me beyond my occupation, THL.
Your point is taken. But if we're going to reduce all of our arguments to ad hominems, why even listen to one another when we could simply look at each other's occupations and know all we need to know?
I have offered actual facts. You have offered magic thinking unsupported by the reality (2%!), a plan that you don't even believe is sustainable, and a 'wink wink' pseudo-argument that suggests that I don't agree with your sparkly unicorns because I actually work in the field of transportation. Not compelling.
I (and other agents I know) have discovered that one of the big demands for homes these days has come to be an office or a room that can function as an office because one or the other or both of the spouses work at home - they telecommute. The number of folks buying homes for whom this is a requirement, not a preference, has increased over the past few years. Just something to keep in mind.
Don't take a symptom and think that it necessarily has only one cause. In my life, work doesn't only get done inside the work week. In fact, most managerial level people I know fully expect to work some evenings and the not infrequent weekend day - doing it at home is one way to keep your work life anywhere near balance.
Doesn't mean there is any less requirement to commute five days a week.
Don't take a symptom and think that it necessarily has only one cause. In my life, work doesn't only get done inside the work week. In fact, most managerial level people I know fully expect to work some evenings and the not infrequent weekend day - doing it at home is one way to keep your work life anywhere near balance.
Doesn't mean there is any less requirement to commute five days a week.
This is true, if the only information we have is that they work from home. Of course, we usually have much more information than that, such as "the office is in California but both my wife and I can work wherever we want so we're living in Texas for X reason and working out of home".
Good to know. So why suggest it as a way to solve transportation problems (as you did in one of your first posts) if it's not sustainable? By the way, your suggested solution is not simply "massive relocation to one area" - it's massive relocation across the landscape. So I'm not sure you even understand the underpinnings of your own opinion.
I'm not suggesting a massive relocation of individuals, but an encouraging of companies to locate or relocate (when they're looking for new space) in areas other than one centralized area. And relocation within a city is a very different thing from relocation from one state to another. Surely you realize that.
You make a very large assumption about what I'm "...able or want to see..." without knowing all that much about me beyond my occupation, THL.
Again, not really. Every human being has blind spots based on experience, preferences, occupation, upbringing, etc. (And we all have one literal one that we literally cannot see, within our own eye.) All I'm saying is that just like everybody else, you have those blind spots and it's helpful if one realizes that one has them and takes them into account. Not easy, mind you, but helpful.
Your point is taken. But if we're going to reduce all of our arguments to ad hominems, why even listen to one another when we could simply look at each other's occupations and know all we need to know?
My point is a bit different from an argument ad hominem, though, as I hope the above has clarified. It's simply a bit of data that allows those in discussion with you to have an idea of where your particular blind spot might lie and why and, if you're open to the idea, allows you to see the same and examine your own and the arguments of others with a little added clarity and understanding. I'm not saying that you're deliberately lying in an attempt to put forth ideas that promote your business; I don't know you well enough to say that. I'm saying that, given your business and the focus that naturally comes from that, it might be more difficult for you to see the value in and easier for you to reject the value of ideas that do not fit within the parameters that your life experience and business focus have created for you (as they do for every single one of us).
I have offered actual facts. You have offered magic thinking unsupported by the reality (2%!), a plan that you don't even believe is sustainable, and a 'wink wink' pseudo-argument that suggests that I don't agree with your sparkly unicorns because I actually work in the field of transportation. Not compelling.
I believe that you were the first to pull out the argument ad hominem, were you not, with your unicorn and such analogies?
I'm not suggesting a massive relocation of individuals, but an encouraging of companies to locate or relocate (when they're looking for new space) in areas other than one centralized area. And relocation within a city is a very different thing from relocation from one state to another. Surely you realize that.
What good does it do to have companies locate or relocate to an area "other than one centralized area" unless the employees also live in that same exact area? This is just the point I'm trying to make - unless you're prepared to force families to all move within a certain number of miles from the breadwinners' employers (good luck with 2+ income households in that case), you're not doing any good whatsoever; you've just moved the problem somewhere else. The aggregate number of people in cars doesn't change much (might even go up, since the few people that are taking the bus today would likely abandon it because it's too inconvenient); what would happen in that case is that most of those people would still be on one of the congested area highways for at least a portion of their trips (and some might be on there for longer periods than before - for example, if they now need to go from South to North Austin instead of South to downtown), but then you'd also unload a bunch of them onto arterials and local roads that are simply not designed to handle anywhere near that volume. It's the old Titanic deck chairs argument.
Also - I've already explained why dispersed development is just a really really bad idea from a prosperity and cost standpoint. Concentration of capital and resources (what economists call agglomeration) cuts costs dramatically (and therefore prices for consumers), creates an economic engine that supports the entire surrounding metro area, and is much more cost effectively served by municipal services.
If you start throwing development across the landscape (which is what your plan would necessarily do, in addition to forcing families somehow to move closer to their employers), the cost of providing police, fire, sanitation, etc. goes way up because you need more resources to cover the same number of people. BUT the tax base goes down over time. So you raise your costs and lower your revenues. That's just about the very definition of unsustainability, isn't it?
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Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady
I believe that you were the first to pull out the argument ad hominem, were you not, with your unicorn and such analogies?
First of all, that's not truly ad hominem - I was ridiculing your ideas, not you personally; nor was I trying to draw any conclusions from your profession. But no, I wasn't the first to pull that out; it was ScoPro who started talking unicorns.
This is true, if the only information we have is that they work from home. Of course, we usually have much more information than that, such as "the office is in California but both my wife and I can work wherever we want so we're living in Texas for X reason and working out of home".
But it's still anecdotal and at the end of the day meaningless to the larger issue. The fact remains that only 2% of the workforce in the US routinely telecommutes. The remaining 98% are using some form of transportation, from feet to auto to bus to train to US Airways, to get to work.
Making telecommuting our preferred method to address capacity deficit is Rome and fiddle.
New office space & businesses should open in the 'burbs, Decentralize state offices. Have a moratorium on any new downtown office space and urge large older companies to move to the 'burbs where the workers are.
How has this idea been working for Austin's traffic for the past 30 years? This is exactly what Austin has been doing. Even the tax part that you said, they have been increasing taxes downtown. Not as much as you suggested 2x-3x, but more so than in the burbs. When was the last time large office space was added downtown? 2002 with the Frost Building. When was the last time before that, 1980s before the S&L disaster. Less than 1/4th of Austin office space is now downtown. Austin has 8.6 million sq feet of space downtown. Outside DT, 35 million sq feet. In a city like Austin your "tax'em carpetbaggers till they leave" isn't even necessary. The city decides if anything gets built or not, and the city clearly has no problem finding some type of tree, shrub or patch of grass to protect when it wants to make sure no offices are allowed to be built downtown. Look at the property on 3 eleven Brazos at Brazos and 5th just behind the Tiniest Bar In Texas. That was to be a 400 ft office building. Everyone and their mothers showed up to protect the pecan tree and so they changed it to an apartment building, tree is still protected in the plan, and now no one has any problem with it. When was the last time anyone showed up to protect a pecan tree in the suburbs from an office building? lol
Since the 1980's Austin has been trying to created a reverse commute city. That is why places like SW Parkway were built. It was the plan for North Austin and Research. Just look at how much push back happens ever singe time a office is planned downtown, and why none of those that people try to build ever get built. It hasn't solved our traffic problems.
Rather than just having traffic going downtown, you have traffic from one burb to another all still going right through downtown and over the lakes. It solves nothing, and has only created a much worse problem. Building offices out in the burbs doesn't mean you are building them anywhere near where people are living. The suburban sprawl in Austin is massive. You still have to get people to where they need to go. Seen the traffic in RR recently? The Y? Been to SW Parkway recently? Bee Cave Rd outside 360? 360 itself?
Trying to spread everyone out doesn't save money, it cost a lot more money. More roads. More pipes. More sewers. More utility lines. Many more miles of everything is needed. And those on the road have to travel many more miles to reach their destinations, meaning they are on the roads longer causing more congestion, requiring more investments into bigger roads. All of which still go over the lakes and right through downtown regardless of if anyone is actually going DT or just from one burb to another.
So, all of the residences that are already in those areas do not require fire, police, sanitary, etc. I see.
Think of it this way. If the businesses go where the people live (or where people already live - Dell's a good example of a business that is not downtown that moved to an existing community - yes, there's been a lot of houses built, but there were existing housing and services already there when they got there), their employees, especially those that are moving here from elsewhere to work for them, are going to be more likely to move closer to them (to existing resale housing stock, for example). There will always be some people who live across town from where they work, as there are now, but if we can reduce that substantially, and I think we can, using plain old human nature of congregating around the watering hold (place of employment), we can deal with a big chunk of the traffic problems we have without building new roads. Then, once that's done (and absolutely none of the solutions that are being come up with here are instantaneous), there will be fewer new roads that need to be built AND we'd have an idea of the best kind of mass transit to serve the area as a whole. Whatever the solution is, it is highly unlikely to be just one thing that is the magic bullet that fixes it all; it's much more likely to be a combination of solutions that all work together on the same problem.
Is this a completely thought out, every detail in place plan? Nope, just an observation of a couple of things that could put a dent in the problem, but I doubt any plan put forth on an internet forum is going to be that. Internet forums serve a different function, and are for brainstorming and coming up with ideas from a lot of different brains with a lot of different blind spots and experiences.
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