The Triumph of Suburbia: Despite Downtown Hype, Americans Choose Sprawl (West: credit, lawyer)

[hillcountryheart]

Originally Posted by hoffdano

It isn't so hard in the Austin area unless they think it is important to live central.

It truly sucks in most other parts of the US other than the southeast. What do you think a working middle class family in California has to do?

10 Cities With the Worst Traffic Congestion | Realtor Magazine

We have the fourth longest commute (average commute - whether this is by choice or because of traffic jams is hard to ferret out).

I live in Oak Hill. My job was in Oak Hill. Now my job is nearer Round Rock. I can't afford to move, and would struggle to requalify for a mortgage. I imagine there are many people in my situation who can't afford to move as often as their jobs move, and whose pay hasn't increase in proportion to housing costs (and the property taxes that accompany higher home values).

My best case commute? 30 minutes from home to work in no traffic. Peak times? Easily an hour each way, sometimes more. Mass transit from South Austin is non-existent (there are no plans for rail). Plans for Mopac expansion south of the river are far, far into the future.

If you rent, you have more flexibility.

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by hillcountryheart

10 Cities With the Worst Traffic Congestion | Realtor Magazine

We have the fourth longest commute (average commute - whether this is by choice or because of traffic jams is hard to ferret out).

Actually no, it says we have the 45th longest commute. Which makes sense since we are so small compared to many of those cities on the list. What we are 4th in is "congestion index" which is a metric they calculate which takes into account the difference of time it takes to commute during rush hour vs. regular traffic. Basically we have the 4th most pronounced difference between normal and rush hour traffic.

[hillcountryheart]

Originally Posted by atxcio

Actually no, it says we have the 45th longest commute. Which makes sense since we are so small compared to many of those cities on the list. What we are 4th in is "congestion index" which is a metric they calculate which takes into account the difference of time it takes to commute during rush hour vs. regular traffic. Basically we have the 4th most pronounced difference between normal and rush hour traffic.

I stand corrected.

If I could shift my commute completely, I could avoid traffic.

But adding a schoolaged kid (K-12) to the mix puts you on the traditional 8-5 schedule.

I love driving around the city in the middle of the night. I really hate it during the daytime!

[Devout Urbanist]

Originally Posted by scm53

Alex Jones has just as convincing a conspiracy theory that the world is ruled by a bunch of evil men who worship the owl, Moloch.

Careful - the black GM helicopters are hovering over your flat right now.

Right, a "conspiracy theory" invented by. . .the government! It's nice to know that you are so particular about your free-market fundamentalists.

[Bronxguyanese]

Originally Posted by hoffdano

It isn't so hard in the Austin area unless they think it is important to live central.

It truly sucks in most other parts of the US other than the southeast. What do you think a working middle class family in California has to do?

Move to cheaper Arizona.

[Devout Urbanist]

Originally Posted by scm53

Certainly, they might have bought up those streetcar lines to boost the market for their buses.

Which was not at all unethical and did not in any way reduce public transit options or encourage planners to redesign streets to accommodate cars.

[Devout Urbanist]

Originally Posted by Komeht

1. If I had to list ten items that make a city "walkable" sidewalks might make the list at 10. Way above that would be density. And way above density would be street oriented buildings. Lots of barren suburbs around Austin utterly devoid of any street life whatsoever are festooned with sidewalks. Those are not remotely walkable.

I'm not sure it's a fair comparison. People need places to walk to, and that's obviously not the case in many suburbs. In the city limits there are places to walk to, but the city just isn't pedestrian-friendly, in my opinion, which in turn encourages people who might prefer walking to drive instead.

Take Hyde Park, for instance. I would imagine that, even without a light rail, you would see a lot more people walking around there (not saying you don't see a decent amount already) if the entire neighborhood were as "festooned with sidewalks" as some of the suburbs.

Originally Posted by Komeht

2. Your characterization of Mueller in the middle of nowhere is a bit bizarre considering its adjacent to Cherrywood, 1 mile from Hyde Park, 2 miles from UT Campus, 3 miles to downtown Austin. It's increasingly becoming a destination in its own right - has the best Farmers Market in Austin, one of the best parks in Austin, soon to be homes to coolest grocery store in Austin, will be home to the Austin Children's museum this year and a whole bunch of other stuff including play houses, movie theaters, boutique hotels, shops, restaurants etc. in next 5 years. And to say its not mixed use is also a bit bizarre as just about 100% of the residents will live a 5-10 minute walk or even shorter bike ride of just about all those amenities.

I hate to criticize Mueller because I think the folks who designed it had good intentions. But then again so did the modernist architects who gave us housing projects. I'll just say a couple things. The walk from Mueller to Cherrywood or Hyde Park is exactly the kind of unpleasant experience I'm trying to get at. You have to cross a wide, poorly designed boulevard or highway. The sidewalks are slim. Cars speed by you. And there are relatively long stretches of purely residential or underdeveloped land and parking lots along the way (less true going toward Cherrywood). I can see how parents with a couple young kids would prefer driving to those two neighborhoods from Mueller, which is a total waste of gas, whereas in another city they might find it easy and fun to travel the same distance on foot. Proximity matters. But so do aesthetics and safety.

I'm sorry, but I disagree about Mueller being mixed-use. The neighborhood has clearly defined residential and commercial areas. In a truly urban environment, houses, apartments, and small business often share the same block or the commercial corridor is tightly connected to or fully-integrated into a surrounding neighborhood. Even streetcar suburbs had a greater integration of uses than what I've seen in Mueller.

[scm53]

Originally Posted by Devout Urbanist

Right, a "conspiracy theory" invented by. . .the government! It's nice to know that you are so particular about your free-market fundamentalists.

More fantasy. One assistant Senate staff counsel with an ax to grind, Bradford Snell, does not constitute "the government."

I understand you really, really, really, really want to believe this. For whatever reasons I can only imagine. Alex Jones has probably more followers than Bradford Snell, every one just as convinced about Moloch as you are about this GM "conspiracy".

[Bronxguyanese]

Originally Posted by Devout Urbanist

I pretty much agree with you. Kotkin and Florida are propagandists. One claims to represent the so-called "common man" and the other claims to speak for "the creatives." Really they're capitalizing on old tensions in American society (rural vs. urban, rustic vs. intellectual, conservative vs. liberal, blah, blah, blah). And they both attract people who share their puerile, either/or conception of the world.

I used to live in NYC (Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan) and I left partly because it is overpriced, overcrowded, and just plain overwhelming. A lot of people on both sides of this debate think it's all about choosing between NYC on the one hand and Dallas or some suburban city on the other. Like you, I prefer the middle-ground -- cities that are walkable (most daily errands can be done on foot), reasonably well-connected by public transit, and built to human scale (i.e. few, if any, high rise condos, skyscrapers, or eight-lane highways bisecting your neighborhood and destroying your view of, well, anything, like Houston), cities where owning a car is neither a nuisance nor a necessity.

Such cities exist in the U.S., but so far Austin simply is not one of them. I personally think it is going about urbanization all wrong, building high-rise after high-rise and focusing on its downtown, as if that's what it takes to become a world-class city, instead of building basic infrastructure, like sidewalks and other pedestrian friendly features, which are needed to create a more vibrant street culture throughout the city core (who the hell wants to walk by block after block of strip malls and empty fields on a slim, dilapidated sidewalk with cars speeding by you at 45 miles an hour, even if there's a light rail?). In the most walkable areas of the city walking is altogether unpleasant (I don't bike, but I'd imagine it's not much better), so it's still strange for me to hear anyone describe Austin as "urban."

The new developments either make it seem like the only people who should hope to live small and urban are twenty-somethings and rich people (the triangle, downtown condos, the domain) or they attempt to duplicate suburban-style living in the city (like Mueller, which is in the middle of nowhere and not really mixed-use). You end up with too much density in some areas and not enough in others.

So Austin is not really a mix of urban and suburban. It's a highly suburban, car-dependent city with low-density and a few walkable pockets, mostly in the area immediately surrounding downtown and the university. Cities that seem more like a mix are, Philly, Chicago, LA, D.C./Baltimore, Seattle, St. Louis, Portland, Oakland, Pittsburgh and, to a lesser extent, Houston (inside the loop).

Austin needs to do more to make the city core affordable for ordinary middle-income people, while also becoming more walkable and interconnected through transit. I'm hopeful that that will eventually happen and the city will become, in terms of design, more like the Pacific Northwest or LA county, with its densely populated, walkable enclaves connected by both highways and mass transit (people in Austin who know nothing about LA cringe when they hear this), than like, say, San Antonio or Dallas. But it has a long way to go.

I hope you have a nice time when you visit. Just keep in mind that Southwestern cities have a totally different layout and can be underwhelming at first glance, but if you're truly open to the atmosphere and the local culture (laid-back, outdoorsy, conversational, unpretentious, celebratory) you'll probably have a pleasant experience.

Joel Kotkin and Richard Florida just scheming society of its money. Richard Florida idea of creative class is a huge failure to some extent, it only works amongst hipsters and like minded folks but not with the general population of urban areas who culturally, politically, academically different from the local natives. Joel Kotkin talks suburbs, how can a millennial purchase a home before he is 30 when he or she still has to mold a career, pay off a 40,000 dollar college tuition fees while paying to live in sky high rental apartments in cities like SF, Boston, DC and NY? Plenty of millennials will have to hold back on home purchases and starting families for sometime because of debt and to top it off they need 20% monetary down payment to purchase a home according to federal banking guidelines which most do not have. But me personally I'm looking to bow or exit out of NYC due to its congestion nature, lack of jobs, affordability, constant relationship trade up and upgrades with children involved, start a new career or a decent job, and also begin the process of finding a woman and settling down and I'm aiming at few cities like Austin, Dallas, DC area, Charlotte and New Orleans. Sorry if I said Austin is mixed urban and suburban, I know that Austin mainly has a small urban core probably half a mile wide in its downtown core, with some walkwable spill over in areas like Soco and everything else is suburbs and car dependent. Just recently I had to relearn how to drive a car, yes I forgot thanks to living in a city in all my life where a car is not a necessity but an expense and a luxury. Sorry for the typos I'm typing from an android phone.

But overall I do agree with you that I'm looking for a city that is mixed use some public transit, car and walk friendly.

[Devout Urbanist]

Originally Posted by scm53

One assistant Senate staff counsel with an ax to grind, Bradford Snell, does not constitute "the government."

No kidding.

Originally Posted by scm53

I understand you really, really, really, really want to believe this. For whatever reasons I can only imagine. Alex Jones has probably more followers than Bradford Snell, every one just as convinced about Moloch as you are about this GM "conspiracy".

This from someone who gets his information from the Cato Institute.