Austin and San Antonio merger (Houston, Dallas: schools, living in, moving to)

[imaterry78259]

it would be nice if the two cities could merge their forces and become one dynamic MSA for the whole south central Texas region instead of trying to compete against each other.

[neddy]

As much as I love the city of SA it won't happen due to about 25 miles! If the cities were closer by 25 miles it might have happened. There has been a thread on this subject somewhere on the SA board.

[love roses]

Please, No big giant city sprawl!! I love that they are seperate entities with their own unique characteristics! Thank God for the distance. If that happened, might as well merge Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston since they are in the triangle too.

[Derek ATX]

we could call it........Metropolis........wait a minute! No, I don't think that worked out last time.

[austin-steve]

it would be nice if the two cities could merge their forces and become one dynamic MSA for the whole south central Texas region instead of trying to compete against each other.

Wait another 25 years, we're heading that way. There isn't much empty space along IH35 between SA and Austin. Many couples live in San Marcos/Buda/Kyle areas who have one spouse working in SA and another in Austin.

But our governments and local identities will always be separate and unique. San Anotonio is special in it's own way as is Austin.

[mimimomx3]

I can see them being geographically contiguous (hmmm?) but not one big city. They're just too different. Each wonderful and different!

[love roses]

Not much empty space between SA and Austin on the WEST side, since noone moves east further than downtown. So, I guess if the metropolis is on ya'lls side of the freeway, then I can live with it

[imaterry78259]

They said the same thing between LA and Orange county once

[love roses]

So, I take it LA and Orange county didn't become one giant metropolis?

[TheHarvester]

I don't know imaterry's intentions in starting this thread, but the way I interpret it is NOT that the two cities should merge into a megalopolis. The idea is to cooperate for purposes of planning, because the two cities ARE going to be connected by non-stop development within a couple decades if current trends persist.

The growth of the region presents huge challenges, strains on traffic, water and other resources. We need to cooperate to come to mutual decisions about mass transit, water usage, waste management, and other critical issues that will impact the region. There will be severe droughts, traffic nightmares, electrical outages and all the other problems associated with large sprawling urban areas. We need to protect important and unique natural spaces, create a rail or other transit system for the coming century, and stop pretending that we're living in the 1950s.

As much as I hate top-down authority, I can't ignore the fact that grass roots efforts to solve these problems fall far short of what will be needed to mitigate the impact of the tremendous growth. We also have to face the fact that another million illegal (and some legal) immigrants will be moving to the area. We need to address this situation intelligently rather than ignoring it and pretending it isn't happening.

The whole metropolis WILL be majority Hispanic very soon, as San Antonio has been for a long time, and we need to provide solutions for the problems that will arise, whether those involve strains on schools, language barriers, cultural barriers, or (worst case scenario) conflict between cultures and races. I hope it never comes down to the latter. We're less likely to face cultural "warfare" if we address the needs of people collectively rather than allowing chaotic development to occur. When systems become destabilized, they usually collapse. A certain amount of intervention is needed NOW to prevent pointless ignorant ethnic conflict. We're all human and we all need to work together to solve our mutual problems.