Review of Austin (Round Rock, Georgetown, Cedar Park: apartment, hotel, high school)

[readymade]

Originally Posted by inthecut

Back in Chicago, almost 100% of the larger wealthy suburbs were loaded with parks and amenities, and the kids were quite safe....they even had a little historical recreation park in Naperville where blacksmiths would work and women would make candles and such......and many pocket neighborhood parks all over, many with adjoining muni pools......unless the modern family prefers living as a island, closing the world behind them with the genie opener, I would hope we could all have at least some "commons" to share....
after all, we are human, i presume?

Back in Chicago my husband's car engine froze & it took a week to thaw out. Back in Chicago his family & friends (one of whom lives in Naperville) do nothing but complain about the weather and how cold it is. Back in Chicago it seems as though every 3rd person is overweight. I feel very very lucky not to be living in Chicago.

[jobert]

Originally Posted by inthecut

Builders prob had those areas earmarked for development before the recent financial bust......they got lucky and maintained the green light, are proceeding, and don't really give a damn what they pave over, as long as they can sell the property to the highest bidder, and skip town.....the only ones that pay for all the overbuild overhang of retail are all of us, who deal with the traffic and aesthetic blight of the same..

I lived in a city years ago that did the same, about the same size as Austin, and they ruined several neighborhoods by retail overbuilding forever....the malls
and stores never go away once built.........some in that same city sit now with FOR LEASE signs for years....

Along these same lines, I hope they don't eff up the Muny once they figure out what to do with it...We already paved over the largest urban swath of open land in the country with Mueller, I hope the City of Austin doesn't repeat this. You are right though, once you pave over something, you can't get it back.

[TexasHorseLady]

Someone living in Central Austin is not living in "sprawl" - I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Sprawl is where people, and businesses, sprawl out from the inner core and, sometimes, engulf surrounding communities and start calling them "bedroom communities" of the city and change their nature entirely (or strive to) to make them just like everyplace else in the city and in the country.

If you live out in one of these communities or in the countryside near Austin and want to have a bunch of Big Box stores built near you for your convenience so that you don't have to drive as far as it was clear you would have to when you moved out there in the first place, you are not only living in sprawl, you're advocating it.

[llkltk]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Someone living in Central Austin is not living in "sprawl" - I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Sprawl is where people, and businesses, sprawl out from the inner core and, sometimes, engulf surrounding communities and start calling them "bedroom communities" of the city and change their nature entirely (or strive to) to make them just like everyplace else in the city and in the country.

If you live out in one of these communities or in the countryside near Austin and want to have a bunch of Big Box stores built near you for your convenience so that you don't have to drive as far as it was clear you would have to when you moved out there in the first place, you are not only living in sprawl, you're advocating it.

Don't make assumption for other people. The sprawl is all over Central Austin, look at the drag, look at the new things on Burnet. N. Austin is sprawl and it is merging with Central Austin. Your definition of sprawl isn't the same as everyone elses. Who made you the expert on sprawl?

[inthecut]

Originally Posted by readymade

Back in Chicago my husband's car engine froze & it took a week to thaw out. Back in Chicago his family & friends (one of whom lives in Naperville) do nothing but complain about the weather and how cold it is. Back in Chicago it seems as though every 3rd person is overweight. I feel very very lucky not to be living in Chicago.

I left largely because of the winters as well......but I want something more than just getting away from the cold......people say that Chicago is the best place to live in the summer, and the worst in the winter, especially those that are lucky enough to live by the beaches and lake, and enjoy all the park bike trails and such.....but the winters do suck......Minneapolis and Madison, wisc. are two other places great in the summer, and that suck beyond belief in the winters......

The metro DOES have great places for people to meet and congregate though......Bike trails everywhere...metra in all directions to DT.....lots of parks everywhere.......I've heard it said that if it was in the sunbelt, you could double the population immediately.......

Most other older cities have many places to congregate as well...Austin, being so new, really needs to work on this......take a look at a group of kids playing in a huge mega-apartment complex parking lot with no parks at all, or a suburban area with an abject lack of anything but retail complexes, and see what I mean.....Living in those areas is equivalent to the tackiest areas of Schaumburg, but even Schaumburg has parks....I can't say I saw anything like it except in some suburban areas of Phoenix and Las Vegas.....places where developers had 100% carte blanche to do as they pleased.

[inthecut]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Someone living in Central Austin is not living in "sprawl" - I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Sprawl is where people, and businesses, sprawl out from the inner core and, sometimes, engulf surrounding communities and start calling them "bedroom communities" of the city and change their nature entirely (or strive to) to make them just like everyplace else in the city and in the country.

If you live out in one of these communities or in the countryside near Austin and want to have a bunch of Big Box stores built near you for your convenience so that you don't have to drive as far as it was clear you would have to when you moved out there in the first place, you are not only living in sprawl, you're advocating it.

THL, yes, that is the technical def of the term....when exurban towns become engulfed, ala Georgetown, Cedar Park, RR, Leander, Kyle, etc....I know what the posters are trying to say though, about it FEELING sprawly when city neighborhoods become more dense with development. City neighborhoods can be bucolic as well as former towns like Leander. When they get "paved", you get the same sense of loss as those who spent years in RR pre-Dell, eating at little BBQ joints on the corners of which major franchises and big-boxes sit........

If it feels like Sprawl, it IS Sprawl, in my book, whether sweet older city neighborhoods or suburban villages.....

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by llkltk

Don't make assumption for other people. The sprawl is all over Central Austin, look at the drag, look at the new things on Burnet. N. Austin is sprawl and it is merging with Central Austin. Your definition of sprawl isn't the same as everyone elses. Who made you the expert on sprawl?

Urban Sprawl defined.

Merriam-Webster's definition of urban sprawl.

Random House's definition of urban sprawl.

Shall I go on?

For those who don't want to click the links, the definition is consistently a variation on:

"The unplanned, uncontrolled spreading of urban development into areas adjoining the edge of a city."

I didn't write the definition, I just know what it means. Apparently the term came into existence just about the time I did, by the way.

[llkltk]

Thank you Mrs. Professor.

[Dr.Mom]

Originally Posted by llkltk

Who made you the expert on sprawl?

Hey now, you asked the question.

[llkltk]

Originally Posted by Dr.Mom

Hey now, you asked the question.

I won't even bother with a response to your post. Central Austinites hate the burbs, knock it every chance they get. It's a broken record on these boards.