A few random questions and observations from a visitor to the metroplex.

[jbarn]

Originally Posted by jason87x

Also I couldn't help but notice a bunch of crazy looking interchanges that look like they must have cost a fortune! Yet... taxes in Texas are low compared to most other states. How do they afford all this crazy stuff? I'm talking things like...

1. The Spring Valley tunnel under 75
2. stuff on the high five like all the carpool ramps
3. the tunnel underneath Addison airport
4. having several roads and even a railroad (!) underneath the convention center. Granted I shouldn't talk as part of our convention center has a freeway interchange under it. A really dangerous one at that.
5. having nearly every major road, and even many minor roads, be six lanes. in KC most are four and many important ones especially on the MO side are only two lanes.
6. the giant Calatrava bridge over the Trinity on which the other side is... a dumpy four lane road that goes nowhere?
7. building a giant park on top of the Woodall Rogers
8. seeing 75 from downtown to 635 being in an ornately carved canyon with very expensive looking structures. I couldn't see what was in the city around there from way down there on the freeway! And then I look on a map and like several important malls as well as SMU are right next to it. I just saw random midrises everywhere lol. I should have taken the frontage roads.

The answer I guess would be being the world capital of business now and having a larger tax base for lower rates.

Also...
I drove on I-45 for a bit, and couldn't help but notice it being completely rural. Why is there no development south of I-30 or 20?

There also seems to be a TON of retail. Like large shopping centers at every major blvd intersection sometimes. Plus like all the malls, several in close proximity to each other! Are they crowded much?
The ones I went to looked fairly dead on a Saturday. I do really like that there's tons of shopping, and seeing pretty much every US chain rep'd there. I told my LA friends that I had in-n-out, but not in California! (they all correctly guessed Texas)
In comparison, in JoCo and other parts of KC, everyone goes to ONE mall (Oak Park). It is very very crowded, even on random weekday afternoons. Many ordinary Saturdays can look like Black Friday for other places. In MO suburbs, nearly everyone over there crowds Independence Center, same story. Other nicer retail in wealthier parts of JoCo haven't been able to supplant it. In recent years however, KC metro has built a couple of lifestyle centers (Legends and Zona Rosa), but both are pretty far from most people, and close to each other.

I have lived here for years and have often wondered about the lack of development between Dallas and Fort Worth on I-30. As soon as you get a few miles past Downtown Dallas on I-30, development stops, and much of the area between Dallas and Fort Worth is just open land. Is it because it is a flood plain or something? I have never understood why this open land has not developed.