Is America's suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare? (New Braunfels, San Marcos: income, work)

[south-to-west]

Originally Posted by austinnetx

Its the big cities like Dallas that are behind the times and playing catch-up, not suburbia.

Right 'cause there isn't any residential development located adjacent to commercial development in Uptown or Downtown.

Originally Posted by austinnetx

We already have mixed development. Travel up and down the Tollway and George Bush. Look at Las Colinas or Irving or Midway Road or Lewisville. The suburbs have done a great job at master planning with mixed use. Most businesses are not 8-5, but more like 7 to 7 and many industries are 24x7 such as data centers and call centers.

Yeah because the area along George Bush is very walkable. Also it's amazing how data centers and call centers add to the vibrancy of an area.

Originally Posted by austinnetx

You need ALOT Of homes to make certain types of stores profitable and for boutique stores to flourish. And they have to be within 10 minutes travel to make it convenient for shoppers. Thats why you have clusters of homes and strips of stores along their edges. Its much more efficient and its a lot more livable. It was designed in the last five years to work using the latest planning models, not a hodge-podge like many inner cities.

Yes, it's much more efficient to hop in a car to buy a gallon of milk at the strip mall. Speaking of strip malls, there's nothing that says efficiency other than some joker who circles the lot several times to find a parking spot close to the front door. Also, there's nothing more aesthetically pleasing than tacky storefronts sitting behind a vast expanse of pavement. What sort of planning model does a strip mall follow?

Originally Posted by austinnetx

Mass transit is fine for single people and commuters, but families need cars to get around and get things done. If communities plan around mass transit, then it will lead to a demographic decline as the families move away. Very high density living is not conducive to kids or the raising of kids.

Yes, because if you have a wedding band, then mass transit is useless. Mockingbird Station is an excellent example of the blight caused by planning a community around a public transit station. I never knew that high density living would have such a negative impact on family values.

Originally Posted by austinnetx

Solar Wind power is fickle because the wind does not always blow and the sun moves around in the sky and gets clouded up. The wind energy industry in the US would collapse if its subsidies and tax breaks were removed.

I know! Thank God we're subsidizing the more reliable and trustworthy oil industry! Speaking of this storing energy thing--I heard that there's this thing called a battery that can store energy, but I think it's a bunch of hocus-pocus tomfoolery if you ask me!

Originally Posted by austinnetx

Nukes and Coal fired plants are the cheapest and most reliable power there is and we need more of both. Every single thing we have has become cheaper over time - the only reason energy is getting expensive is because its providers are not operating in a free market due to hysteria over the crisis of the moment. If nukes and coal got the same breaks Wind does, we'd be awash in cheap energy. Its time that idiots like Jane Fonda and Al Gore shut their cakeholes and let the engineers and planners who actually know what they are doing run the show.

...because Barbarella is the first person I think of when I see my high energy bill each month!

[lh_newbie]

Southtowest- thx for responding, I was out of town and busy. Austinnetx completely nailed the mentality that needs to change (and his assertions that I consider mixed-use to include industrial with residential is hilarious). The belief that today's suburban design is sustainable and walkable is sticking your head in the ground. While many of the mixed use new urban designs being implemented in suburbia are certainly moving in the right direction, I suspect that it will continue to morph into more walkable designs (not drive-to, then walk). Energy prices aren't going back to the "good old days" of inexpensive energy and will exert even more pressures on city design as more and more folks come to grips with this reality.

And for someone to say that Dallas is behind the suburbs in the same message that they question how familiar I am with what I say... well, let's just say that's laughable... ever been to Mockingbird Station... West Village... Uptown... and then there's the currently being built places like Park Lane Place and Lake Highlands Town Center. Deep Ellum is on the verge of rebirth, the central business district is adding lots and lots of residential and retail. Dallas is indeed leading the way. Period.

Since we're in the DFW region - then you could look at Ft. Worth as another leader. Their downtown is phenominal. VERY walkable. Residential is sprouting from the woodwork. Transportation options are growing (this goes for both Ft Worth and Dallas).

Brian

[lh_newbie]

I ran across this article, that I thought was relevant to the topic:

One way to handle gas prices: Move - Yahoo! Real Estate

While IMO, not the greatest writing... just take these two paragraphs:

While their wallets may be happy, whether the quality of life is improving for the people who move is debatable.

"I went from a beautiful home with a big back yard to an itty-bitty studio apartment," said Erinn Thomas, who moved from a suburb of Reno, NV, to the downtown area to save on gas. "But it's what I had to do to eat."

The writer has a pretty mixed up concept of quality of life. In one sentence, the writer questions if quality of life is improved. Then in the next, they quote someone saying they had to move in order to eat. IMO, being able to eat is probably the #1 item in quality of life... followed by a roof over your head, then all the luxuries we have. While the "quality of life" now may not be as good as it was 2-3 years ago, when we had cheaper fuels, which allowed us to live further away from work, it is surely better for this person now that they have moved... since they can afford to eat now. I giggle when people compare current living conditions to something they had years ago, when the economy was different. It's irrelevant. You have to compare the differences in quality of life at the same point in time - what can you do today living far away -vs- living close to work?

Saying that your quality of life hasn't improved because you no longer have your huge yard out in the country or large indoor living spaces is ludicrous if you can't fill you or your family's bellies. In this scenario, this person's quality of life has eroded over the last couple years and is to a point where it is so poor, they are giving up some of their "amenities" to actually improve their quality of life over their QOL at the current moment in time.

Brian

[loves2read]

Every single thing we have has become cheaper over time

that is a totally irrational comment to make and while some things have become less expensive, some things are MORE expensive even taking into account the price of money in different decades...making a comment such as that which illustrates lack of thought pretty much decimates your rant...

[loves2read]

and regarding the comment from Erin Thomas about moving in order to eat vs living where she was and continuing to pay for gas...
she was a renter and so was the teacher also mentioned--those people have flexibility to make those decisions without usually LOSING money by trying to sell a house in a down market--they MIGHT also have less financial fall back if they are renters
Renters are always more portable than owners--my son is renter and they are moving next month--not so much for gas but because they hate their apt complex...

and while transportation options might be growing in FTW it is not in the Mid-Cities--and Arlington STILL is not doing a bus system...

[galore]

Originally Posted by austinnetx

Solar Wind power is fickle because the wind does not always blow and the sun moves around in the sky and gets clouded up. Its time that idiots like Jane Fonda and Al Gore shut their cakeholes and let the engineers and planners who actually know what they are doing run the show.

Fossil fuels are just very, very, very old solar power storage media. The energy came from the sun eons ago and was converted to organic matter by plants performing photosynthesis. And that organic matter over millennia turned into oil or coal.

That alone shows that it is possible to use solar even if the sun doesn't shine 24/7. Plants show us every day.

This is a matter of research, engineering and will. It is inevitable anyways.

This irrational hatred of some celebrities is so silly (but you make good fodder for talk radio hosts). We get it you don't like them but that doesn't change the fact that it is dumb to burn fossil fuels.

[austinnetx]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

Southtowest- thx for responding, I was out of town and busy. Austinnetx completely nailed the mentality that needs to change (and his assertions that I consider mixed-use to include industrial with residential is hilarious). The belief that today's suburban design is sustainable and walkable is sticking your head in the ground.

Intolerant, aren't we.

Do you really think that a chip fab should be next to a school? What about a lead smelter? A steel minimill? A concrete plant? An asphalt mixer? A 40 MW generation station? A high pressure gas turbine pump? A call center? A hospital? A bread bakery? A LNG storage site? Have you ever flown over a major city in a light plane?

High density urban areas are NOT more sustainable than suburbia because the costs ( taxes and infrastructure) are higher on a per capita basis than other types of land use. Other reasons are a lack of biodiversity, lack of recharge for groundwater, a high density of contamination, urban heat island effects, etc. They also tend to political decay. The reason Uptown and other areas are going through revitalization is because some thing went wrong - the people and businesses that were there DIED and nothing arose from that that wanted to stay.

I'll bet that the suburban design of the DNT corridor from PGBT to 121 is more sustainable than downtown Dallas because it allows for new industry, clusters shopping, clusters residential, has a greater green area, requires less services, and has a greater diversity of population in terms of age, income, and race - and ( as a result) has a sustainable birth-rate. And then there are the tree-covered sidewalks, rock-bottom creeks, and quiet nieghborhoods - much less sterile than a concrete canyon.

[austinnetx]

Originally Posted by galore

Fossil fuels are just very, very, very old solar power storage media. The energy came from the sun eons ago and was converted to organic matter by plants performing photosynthesis. And that organic matter over millennia turned into oil or coal.

That alone shows that it is possible to use solar even if the sun doesn't shine 24/7. Plants show us every day.

This is a matter of research, engineering and will. It is inevitable anyways.

.

You are so silly!

Plants go into hibernation or die in the fall and winter and use up their reserves at night. Maybe you should go into hibernation, too. Oh, thats right, people cannot hibernate - instead they die of exposure.

If you are so confident, why don't you take your house off the grid and use just wind and solar? You can go out and buy solar panels and wind turbines right now. Would you like some URLS for some vendors?

Please post pictures of your efforts. Put up or shut up.

[galore]

Originally Posted by austinnetx

You are so silly!

And you probably believe the oil was put in the ground by magic elves.

[austinnetx]

Here is the NTCOG mobility plan for 2030. Lots of light rail and another outer Loop.

I thought I would post this so those who actually talk about stuff could actually quote some true planning numbers rather than spout BS.

If you want to put your face where you mouth is, then join a planning group - or buy land along the rail corridors and plan your developments.

http://www.nctcog.org/trans/mtp/2030/FinRec.pdf

Uptown is nice, but there are MILLIONS of people in the DFW area and only a few thousand can live in uptown. The rest have to live REAL lives in REAL locations, not some pie in the sky development.