How diverse is San Antonio? (Alamo, Alamo Heights: high school, community college, live in)

[lemonfresh]

Originally Posted by L3XVS

No, actually I don't. And because you don't know me, I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from the petty judgements.

I'm not saying that San Antonio is rife with racial tensions, I'm simply stating my observation that many circles of whites and Latinos are less welcoming to other groups, particularly blacks. The OP may find this information useful as in many cities, urban problems are often said to effect black and Latino citizens.

Here, there is no black/Latino community comradere. Many Latinos in my experience, look down their nose at darker skinned people, particularly blacks, and associate/identify with whites before anything.

It makes sense, really, considering that San Antonio and south Texas have both historically had a very miniscule black presense.

How these observations compare to what happens in other cities is actually irrelevant, as this discussion is in regards to San Antonio and its diversity.

Unless someone is black or Latino, third party observations are useless.

Just sayin':

judgments. camaraderie. minuscule and presence.

[L3XVS]

Originally Posted by lemonfresh

Unless someone is black or Latino, third party observations are useless.

Just sayin':

judgments. camaraderie. minuscule and presence.

Seriously, instead of using the spell check feature on my posts, why don't you use them on your own posts? Trust me buddy, your grammar is FAR from perfect, so I find it kind of funny how you're so quick to point out grammatical errors in others when they demonstrate opinions different from your own. Pot, meet kettle.

Your childish, erratic response to my criticisms were shallow, vague, and did not address, intelligently, or sensically any of the criticisms I brought against this city.

Seriously, you've been reduced to personal attacks and hate because it's obvious you have nothing else to contribute, and because you know many of those arguments are true. Thanks for showing everyone here a glimpse of your true character, or in your case atleast, lack thereof.

And now, it's time to put you back on my block list, where you belong.

[lemonfresh]

Originally Posted by L3XVS

Seriously, instead of using the spell check feature on my posts, why don't you use them on your own posts? Trust me buddy, your grammar is FAR from perfect, so I find it kind of funny how you're so quick to point out grammatical errors in others when they demonstrate opinions different from your own. Pot, meet kettle.

Well, the first thing is, I'm correcting your spelling, not grammar. Second, I'm not the guy bashing cities or people for being "backwards." Third, get off your high horse. Don't put down a city and its people and then constantly exhibit terrible spelling. The words you spelled aren't even difficult to spell for god sakes.

Your childish, erratic response to my criticisms were shallow, vague, and did not address, intelligently, or sensically any of the criticisms I brought against this city.

Explain to me, please, how my retorts to your opinion driven biased garbage were shallow, vague or erratic?

Seriously, you've been reduced to personal attacks and hate because it's obvious you have nothing else to contribute, and because you know many of those arguments are true.

I answered every criticism with well throughout logic, statistics and fact. I mean for god sakes, I ask you for legit examples of what makes SA a backwards thinking city and you come up with GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION. My god, that's all that needs to be said.

And if you're that defensive when your spelling is called out maybe you shouldn't go about acting mightier than everyone else and throwing out insults.

Informing someone of their terrible spelling skills isn't a personal attack.

Thanks for showing everyone here a glimpse of your true character, or in your case atleast, lack thereof.

If saying that helps you sleep at night, so be it.

[lemonfresh]

Well, the first time the quoting came out odd. So here it is, quote errors free.

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This is going to be fun.

1.) Politically (defintion: with regard to the welfare of mankind; concerning a nation / dictionary.com)

I. Political policy: the actions of the cities' government.

a. Growth:

San Antonio, under Texas law excercises extraterritorial jusrisdiction, or ETJ, encompassing much of the surrounding unincorporated land. Through aggressive annexation policies, including directing growth and zoning, the city of San Antonio staunchly opposes the creation of other municipalities (cities) within its specified ETJ.

According to the city of San Antonio, since 1960, three quarters of San Antonio's current land area has been annexed from the ETJ, resulting in a drastic increase in the cities' land area. In addition, according to city documents, San Antonio plans to annex an additional forty square miles by the end 2009.

This kind of growth policy is both unconventional and controversial. The reason: when annexation occurs, property taxes almost always increase without any noticeable improvement or extention of city services (ie police and fire protection), to these areas, according to the San Antonio Express News.

Because you disagree with it, it's backwards? By the very definition of the word "backwards" you provided, this isn't backwards. Not to mention ficing up land to form separate suburbs would be very backwards. Fail 1.

Why it's backward: Very few large cities today practice ETJ exclusively. Even Houston, which has been notorious for aggressive annexation in the past, still encourages and fosters the development of suburban cities. Sam Antonio, on the other hand, does not, and this ultimately causes a decrease in the effectiveness of city services as the land area continues to increase but the primary sources of revenue (taxes), do not.

The population of the annexed land in these outlying areas (which is generally small), does not provide the substancial revenue augmentation to offset for the increased cost of providing urban planning and economic development to these areas. So you end up with a cash-strapped city that's slow to develop far-flung reaches of its jurisdiction because of monetary constraints.

If San Antonio had suburbs, the city could focus it's economic and infrastructural development on a much smaller area, and thus, prove to be much more effective in improving the quality of city services, and perhaps have money left over for improvements in housing, public transportation, and parks and recreation.

There's that, there's also the fact that if the city released land allowing for suburbs to be had the tax revenue base would shrink substantially meaning less money could be used by the city. I'm not sure if you knew this, (wait, yes you do) but the suburban areas of San Antonio are the wealthiest areas of the city they also feature many businesses as the real financial hub of SA is centered at 10/410. So we'd be creating great middle- upper middle class suburbs at the same time crippling SA's overall tax intake and budget. Yay!! How "foward!"

Oh yeah, Houston has no problem annexing still to this day. Are they active in doing it? No. But they have no problem with it and will do it if requested.

b. Business mentality:

San Antonio does not provide an economic environment suitable for corporate business growth. For those of you who doubt this, one need not look further than AT&T, the telecommunications giant who vacated the city last year due to it's quickly expanding operations, and San Antonio's inability to, quite frankly, keep up.

Yeah, SA only helped foster their growth to their current title of biggest telecommunication company. I mean how crazy is that? The fact that the current CEO began talking to Dallas (where he lived) the moment he took control of the company is all just so coincidental. The fact that the former CEO of the company said they'd never leave on his watch speaks to what? SA's backwardness?

The fact that Whataburger moved its HQ to SA in the same year means what? They like backward thinking cities? Come on, you pipe out the same nonsense every post. It's old, tired, weak, useless, funny, pathetic, so on and so forth.

Among cited reasons for the companies' departure were the cities' airport, which did not provide direct flights to many national and international cities, and the cities' reluctance to provide considerable tax breaks to the company and foster an environment suitable for capitalistic profit.

Wow, that's just made up BS to try and argue a stupid point. The only thing correct in that quote is the direct flight garbage.

Yeah, the worlds largest telecommunications company needs direct flights in order to survive.

That's like a brothel saying they need to do business in a state that outlaws prostitution in order to survive.

San Antonio is just not a very attractive option for corporatea big business, and explains why during the past decade the city has yet to gain one significant corporation, while Dallas, and Houston have both gained a significant number.

Whataburger. Whataburger. WhatissohardtoUnderstand?

Does the fact that Bank of America moved from NYC to Charlotte mean NYC is a backwards thinking city that is too small for a bank company like Bank of America? Or Boeing leaving Seattle for Chicago, does that mean Seattle is a terrible city to do business in because they're backward thinking?

Or wait, is it simply you taking a usual business happening (relocation) as a great entry point to yet again bash San Antonio?

Yeah, I'll go with the latter.

Oddly, San Antonio's most prominent industry seems to be the military, and while there's nothing wrong with that, the military does not provide the true economic growth and advancement that entrepreneurial private sector industries or large corporations would. San Antonio seems to employ large numbers of non-college educated, low wage, low skill workers, in government, health care, the military, and information technology.

Oddly, you prove to be incorrect again. The military isn't even in the top three of prominent industries in SA. Try again.

Furthermore, Austin is about to launch it's own version of lightrail, after Dallas and Houston.

Yeah, and that city voted down light rail and only got their heavy rail because it was marketed as "not light rail."

But I REALLY REALLY REALLY LIKE how you don't mention that after 33 years of having the same person in charge at VIA, they're replacing that person with the CEO of Charlotte's widely acclaimed transit system. That's change, that's progress, that's being forward minded.

Funny you failed to mention it.

Also funny how you failed to mention BRT being implemented (many argue BRT is better than LRT) as well as VIA looking into both Street car and light rail.

Dang, how backward minded of them.

San Antonio's city government has historically been, to put it mildly, hostile to development or change. Attempts at progress have been met with legal wrangling, resistive citizens (who vote down seemingly anything that will increase taxes), and stalwart attempts at maintaining existing conditions.

Examples include the propsed toll roads, lightrail, further development of downtown, and the gentrification of tired, run down areas throughout the city.
San Antonio's city government has been historically hostile to developement and change? Your examples: Toll road and light rail and development of downtown.

Well, let's see. Toll roads aren't run by the city government of San Antonio. The freeways are run by the state. Do you ever get tired of being plain wrong?

Light rail, well, aside from pushing its passing in 2000 and helping to bring it back up in discussions within the last year, I guess you could say they've been hostile.

But then again, the city of San Antonio isn't a transit agency nor do they own VIA.

I. Roads and highways: San Antonio's highway system has historically been (and in many ways continues to be) a mess. Poor design, non-sensical layout, and a history of underfunding has created a road system that has experienced massive growing pains in trying to keep up with a quickly expanding city.

So the highways, which SA has NO CONTROL OVER, is to be blamed on the city of San Antonio? Really?

As for the freeway layout, how is it nonsensical?

This isn't entirely the fault of the city, however. The Texas Department of Transportation ultimately decides how much funding a city will receive, alotting portions (albeit disporportionately) of its yearly budget to various cities. Naturally, San Antonio, having little economic or political significance in Texas, is given a smaller proportion of these funds relative to Austin, Dallas, or Houston.

So not only do you yourself prove your claim wrong you also fail in describing why SA receives such little of the fuel tax money which is what is handed out for cities to maintain or build new freeways. It has NOTHING to do with the economics or political pull a city has.

a. Interchanges:

As an example of what I'm talking about, I'll cite major interchanges, such as the ones connecting 281 to 410, or the one connecting I-10 to 410, as these are the major thoroughfares through the (economically atleast) "heart" of the city.

San Antonio has consistantly been the last major metropolitan area in Texas to get funding for these interchanges and has just recently benefitted from their their noticeable infrastructural improvements (such as alleviation of traffic in key areas).

Could you prove this with any statistical data? Probably not. Just ask that over hyped college town 70 miles from here if they think they get more funding than SA for freeways or interchanges.

II. Public transportation: I've already touched on the cities' lack of lightrail, so I'd like to focus more on the bus system, Via, which is largely underfunded, affected by same bureaucratic policies that plague the city government, and is generally unreliable.

As someone who's ridden the busses first hand, in and around the city, I can attest that yes, the bus routes are not efficient. A bus ride from the far north side to north central San Antonio can take anywhere from forty-five minutes to more than an hour depending on certain variables (traffic notwithstanding). This is just unacceptable, plain and simple.

Furthermore, there's been recent scandal in regards to several Via bus drivers texting while driving, and the problems associated. Many of the drivers are rude, inattentive, and some are prone to reckless driving (look at the videos on this site of Via bus crashes).

I'm not suggesting these problems are unique to San Antonio, but to call the bus system here anything more than mediocre I think is being unrealistic. Considering that Via has been in operation for over twentry years and continues to be the only mode of alternate transportation, it should quite frankly, be better. Via has had years to perfect and improve its services and bus routes, and yet, still seems to be struggling to mobilize efforts and become more efficient.

So like almost all the previous nonsense, you fail to bring legit reasons. This being a petty observational opinion. Fail 7?

3.) Economically(defintion: the efficient use of income and wealth / dictionary.com)

I. Economic state: San Antonio has historically been a solidly very middle class city with economic focus in the military and tourism industries. However, there has been a large influx lately of medical-related professions, customer service, retail, and information technology.

The problem with this growth however, as I pointed out earlier, is that it has not been at the middle-level to upper-level , which is where it needs to be if this city is ever to move out of the dark ages in terms of development. Hourly workers with highschool diplomas do not create the strong economic backbone for a truly world class city.

Naturally this kind of workforce would adversely affect the cities' median income, which it does, indirectly. If one compares the median income of the city of San Antonio to that of Austin, Dallas, and Houston, one will see that San Antonio's median income is relatively consistant with these other cities.

Yet you fail to include one critical perspective. Cost of living. Because of SA's cost of living people living here and making less money is offset by it. Adjusted for COL, SA is ranked middle of the pack for all cities/metros when it comes to economics. That's the thing business/people in general never do, they never adjust for cost of living.

a. Median income :

These figures are accurate as of 2007, obtained from the Census:

Austin Median Income $42689
Dallas Median Income $43324
Houston Median Income $40856
San Antonio Median Income $41593


However, that's only half the story. Because San Antonio does not have any major suburbs surrounding it, just accessing the median income of the city of San Antonio does not give an accurate picture of the metros true wealth because it does not take into account the considerable amount of wealth gained from suburban/satellite cities.

Developmentally and economically, San Antonio remains a poor city in comparison to Austin, Dallas, and Houston.

Wait, so then why is your entire spew fest based around San Antonio if judging the city alone is only half the story? Makes no sense. You bash bash the city when you're criticizing then when there's something you fundamentally can't base you say judging the city is only half the story.

c. Competition:

The lack of competition in the San Antonio market, espeically in a number of industries (particularly the grocery industry, in which one company controls 67% of the market) has been hashed and rehashed numerously on this forum.

Rather than analyze what everyone already knows to be true, I'd like to touch upon why San Antonio seems to be so hostile to competition and the factors which may propogate it's "one is enough" mentality.

First and foremost, I think it has to do with the cities' history of being built upon the laurels of a "small town" mentality and having and maintaining a personal relationship with the companies one does business with, something rarely seen in other metro areas.

Secondly, I think, in the case of HEB atleast, the company realized that people in San Antonio were willing to accept lower quality in exchange for lower prices (hence how they managed to price out the major competition), and therefore could strategically cut back while gaining a larger market share.

And lastly, I think in terms of certain services (like carwashes, for instance), the dominant player (in this case, locally-owned The Wash Tub), is so well connected and deep-rooted into the community, that it makes it very difficult for an upstart to be successful.

San Antonio, as a whole, is just not open to, or suitable for, active competition in the market place.

Why it's backward: How is San Antonio supposed to grow, attract outside business investors, and ultimately diversify it's economic opportunities if it's not willing to embrace the business models and practices which will make this a reality?

Wait, another observational petty tiff?

Yes, success in a free market, capitalism. Soooo backward.

Fail 10?

4.) Socially (defintion: of or pertaining to the life, welfare, and relations of human beings in a community: social problems. / dictionary.com)

I. Insularity: This word means different things to different people and different people have different interpretations of what exactly constitutes it. To me, insularity means being born, raised, and dying in a particular place without ever having travelled outside of it or experienced life in another place.

To me, this accurately describes a disproportionate number of San Antonians relative to other large metros I've lived in or visited. San Antonio is very set in it's own ways and traditions, and is less than welcoming to new things, new ideas, or other cultures.

I guess all that traveling and experience couldn't help with grammar and spelling. The entire post so far has been riddled with them.

a. Lack of ethnic diversity:

I just explained earlier in this thread that San Antonio is not very diverse. But what makes it interesting, in comparison to other large metros, is that it is not at all open to such diversity. Again, the culture here is dominated by white and Hispanic cultural norms, and anything and everything else is really inconsequential.

Unlike Dallas and Houston, for instance, there aren't ethnic areas of San Antonio where one can find large numbers of foreign-born residents living amongst eachother. There really aren't festivals or events in which various ethnicities (outside of Hispanic/Mexican of course) celebrate their own traditions.

Folk Life Festival
Asian Festival
San Antonio Jewish Film Festival

Three off the top of my head.

Again, San Antonio seems to embrace a very limited, narrow perspective when it comes to acknowledging anything other than the majority culture.

Remember that scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall where Sarah Marshall and her boyfriend (the rock star) are in bed arguing and she imitates him. That would be my response to this.

5.) Geographically(defintion: of or pertaining to the natural features, population, industries, etc., of a region or regions. / dictionary.com)

I. Location: I often sit and ponder how San Antonio would have developed differently if it were placed in a better location. San Antonio's geographic location is rather remote, and I don't doubt that it's location has not had a direct affect on it's lack of development.
Wow, no way. I stopped in amazement. One of your reasons for SA being backwards is it's geographic location.

GTFOhere... seriously?? Oh wow, I don't know whether to just end my retorts right here in full on amazement or continue in excitement in anticipation of what else there is for me to read.

Whatever I chose to do, just understand how badly you owned yourself.

a. Shipping:

An example of what I'm talking about here is shipping. Shipping to San Antonio is extremely expensive as it is off the main transportation grid that includes Dallas, and to a lesser extent Houston. This also explains why locally-owned businesses, such as HEB, have been so successful here, because it was more difficult and expensive for outsiders to establish themselves in this local market.

How is SA off the transportation grid? It's at the intersecton of TWO MAJOR INTERSTATES.

One that actually CONNECTS TWO FREAKING COUNTRIES!

WHEW!!!!!! So these points all explain why I think San Antonio is "backward". I don't think the word "backward" is necessarily a bad thing, but I think it describes a place that's just not open to change or progress.

If backwards meant spelling every 20th word wrong someone here would have a gold medal in the Backward's Olympics.

I just find it so ironic that someone who is chastising a city for being backwards is terrible at spelling words correctly. Maybe not so much ironic as sad.

[deek102]

So much for this thread!

The OP asked a question that is very controversial and subjective.. L3XVS answered it with their observations and feelings and, whether we agree or disagree, picking apart each individual word, sentence, or phrase is not the point of this thread.

- BTW, I installed the ieSpell to mask my spelling ignorance - awesome add-on!

[tindo80]

Its unfortunate, but very much the standard that whenever touchy subjects like diversity/race (among others like abortion, homosexuality etc) are discussed, either it will devolve to personal insults or one or both sides will take disagreements personally as insults.

All in all I think its still good to get such discussions out, even if they do end harshly.

In short for me - Is SA diverse? Yes. Are the diverse groups at all cohesive? Not really. More than other places, but less than most...which is the standard unfortunately in most southern states.

To be fair to SA, its slightly worst in Southern California now from what I am hearing. Then again, I guess there is always something worst for anything to be compared to?

[Snowglobe]

Lemonfresh listed a few San Antonio cultural events and I would like to add the Greek Funstival and the Hermann Sons' events. The Texas Folklife Festival is such a huge event that probably many cultural organizations make their participation in it their main event for the year.

In regard to one of L3XVS's comments, I think that San Antonio's lack of ethnic areas where ethnic groups are living together, segregated from others, speaks to the city's welcoming of diversity. I don't know if my experience is typical. I am "Anglo" and live on the North Central/Northeast part of town. I live across the street from a Haitian family and next door to a family from Hungary. We are all friends and I see them interacting with many others of different ethnicities and nationalities in my neighborhood.

In my small workplace, with a staff of about 15, we have individuals from Greece, Iran, and even Canada. We used to have someone from Italy on staff. They live in neighborhoods similar to mine and I don't think they would stay here if they felt unwelcome. Some of these individuals have been here for decades.

[liby]

We love it here. We're an African American military family who just moved to the NW side and really enjoy it here. Military families usually end up befriending each other no matter where we move to, regardless of race. However, my sons first playdate was with a wonderful family in our subdivision that are natives to San Antonio and are not African American. So it really depends on you and how you relate to people in general. Best wishes if you move here.

[BillyH]

Originally Posted by tindo80

As a person who grew up in SA and moved to the pacific north west, i have to ask, which parts of the PNW are you speaking of? Portland once had a big problem with skinhead gangs, and later so did spokane (it still has remnants), but Ive never heard of it being that bad. From what Ive heard (and seen, in the instance of Spokane), those little methed out wannabe nazi's attack anyone they can single out who is not armed/aware/ or is by themselves. Gay people, mexicans, blacks, natives, handicapped people, homeless people, asians, well dressed people and even women.

The segregation in SA is VERY much racial, both in its origins and even today. If you look at where 'anglo's (I agree with others here, that is a very 'texas' term for white people) live either on the far outskirts, or north corridor along 281, or in the anderson loop band. That is not just where the better jobs are, but its in line with where most whites have lived since about WW2, when SA started becoming more non-white than white.

Hispanics originally were relegated to the south and west sides, closer to the military bases where much of the cold war era work was. As time has gone by, hispanics have spread to the northwest and central east sides as majorities.

African americans, though originally living in the center west side, were forcibly relegated via segregation and housing convenants to the east side. Only within the last 15 years have african americans started moving northward, following where whites where leaving, moving away from where hispanics were moving in.

Every group in SA both self segregates, in not wanting to live near others (for the most part), and re-segregates by not associating or over exaggerating rumors about where they dont. I remember the big 'racial' issues of the NE school district redistricting, and that some kids from Robert E Lee High School (mostly white) would have to go to Rooseveldt (mixed black and white at the time, mostly black I think now). The rage from those Lee parents made the news. I also remember the floods of the late 90s, when the decisions were made to flood the majority black central east side and majority mexican american center west-ish/north central west sides to keep safe the majority white, more well to do northside neighborhoods from flooding.

I have to disagree with you about police profiling. Though its not all racial. I am a person of color and had been harrassed as a teenager and young adult (and visitor when returning) by SAPD officers of all races, usually white, but also hispanic and even black. There have been tons of other misconduct incidents(police shootings of unarmed mexican suspects in the back on the south side...then more on black suspects the east and west sides, police harrassment of hispanics on military road, business owners downtown asking the city to 'ID and turn away black and mexicans from Rivercenter mall' *which resulted in higher anti-tourism pranks/vandalisms)...the alamodome scandal etc etc.

SA has had just as sorted a history of negative race relations as any other city in TX. Unfortunately, because SA is seen as 'backwards' (as mentioned by another poster) by people of Austin, Houston, and Dallas, not much national attention goes to it.

At least get you're facts straight your all white 281 corridor and other facts mentioned.
Regan High 29% Hispanic
Johnson High 33% Hispanic
Lee High 79% Hispanic
Roosevelt High 25% Black
NEISD web site

[tindo80]

Originally Posted by BillyH

At least get you're facts straight your all white 281 corridor and other facts mentioned.
Regan High 29% Hispanic
Johnson High 33% Hispanic
Lee High 79% Hispanic
Roosevelt High 25% Black
NEISD web site

Where did I say any of those places were 'all white'? I specifically said 'mostly white', which you just verified.

Also, anyone actually from san antonio (not needing to go to some website to get info) would know Reagan High School didnt exist at the time of the Rooseveldt/Lee redistricting debate, which was in the mid 90s.

If you are going to offer a retort, at least retort something I actually said, rather than something you made up. I dont mean to go on the offense, but if you are going to make the claim, at least make sure you read the statement you are trying to disprove.