Sprawl....what does it mean to you? (Houston, Dallas: condos, hotels)

[love roses]

Originally Posted by migol84

I have no problem with sprawling towns that are less than the size of a million people. I think if people truly wanna get away from city life then living in a town like that would be the perfect choice. But spreading into a suburban area is a bad idea, imo.

To me, sprawl is like Highland's Ranch in Colorado. The whole area was built on a very big ranch, no real town small or otherwise was there originally. Everything was built from scratch. Castle Rock and Monument aren't very far away, but those are small towns in their own right. Many of the places people are calling sprawl are actually places that are towns around Austin. Buda, Kyle, Leander, Cedar Park, Round Rock, Bastrop, Elgin, Hutto, Taylor, Georgetown, Marble Falls, etc....these weren't places like Highland's Ranch that just popped out of nowhere.

[love roses]

Originally Posted by migol84

I have no problem with sprawling towns that are less than the size of a million people. I think if people truly wanna get away from city life then living in a town like that would be the perfect choice. But spreading into a suburban area is a bad idea, imo.

I've spent a fair amount of time living in urban cores, and even though there are things I still miss about it, the things urban living couldn't give us were outweighed by what we got living a bit further out. We're not so far away from downtown that we can't get there whenever we want to and many of the things we need anyway, we get where we are. Plus, neither of us work downtown, so living there doesn't make sense. We'd only have a reverse commute if we did live in central Austin.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by love roses

I'm only questioning the water usage thing. How do 10,000 people living in a high rise use less water than 10,000 people living outside of a city center in a house? Everyone will shower or bathe, water plants (it's possible to have patio/rooftop gardens), give a pet water, and drink water. So the water gets piped vertically instead of horizontally.....I don't get how that uses less water. Window washers will also use water to clean the outside of the buildings and maybe water will be used to clean the streets in front of the high rise.

maybe 1) there are a lot less lawns to water 2) there is one shared pool so there arent multiple pools to fill.

Also as downtown builds more towers they will take out existing buildings/parking lots. A tall building that can house 2000 people is simply less resource intensive than 500-1000 houses.

The cost to heat and cool a building is probably less than the equivalent number of houses because the surface area to volume ratio is so much better in a skyscraper.

[Lije Baley]

Originally Posted by love roses

"As others have said before - Austin is going to grow whether you like it or not

Don't know about that - IMO if this nasty drought continues and the Edwards Aquifer continues to be drained of its contents at the maniacal pace as one of my geology profs told us about back in 1998, personally I don't see that growth continuing at the same pace you've seen the past decade. Btw none of this is "secret" information - it can all be found in a few seconds with google....heck anyone trying to take care of their lawn knows there is something ominous is going on.

Living here in Houston is already bad enough for me with all the cars, the sprawling subdivisions, the polluted air, the cars, the strip centers growing everywhere like a fungus, the ugly/flat surrounding countryside and all the freeways. Then throw in the literally stifling heat we've endured the past summer - worse than I've ever experienced and I've lived here for 30+ years - and all the dead trees & plants and animal life trying to get in our house in search of water (something I've never seen before) and that all adds up to me seriously considering moving elsewhere....and that "elsewhere" doesn't include Texas.

[spelrod]

The city and metro have been growing at mostly the same pace for the last 80 years. I don't see that stopping anytime soon.

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by Lije Baley

Don't know about that - IMO if this nasty drought continues and the Edwards Aquifer continues to be drained of its contents at the maniacal pace as one of my geology profs told us about back in 1998, personally I don't see that growth continuing at the same pace you've seen the past decade. Btw none of this is "secret" information - it can all be found in a few seconds with google....heck anyone trying to take care of their lawn knows there is something ominous is going on.

Austin doesn't get it's water from the Edwards aquifer. But SA does.

[eepstein]

I couldn't have said it better myself. When it comes to mindless, faceless, sprawl, no state does it better than Texas!

Large Texas cities are entirely built on the basis of the availabilty of cheap gas. (yes, 3 dollars a gallon is EXTREMELY cheap for gas). People will sit in traffic in their gas guzzlers hours and hours every week just so they can have the freedom to leave work when they please (at their convienence). Meanwhile, causing great damage to the environment.

HOV lanes, message boards, ramp meters, and traffic sensors do help to a SMALL degree, but so much more needs to be done to clean up this number ONE polluting state in the nation.

Originally Posted by homeinatx

Sprawl: what it means to me - cheap and nasty new construction without craft or design value. Dormitories for families. Bad land use: no mixed development - miles and miles of cookie cutter houses with retail all in strip malls in between, with cheapness the only criterion for building. Entirely autocentric: very pedestrian unfriendly, no bike lanes, no public transportation. No sense of a public good at all. No trees, the natural environment strip-mined to provided maximum profit for developers, no consideration of environmental or historic regional concerns in architecture or planning - one size fits all. Minimal infrastructure, one road in, one road out, minimal side walks, street lights. In short, ugly, stupid and short on civility. Texas has too much of it: the ugliest middle class housing in the developed world: homogenous, unimaginative, grotesque and destined to be slums.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by eepstein

I couldn't have said it better myself. When it comes to mindless, faceless, sprawl, no state does it better than Texas!

Large Texas cities are entirely built on the basis of the availabilty of cheap gas. (yes, 3 dollars a gallon is EXTREMELY cheap for gas). People will sit in traffic in their gas guzzlers hours and hours every week just so they can have the freedom to leave work when they please (at their convienence). Meanwhile, causing great damage to the environment.

HOV lanes, message boards, ramp meters, and traffic sensors do help to a SMALL degree, but so much more needs to be done to clean up this number ONE polluting state in the nation.

Here is a link to most polluted cities (by air quality)

Most Polluted Cities: State of the Air 2011 - American Lung Association

Looking at particulates, texas really only has houston in the list. California clearly has the most cities in the top so is probably the most (air) polluted state. Ohio looks like a close second.

[Trainwreck20]

Sprawl - what I do after failing to land a jump while skiing....

[spelrod]

Originally Posted by Austin97

Looking at particulates, texas really only has houston in the list. California clearly has the most cities in the top so is probably the most (air) polluted state. Ohio looks like a close second.

Obviously the city is paying off the American Lung Association.