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But big box will win in the end because newcomers here are familiar with the big box names and not the local flavor so guess who gets the customers ?
I still try to shop local when I can but it's getting harder and harder to do.
99% of the people I work with are locals(born and raised) and it's become evident to me that I know more about the local businesses than they do. Most of them shop at Wal-Mart and Target for most of their stuff. I'm not exaggerating about this(in fact, it disappoints me, since I see so many unique and interesting places) and I'm certainly not trying to pick a fight, but it really does seem that transplants get pointed at for everything bad happening here, and it's simply not accurate. As a recent transplant, I'm sorry if I seem defensive, but I've really been thinking about this a lot lately and the problem is more complicated than that. It's an American problem on the large scale, and it has everything to do with cheapness, convenience, and the disposable nature of the things we buy. We are addicted to consumerism and big-box retail can simply get more stuff, faster, and at a cheaper price. That's why they're winning.
This will only change when this country's citizens want it to change...and right now, I don't see to much changing
This reminds me of a Greg Brown song:
"I watched my country turn into a coast-to-coast strip mall
and I cried out in a song:
if we could do all that in thirty years, then please tell me you all -
why does good change take so long?"
Seems like everybody wants Austin to stay just the same as it was the day that they got here. People shop at Walmart and Target to stretch a dollar. It's not that people can't make money running a family farm, but you can't make enough to keep up with everything unless you farm on a certain scale. The same is true for all businesses. Sometimes, the employees might even be treated better and have more rights working at a big box than at Skeeter's Bait and Tackle. You don't have to go more than a 100 miles east or west to see this.
I think we need to get something straight here about being a transplant. There ain't nobody in Texas that didn't come here from somewhere else I don't care how long you been squatting on a piece of land, what counts is what you do today not what your grandpappy did way back when. What we don't like to hear is about how it was done better where you come from. It's like telling your wife your ex girlfriend hung the moon and made the best sweet potato pie you ever had. Even if it is true, it's just impolite to say so and you are graded on manners here. If you don't want to be a transplant, take up for Texas, get involved and make something happen.
Austin has always been a very creative city and the nature of creativity is change, not preservation.
Seems like everybody wants Austin to stay just the same as it was the day that they got here. People shop at Walmart and Target to stretch a dollar. It's not that people can't make money running a family farm, but you can't make enough to keep up with everything unless you farm on a certain scale. The same is true for all businesses. Sometimes, the employees might even be treated better and have more rights working at a big box than at Skeeter's Bait and Tackle. You don't have to go more than a 100 miles east or west to see this.
I think we need to get something straight here about being a transplant. There ain't nobody in Texas that didn't come here from somewhere else I don't care how long you been squatting on a piece of land, what counts is what you do today not what your grandpappy did way back when. What we don't like to hear is about how it was done better where you come from. It's like telling your wife your ex girlfriend hung the moon and made the best sweet potato pie you ever had. Even if it is true, it's just impolite to say so and you are graded on manners here. If you don't want to be a transplant, take up for Texas, get involved and make something happen.
Austin has always been a very creative city and the nature of creativity is change, not preservation.
I'm certainly not trying to pick a fight, but it really does seem that transplants get pointed at for everything bad happening here, and it's simply not accurate. As a recent transplant, I'm sorry if I seem defensive, but I've really been thinking about this a lot lately and the problem is more complicated than that. It's an American problem on the large scale, and it has everything to do with cheapness, convenience, and the disposable nature of the things we buy. We are addicted to consumerism and big-box retail can simply get more stuff, faster, and at a cheaper price. That's why they're winning.
Quote:
Austin has always been a very creative city and the nature of creativity is change, not preservation.
99% of the people I work with are locals(born and raised) and it's become evident to me that I know more about the local businesses than they do. Most of them shop at Wal-Mart and Target for most of their stuff. I'm not exaggerating about this(in fact, it disappoints me, since I see so many unique and interesting places) and I'm certainly not trying to pick a fight, but it really does seem that transplants get pointed at for everything bad happening here, and it's simply not accurate. As a recent transplant, I'm sorry if I seem defensive, but I've really been thinking about this a lot lately and the problem is more complicated than that. It's an American problem on the large scale, and it has everything to do with cheapness, convenience, and the disposable nature of the things we buy. We are addicted to consumerism and big-box retail can simply get more stuff, faster, and at a cheaper price. That's why they're winning.
This will only change when this country's citizens want it to change...and right now, I don't see to much changing
This reminds me of a Greg Brown song:
"I watched my country turn into a coast-to-coast strip mall and I cried out in a song: if we could do all that in thirty years, then please tell me you all - why does good change take so long?"
-Poet's Game
Hey Twange...thanks for the comment....per the finger pointing towards transplants causing the big-boxing of Austin, sure its more complex than that. As you mentioned, this is happening in every larger city and more so in its burbs and exurbs. I think it has to do with corporate greed more than the cheapness of the products. First, these stores, and the more the bigger the store(ala wal-mart, cabala's, home depot, or some may say despot), demand and get massive infrastructure inprovements, particularly in the exurbs where connections have yet to be made per infrastructure..and who pays for all of this? The taxpayer, per road improvements, sewage and electrical connections, and so on. Next, these stores almost uniformly demand tax rebates and deferments, and this after they've already been cut breaks in the infrastructure. Next, they proceed to undercut and put out of business all pre-existing local businesses, price them out of advertising, and end any tax revenue that was forthcoming from the old businesses. In every case, per the tax rebates and deferments, the community ends up with less tax revenue and less jobs, with most of the big-box jobs part-time, lower paid, less stable, with no benefits. Now, let's talk about its impact on Austin. Now, Austin rides heavily on its unique locally based retail and dining establishments, amongst other establishments. This explains MUCH of the draw of relocatees, and much of the buzz they read about Austin. The question is, when it gets to the point that franchises, big-box, and the whole corporate thing, and I'm including high-rise developments that may ruin the ambience of Riverside/Barton Springs and South Congress/Travis Heights, start ruining the low-key, low-rise, funky, unique, eclectic atmposphere that USED to be Austin, what can/will it do to that same relocatee draw when it becomes largely the same as the city they left? A corollary question is, is there a point of no return in all this, when there are so many new people, so much cookie-cutter new construction, so much new corporate, national presence, and all, that that preciously unique Austin ambiance is gone forever?
Here is my humble opinion: Austin WAS unique because it existed on a smaller scale, with the proclivities and ideosyncrasies endemic to a small city with a major state university, and many laid-back residents, many going back years to the 60's -70's and former UT students as well, who had easy access to each other, lived in a relatively tight-knit area, and were off the national and even state radar, which allowed them to have a unique, little funky place off the grid, and relatively undisturbed. Just like pulling a plant out of the ground, and trying to transplant it somewhere else, they tried to make something out of Austin it was not in the 80's and early 90's with the tech hubbub. Mega-apartment complexes started sprouting up all over the north/northwest, roads began to be somewhat overwhelmed, and many newcomers crashed the old, laid-back party, so to speak. With the new boom and arrivals the last 10 years, we have far more party-crashers. You could think of it as this small, backyard party, in which 5 times the reasonable amount of attendees started swarming in to partake. Yes, you CAN ruin a good thing with too many people. And that is what is/has been going on with Austin. Shortly, it will just become a corporate parody of its old self, and I feel they are about halfway there with that. Just as epcot is a rough simulca of what the world is about, Austin will be a corporate-world simulca of what they deem AUSTIN WEIRD to be. Any long-timer I've spoke with agrees 100% per this changing of the guard. Only recent relocatees and real estate agents argue otherwise. Again, and lastly, I feel, with regret, that Austin's vibe is being eroded in every way, and may be at the point where it can never be reclaimed again. As I said, you can't have too many people at a special party, just as too many cooks spoil the broth, and all that. This has happened with numerous other cities that passed that point of no return stage. Austin just took a little longer to reach it than the others, and was just a little more special, really, a lot more special, before it too was overwhelmed by the great deluge.
Last edited by scongress1234; 04-10-2008 at 10:27 AM..
Seems like everybody wants Austin to stay just the same as it was the day that they got here. People shop at Walmart and Target to stretch a dollar. It's not that people can't make money running a family farm, but you can't make enough to keep up with everything unless you farm on a certain scale. The same is true for all businesses. Sometimes, the employees might even be treated better and have more rights working at a big box than at Skeeter's Bait and Tackle. You don't have to go more than a 100 miles east or west to see this.
I think we need to get something straight here about being a transplant. There ain't nobody in Texas that didn't come here from somewhere else I don't care how long you been squatting on a piece of land, what counts is what you do today not what your grandpappy did way back when. What we don't like to hear is about how it was done better where you come from. It's like telling your wife your ex girlfriend hung the moon and made the best sweet potato pie you ever had. Even if it is true, it's just impolite to say so and you are graded on manners here. If you don't want to be a transplant, take up for Texas, get involved and make something happen.
Austin has always been a very creative city and the nature of creativity is change, not preservation.
Yes, but change from the ground up. What Austin is seeing is corporate-driven change from the top down, with little to no imput from the general public. Creativity is a people-orientated, intangible thing, and something that can easily get mowed down by corporate bulldozers. Once the local folks lose control of their city to corporate and outside interests, they are no longer running the show, and will be run roughshod when convenient. One thing that business is really bad at is fostering an authentic ambience, just like big anything destroys the genuineness and authenticity that can only come from the grass roots.
Only recent relocatees and real estate agents argue otherwise.
For the record, I'm here since 1969 and I'm a real estate agent, and your wholesale comment here doesn't apply to all of us.
I would imagine a large number of posters on here ARE real estate agents. I just mean that I would imagine, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that most agents would be 100% for rapid, undifferentiated growth, regardless if it ends up killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Certainly, it would be quite something to hear from an agent that Austin has grown too fast, and may be losing its ambiance. I hear it from many locals, but not from anyone directly involved in profitting from the aforementioned growth. My only point is that not all growth is de facto good, and rapid growth even less so. As in biology rapid growth consumes its host(the same goose that laid the golden egg analogy), rapid city growth does take away the ambience and longterm endemic uniqueness of a metro area. Yes, it is the sign of the times, but many folks put Austin is a special category, in that it wasn't Houston, Dallas, or all the others that grow for the sake of growing. At least many thought so. Again, I'm just saying that there is a danger that Austin will become just another par-for-the course sprawling, antiseptic urban area.
I just mean that I would imagine, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that most agents would be 100% for rapid, undifferentiated growth, regardless if it ends up killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
I think that if you applied that statement to developers, you would be correct. Build it, Sell it, Move on down the road. This is not in the interest of most residential real estate agents.
I think that if you applied that statement to developers, you would be correct. Build it, Sell it, Move on down the road. This is not in the interest of most residential real estate agents.
True......let's put it this way, it isn't in the best LONG-TERM interests of real estate agents. However, being in the business of sales, naturally a myopic mindset sets in, in which one just has in view the sales and output of the current year. Development is almost completely out of control of real estate agents anyway, as retail and residential developers, most from out of area, lead the way in purchasing, zoning, and building the infrastructure. All the agents can do is sell it once its long been decided what is to be built, and ground is broken. Think of them as smaller fry in a far larger game in which the developers run the show. They are the ones lobbying city councils and state governments, along with congress, and building blueprints and game plans for entire new areas and developments. At this point they are the fiddlers, they have Austin's movers and shakers in their back pockets, and they are the ones who decide what Austin will look like in the future, damn ambience, creativity, proper traffic flows, and such. Agents just work with a context and agenda that has long been decided and acted upon, with little imput from even themselves. The Austin Chron has had many articles of this nature over time, and I would suggest one take a look at its op-ed pieces to get an idea of what I speak of, from destroying aquifers to city halls' complicity in letting out-of-area
developers run roughshod over the Aurban metro....
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