Was "ideology" a big factor in your move to Austin? (Houston: condo, neighborhoods)
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Location: The land of sugar... previously Houston and Austin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jennibc
If you mean by "green" that there are lots of trees, then yes Austin being green would place it above other places in TX.
I don't know... when I went to The Woodlands just north of Houston recently, I feel downright claustrophobic there from all of the trees.
Quote:
Originally Posted by paul6835
Austin, IMO, is more Libertarian than Liberal.
I agree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by G Grasshopper
I told him then that if he ever wanted to move back to Texas, Austin was the only place I would live. And now, 35 years later, we are moving back to Austin. The reason I would only live there is that it is more ideologically diverse than the rest of the state. We are moderate democrats, and don't want to live in places that are solidly conservative. We are also liberal Christians, and don't want to live in a place where conservative Christians want to force their beliefs on everyone else.
These and other views that Austin is the only place in Texas this way, are just so funny to me. Dallas and especially Houston, are much larger, more diverse (not just in race but in religion, nationality, etc.) and international cities. Houston is on the cusp of being the largest city to elect an openly gay mayor for crying out loud. Things are much different in 2009 than just a few decades ago...
I don't know... when I went to The Woodlands just north of Houston recently, I feel downright claustrophobic there from all of the trees.
I agree.
These and other views that Austin is the only place in Texas this way, are just so funny to me. Dallas and especially Houston, are much larger, more diverse (not just in race but in religion, nationality, etc.) and international cities. Houston is on the cusp of being the largest city to elect an openly gay mayor for crying out loud. Things are much different in 2009 than just a few decades ago...
Frankly, I don't think many of these folks have even BEEN to Houston or the DFW Metroplex...........I think far more people than you would believe that move to Austin from outside Tx never looked at any other TX cities BUT austin, and never go TO any Texas cities even while they live there, even while, mind you, San Antonio is just 45-50 minutes away.....I still think outsiders see it as a/the only "palatable" place in Texas for them, or. I should say, the only one they can feel comfortable telling their friends they are moving to in Texas.....
Also, I honestly think they fear/feel uncomfortable in those other places, being a little too Texas/Southern for them....hard for them to realize how cosmopolitan Houston is when they never leave the Austin metro area...
huddling for safety in their little Cedar Park/Round Rock expatriate cocoons....
BTW, how sweet it is to take a short 50 minute ride to San Antonio on a nice Saturday afternoon, and walk the riverwalk, enjoying a nice cold drink, and come back to Austin the same afternoon....and I'll bet less than 10% of Austin relos have bothered to even venture to San Antonio, let alone all the other great day/week-end trips all over the state....
I don't know... when I went to The Woodlands just north of Houston recently, I feel downright claustrophobic there from all of the trees.
I agree.
These and other views that Austin is the only place in Texas this way, are just so funny to me. Dallas and especially Houston, are much larger, more diverse (not just in race but in religion, nationality, etc.) and international cities. Houston is on the cusp of being the largest city to elect an openly gay mayor for crying out loud. Things are much different in 2009 than just a few decades ago...
It was a joke, mainly in reference to all the trees here and not necessarily as being as pro environment as many people believe. If it were really a "green" city in terms of environment, we'd see a lot fewer SUVs and we'd probably have better and more reliable public transportation I've only been to Houston once so I cannot really compare the two, although on the way down we saw far fewer trees than we see here.
And honestly, my husband applied for jobs Dallas too, he just got one here first. Houston was out because the several times my husband had been down there to visit cousins in the past, he had a rough time with the humidity.
Ideology was not a factor in my deciding to move to Austin. I came here to go to the graduate school of Architecture, because it had a good reputation and excellent facilities, and a great climate.
I could have also gone to Univ. of Colorado at Denver, which had lousy facilities, Denver traffic and unpleasant winters.
I suspect most people move primarily for issues such as jobs, schools, climate, with politics and ideology as secondary factors if they are considered at all.
Before we moved to Austin, friends of ours who lived in Austin for ages told us that most Democrats in Austin are similar to moderate Republicans in other states. They are not as liberal as they are made out to be. I have found that to be largely true.
Austin has earned its reputation as a "green" city, as it does have a large segment of its population that are very seriously interested in a "green" lifestyle. I became interested in "green" technology in the early 70's. UT at Austin was one of the few places in the country where architecture students could take classes on how to design for passive solar energy, how to utilize wind and other alternative forms of energy and alternative types of building technology. They had professors like Wolf Hilbertz, Wolf Hilbertz – Home teaching how to build structures by Accreation, growing mineral structures in the ocean. And, Francisco "Paco" Arumí Noé, Ph.D. teaching passive solar design and sustainable design UTSOA : Francisco Arumí Noé Memorial Fellowship in Sustainable Design . and the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, Inc. (Max's Pot) established in 1975 by Pliny Fisk III and others.
More recently Austin has been highly supportive of the development of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), founded in 1993, is a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated. The City of Austin was one of the first to adopt the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for many of its public buildings and the City of Austin has built some of the first LEED Silver and Gold level rated buildings in the United States.
The City of Austin began implementing sustainable guidelines in the early 1990s. Since 2000, it has completed several facilities with LEED certification or Austin Energy's Green Building rating.
1998 Bond Election Projects with LEED Certification
Combined Transportation, Emergency and Communications Center - LEED Silver (2003)
Far Southeast Austin EMS Station - LEED Gold (2004)
George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center - LEED Certified (2006)
Carver Branch Library - LEED Certified (2006)
Additional City of Austin Projects with LEED Certification
Additional City of Austin Projects with LEED Certification
Austin City Hall - LEED Gold (2004)
Circle C Fire/EMS Station - LEED Silver (2005)
City Hall Cafe & Store - LEED Gold (2007)
Austin Resource Center for the Homeless (ARCH) - LEED Silver and Five-Star Austin Energy Green Building rating (2008)
Sand Hill Control/Administration Building - LEED Silver (2008)
Austin Energy Green Building Rating
Austin Energy Green Building Rating
J.J. Pickle Elementary School/St. John Community Center - Three-Star rating (2001)
Daniel Ruiz Branch Library - Three-Star rating (2004)
There are numerous other buildings listed here http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/publicwor...bility/new.htm that were scheduled to be designed and built to LEED ratings in 2008-2009, but the progress is not yet reported on that web page.
From my perspective Austin is one of the leaders in Green Building and Green lifestyles.
Austin has earned its reputation as a "green" city, as it does have a large segment of its population that are very seriously interested in a "green" lifestyle. I became interested in "green" technology in the early 70's. UT at Austin was one of the few places in the country where architecture students could take classes on how to design for passive solar energy, how to utilize wind and other alternative forms of energy and alternative types of building technology. They had professors like Wolf Hilbertz, Wolf Hilbertz – Home teaching how to build structures by Accreation, growing mineral structures in the ocean. And, Francisco "Paco" Arumí Noé, Ph.D. teaching passive solar design and sustainable design UTSOA : Francisco Arumí Noé Memorial Fellowship in Sustainable Design . and the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, Inc. (Max's Pot) established in 1975 by Pliny Fisk III and others.
More recently Austin has been highly supportive of the development of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), founded in 1993, is a non-profit trade organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed, built and operated. The City of Austin was one of the first to adopt the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for many of its public buildings and the City of Austin has built some of the first LEED Silver and Gold level rated buildings in the United States.
From my perspective Austin is one of the leaders in Green Building and Green lifestyles.
Which makes it a shame that they gave the developers carte blanche to pave over so much with the typical sprawl/waste here.....just goes to show that developers can control 100% of their agendas here same as anyplace else(pay for as little as possible, externalize as much costs as possible).......
Honestly, could you call ANY of our new developments or burbs green?
....or greener than the average metro?
Which makes it a shame that they gave the developers carte blanche to pave over so much with the typical sprawl/waste here.....just goes to show that developers can control 100% of their agendas here same as anyplace else(pay for as little as possible, externalize as much costs as possible).......
Honestly, could you call ANY of our new developments or burbs green?
....or greener than the average metro?
Texas laws limit the restrictions that local municipalities can place on property owners. They cannot totally prohibit a private property owner from developing and selling his land. However within those restrictions, Austin has some of the strictest land development ordinances in the country for NEW land development. They require sedimentation/filtration and detention ponds to control rain run off. They heavily limit the amount of impervious cover that can be placed on the land, especially in sensitive environmental zones. They strictly limit the removal of existing trees and require substantially more trees to be installed to replace any that are removed. They require extensive landscaping of public areas and street yards, utilizing native landscaping plants.
I think they are doing as much as they can without being sued for obstructing the rights of private property owners.
Texas laws limit the restrictions that local municipalities can place on property owners. They cannot totally prohibit a private property owner from developing and selling his land. However within those restrictions, Austin has some of the strictest land development ordinances in the country for NEW land development. They require sedimentation/filtration and detention ponds to control rain run off. They heavily limit the amount of impervious cover that can be placed on the land, especially in sensitive environmental zones. They strictly limit the removal of existing trees and require substantially more trees to be installed to replace any that are removed. They require extensive landscaping of public areas and street yards, utilizing native landscaping plants.
I think they are doing as much as they can without being sued for obstructing the rights of private property owners.
The shady grove trailer court demolishment for condos involved a lot of "leaving the original trees" thing......
Could you explain impervious cover? Honestly never heard of the term.....
sounds like pavement/concreting over, but I could be wrong......
Lastly, no growth is green/good growth ultimately, and just something to make us feel better.....its all about consumption and expropriation of resources, and even the greenest of green people are net expropriators........
If the entire world had the same standard of living as americans and europeans, the world could contain no more than 2 billion people, not much more than that living in the first world to begin with.....something to think about, when the world pop is currently 6 million plus...
Frankly, I don't think many of these folks have even BEEN to Houston or the DFW Metroplex...........I think far more people than you would believe that move to Austin from outside Tx never looked at any other TX cities BUT austin, and never go TO any Texas cities even while they live there, even while, mind you, San Antonio is just 45-50 minutes away.....I still think outsiders see it as a/the only "palatable" place in Texas for them, or. I should say, the only one they can feel comfortable telling their friends they are moving to in Texas.....
Also, I honestly think they fear/feel uncomfortable in those other places, being a little too Texas/Southern for them....hard for them to realize how cosmopolitan Houston is when they never leave the Austin metro area...
huddling for safety in their little Cedar Park/Round Rock expatriate cocoons....
BTW, how sweet it is to take a short 50 minute ride to San Antonio on a nice Saturday afternoon, and walk the riverwalk, enjoying a nice cold drink, and come back to Austin the same afternoon....and I'll bet less than 10% of Austin relos have bothered to even venture to San Antonio, let alone all the other great day/week-end trips all over the state....
I have to agree with this. Having lived in Houston, I know it's more liberal than lots of newcomers who only go to Austin and don't venture out think it is. There are lots of forested areas around Houston as well, lots of tall and very green trees But, I do think Austin does do a better job preserving trees within a developement when development does occur than Houston. does.
Problem....everyone's def of libertarian, conservative, etc. is different....one man's conservative is another man's liberal, and you can be economically conservative and socially liberal, and visa versa.....AND you have a mix of a bunch of different ideologies in every metro....generally the inner core of cities is the most liberal, and it gets more conservative the farther out you get from the center...Austin is much the same....keep heading farther out and you'll start running into "King of the Hill" buzzcut gunnuts who pack a piece for Christ......
Where ARE you finding these folks? I live in the country, and in the course of my business am all over the areas outside of Austin, and I've been in the area for some 40 years now, and I'm not finding them. Oh, there may be a handful, but they are certainly not the majority and I've never personally met one.
Are they rural rather than urban, or suburban rather than urban? Yes, they are, depending on where they are, but that's nowhere near the same thing as what you describe, and only someone ignorant would they are.
Do quite a few of them have guns? Yep, they do. We have a few at our house, too, that come in really handy when the rattlesnakes come calling.
So where are you meeting these "buzzcut gunnuts who pack a piece for Christ", and what's your evidence that they are what you describe and that that's what you find the further you get from Central Austin?
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But, I do think Austin does do a better job preserving trees within a developement when development does occur than Houston. does.
