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View Poll Results: San Antonio vs Austin
Rivals 3 8.33%
Partners 5 13.89%
Neither 29 80.56%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 36. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 07-30-2014, 11:27 AM
 
Location: Washington DC
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Just curious, how do these two cities compete or compliment each other with their relativity close proximity? With NFL exploring the possibility of Raiders moving to San Antonio it made me wonder if SA cold support NFL team and would the support extend to Austin. But beyond that, i'm interested in the overall dynamic between to 2 metros i.e. growth, business climate, demographics, trends... etc

Your Thoughts?
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Old 07-30-2014, 11:42 AM
 
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I think that support would extend to Austin considering that there are currently a lot of spurs fans in Austin. I wonder which football team would have the most to lose if the raiders move to San Antonio. My guess would be UT, Cowboys, and then Texans, in that order.
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Old 07-30-2014, 11:45 AM
 
Location: San Antonio, TX
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Austin supports the Spurs very well, and the capitol city would support any San Antonio professional team. As for overall unity, each city is so provincial that there is not a lot of "us" involved, except for intercity traffic issues. There is an enormous amount of travel between the cites concerning commerce though.
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Old 07-30-2014, 09:18 PM
 
Location: Greenville, Delaware
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From my experience as an Austinite of many years and also connected to San Antonio through friends and other relationships, I'd say that Austin and SA are fairly irrelevant to one another.
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Old 07-30-2014, 09:25 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by doctorjef View Post
From my experience as an Austinite of many years and also connected to San Antonio through friends and other relationships, I'd say that Austin and SA are fairly irrelevant to one another.
Not when it comes to sporting events. Can't tell you how many Longhorn season ticket holders I know in SA, and how many friends who live in Austin and drive down to SA for a couple Spurs games a year. Austin is overflowing with transplants and many would come down to SA to watch their NFL team play. But, I don't believe the Raiders will ever come to SA. LA maybe.
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Old 07-30-2014, 09:45 PM
 
Location: Washington DC
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As both metro's grow, I would imagine much more interaction between the two cities.
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Old 07-30-2014, 11:13 PM
 
Location: Who Cares, USA
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I could see them becoming much more intertwined in the future, as their suburbs keep being developed closer to each other. If current growth rates keep up, eventually SA and Austin will become their own "metroplex", so to speak. 50 years ago, Dallas and Fort Worth weren't very significant to one another either, but that has really changed. Last time I made the trek down I-35 between the two metros was in 2005, and at that time I noticed very little undeveloped land between San Marcos and New Braunfels. Another 20 years or so, and I imagine it will all run together, with interchangeable suburbs and symbiotic economies.... but for now they are still two separate entities, that are really neither rivals nor 'partners'.
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Old 07-31-2014, 04:03 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobloblawslawblog View Post
I could see them becoming much more intertwined in the future, as their suburbs keep being developed closer to each other. If current growth rates keep up, eventually SA and Austin will become their own "metroplex", so to speak. 50 years ago, Dallas and Fort Worth weren't very significant to one another either, but that has really changed.
The real game changer for Dallas and Fort Worth that led them to become the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex was the (federally forced) creation of DFW International Airport in 1972 and the resulting explosion of growth in the mid-cities. For Austin and San Antonio, the modern day equivalent would be for both cities (voluntarily or to be in keeping with the historical comparison to DFW be forced) to ditch their existing airports and create one massive consolidated airport halfway in between. It would be like pouring gasoline on the growth of the suburbs and smaller towns that sit in between them and over time (especially if we are talking about building in a post-WWII suburban sprawl growth pattern) you could expect the two metros to blend into one megalopolis dubbed the San Antonio-Austin Metroplex.

Of course if we were to take the analogy even further, in keeping with the history of what happend with Dallas and Fort Worth, you could then imagine a scenario in which San Antonio managed to also keep its existing airport in service such that you'd have the San Antonio-Austin International Airport as well as the existing San Antonio Airport (but no Bergstrom or any direct commercial flights into Austin). After a while, you could probably count on pilots, travelers and Expedia getting tired of saying that they were going to San Antonio-Austin International Airport and for them to start just saying "San Antonio." Likewise, people would probably grow tired of talking about the "San Antonio-Austin Metroplex" or "SAA" and pretty soon, people would simply call the giant region "San Antonio." In time, Austin would be spoken of as being in "the San Antonio area" and in 25 years some dolt will admit that they thought that "Austin" was just the name of San Antonio's airport. People in Houston would get a kick out of how steamed Austinites would get whenever they were told that they live in San Antonio. Businesses interested in expanding into the "San Antonio Metroplex" would probably pick up the phone and call up a broker in San Antonio who'd should them a property in San Antonio and so on. The Census Bureau would combine the now two MSAs into one MSA called the San Antonio-Austin-Round Rock MSA and you'd begin seeing all of these top ten rankings talking about how much growth was happening in San Antonio and about how San Antonio was ranked the #1 metro for tech start-ups.

It's a sad but not unbelievable tale that Austinites should keep in mind the next time they talk about someone from Fort Worth living in "the Dallas area."
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Old 07-31-2014, 04:20 PM
 
Location: Who Cares, USA
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Originally Posted by RMFW View Post
It's a sad but not unbelievable tale that Austinites should keep in mind the next time they talk about someone from Fort Worth living in "the Dallas area."
Well, I'm not from Austin, but I must say I rarely, if ever hear anybody refer to someone from Ft. Worth as being from "the Dallas area". I usually hear people say "the metroplex" or "DFW"... or just Fort Worth. I see your point, but I think it's a bit extreme. Even if Austin and SA do join up as one big 'metroplex', I doubt either city is going to lose so much of it's individual identity that it will only be referred to as one or the other. As it stands now, both metros are roughly the same size, though Austin is growing at a slightly faster rate... and their cores are far enough away from each other (about twice the distance that Dallas and Fort Worth are)... that even as a combined metro potentially sharing an airport they will still be viewed and referred to as separate entities.
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Old 08-01-2014, 10:32 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobloblawslawblog View Post
Well, I'm not from Austin, but I must say I rarely, if ever hear anybody refer to someone from Ft. Worth as being from "the Dallas area". I usually hear people say "the metroplex" or "DFW"... or just Fort Worth.
Are you serious? I hear that all the time and it is particularly bad in Austin for some reason.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobloblawslawblog View Post
I see your point, but I think it's a bit extreme. Even if Austin and SA do join up as one big 'metroplex', I doubt either city is going to lose so much of it's individual identity that it will only be referred to as one or the other. As it stands now, both metros are roughly the same size, though Austin is growing at a slightly faster rate... and their cores are far enough away from each other (about twice the distance that Dallas and Fort Worth are)... that even as a combined metro potentially sharing an airport they will still be viewed and referred to as separate entities.

Yeah, that was all a little tongue-in-cheek, but it is still not all that far fetched, particularly in light of the historical example of Fort Worth and Dallas. Not say it is going to happen, just saying that there is definitely a scenario in which it could happen. Yes, Austin is farther from San Antonio, however if you compare their size relative to the distance between the two cities, it's still not all that different from the situation that Fort Worth and Dallas found themselves in during the 70s.

Both metros (Austin and San Antonio) are not roughly the same size, but they are proportionally similar to Fort Worth and Dallas. If you break the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA into its two divisions (being the only MSA in Texas that has two core cities, it is also the only one to have Census designated Metropolitan Divisions), the Fort Worth-Arlington MSD is quite a bit larger than the Austin-Round Rock MSA, but the difference is also similar to the difference between the Dallas-Plano-Irving MSD as to the San Antonio MSA. Just turn back the clock 25 years and there seemed to be way more distance between Fort Worth and Dallas than anyone would guess today. Fort Worth is growing at a faster rate than Dallas (just as Austin is growing faster than San Antonio).

And while I fully agree that it is unlikely that either city would lose its individual identity, it's not inconceivable that the two could grow in such a way that they begin to be referred to decades from now by one name. Again, look to Fort Worth as an example and all of the people who either just call it "Dallas" or part of the "Dallas area" or who make reference to Fort Worth as being (or at least trying to move away from being) a bedroom community or a suburb of Dallas.
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