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-   -   San Marcos, part of Austin or SA (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=197158)

sananto Jan 19, 2012 2:57 PM

San Marcos, part of Austin or SA
 
I just wonder why San Marcos is included in the Austin Metro area instead of SA. Is it because Hays County borders Travis and not SA? Looking at today's newspaper is a section about higher education in the San Antonio area and there you will find Texas State University and its commitment to San Antonio. Also you wonder why San Marcos High School is in districts with San Antonio high schools instead of Austin. It seems to me that San Marcos has more in common with SA than Austin. Also while at it, I see also included in the section is Schreiner Institute of Kerrville. Do you think Kerr County will ever be added to the SA metro area? If Hays was part of the SA metro area, that would place SA just below the Pittsburgh metro area.

Spoiler Jan 19, 2012 5:15 PM

San Marcos is closer to Austin.

miaht82 Jan 19, 2012 5:54 PM

"part" of Austin.

There are two qualifiers for Hays County. Because it it has great economic interchange with Austin, has 50% of their population living in urban areas, etc.......

Even if it qualified to be an "outlying" county with SA, it would not be included in the SA-NB MSA because it can only be included in one and if it qualifies as a central county with Austin, it cannot qualify as an outlying county with SA.

http://www.census.gov/population/metro/about/

As for Kerrville joining the SA-NB MSA; we discussed it in an older thread talking about the new census numbers. I think we all agreed that if it ever qualified for the 15% interchange or some other new standard, that it would be included which could happen the next round of census.

sananto Jan 20, 2012 4:34 AM

Thanks- Though I still wonder why the UIL places San Marcos High school in a district with SA schools instead of Austin, since it would be closer to those schools than to SA schools. And as far back as I can remember, it has always been that way. That's why I say that San Marcos has more in common with SA than with Austin. But as you say it has more economic traffic with Austin than with SA. I have a nephew that lived in San Marcos for a few years and both he and his wife worked in SA.

Thanks again.

adtobias Jan 21, 2012 7:27 AM

San Marcos is closer to San Antonio culture then Austin. But Austin is closer to San Marcos by distance.

texastarkus Jan 24, 2012 2:22 PM

I live in Hays county and work in Austin...Culturally I have nothing in common with San Antonio. In a past life I dated a professor at Texas State and for the most part students and facultiy are tied to the north not the south with a lot of them living in Kyle and Buda and even in the south part of Austin.

Schertz1 Jan 24, 2012 4:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by texastarkus (Post 5562049)
I live in Hays county and work in Austin...Culturally I have nothing in common with San Antonio. In a past life I dated a professor at Texas State and for the most part students and facultiy are tied to the north not the south with a lot of them living in Kyle and Buda and even in the south part of Austin.

You know everyone has a personal story. I know of faculty members living in San Antonio and I do not believe Texas State Students identify culturally with Austin. And even if they did, they are not actual San Marcos Residents. I would guess a very small number even choose to call San Marcos or Austin home after graduation. I do know a high percentage of Texas State Students come out of San Antonio area high schools.

JAM Jan 25, 2012 5:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sananto (Post 5555953)
I just wonder why San Marcos is included in the Austin Metro area instead of SA. Is it because Hays County borders Travis and not SA? Looking at today's newspaper is a section about higher education in the San Antonio area and there you will find Texas State University and its commitment to San Antonio. Also you wonder why San Marcos High School is in districts with San Antonio high schools instead of Austin. It seems to me that San Marcos has more in common with SA than Austin. Also while at it, I see also included in the section is Schreiner Institute of Kerrville. Do you think Kerr County will ever be added to the SA metro area? If Hays was part of the SA metro area, that would place SA just below the Pittsburgh metro area.

Ha ha - good question. I had to go look at the map myself to see why you would ask that. I never gave it a thought, but its actually hard to tell which one it would belong to. I think it has to do with commuting patterns - Google it and you will find info. If that is true, then probably more people commute between Austin and SM for work, ect than they do between SA and SM.

Texas does have big cities, but just taking simple population into account is an unfair comparison when comparing older, more established mid-western cities like Pitt. If you were to take the same land area that SA encompasses, Pitt would devour a lot of population and become very big. I think a better gauge to check the "metropolitanousity" of a city is population density - its a least worth giving it a weighting in the factor.

BevoLJ Jan 27, 2012 7:32 AM

San Marcos is very much more Austin than SA. And Texas State students and faculty all have very strong ties with UT and St. Eds. Also when I was in high school (not going to say how long ago. :P ) we (Westlake) were in the same district as all of the Hays County schools including San Marcos. But San Marcos High School is HUGE now!

As for commuter patterns, here is 2000. (can't find a newer one)

Outflows
http://www.workforcesolutionsrca.com...anOut-Hays.png
http://www.workforcesolutionsrca.com...nOut-Hays.html

Inflows
http://www.workforcesolutionsrca.com...ranIn-Hays.png
http://www.workforcesolutionsrca.com...anIn-Hays.html

Schertz1 Jan 27, 2012 3:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BevoLJ (Post 5566193)
Texas State students and faculty all have very strong ties with UT and St. Eds.

How do the faculty or students have ties with UT and St. Ed?



After going to the TS web site and using their data pivot tables, I see there are more students from Travis than Bexar County. However, I would still like to know how they are connected to UT or St. Ed.

BevoLJ Jan 27, 2012 8:08 PM

In my mind I was thinking all the transfers and the programs and research between them, which is a lot. Thought there are other things I am sure. 6st Street on a Saturday night being full of mostly UT and TS students. But most of all LBJ and Lady Bird whose offices were at UT. LBJ went to and loved both schools, and no one in the history of either city loved them more and did more for Austin, San Marcos and the hill country from them to Johnson City, to and all between as Lady Bird did.

wwmiv Feb 14, 2012 11:31 AM

I think it is interesting that in the data source from Bevo, even Blanco and Fayette counties have larger commuter ties to Travis than to Bexar. This speaks not of a minimal San Antonian influence, but of the outsize influence on the employment market that being a state capital can create.

Some others note:

Burnet is this close to being considered in the Austin MSA according to that data.
Lee is also, much to my surprise, pretty darn close.
Blanco isn't quite as close to that threshold, but is definitely within reach over the next ten years.
Llano should definitely now be considered as part of Burnet's mSA (as I believed when the mSA was first created). As such, this would stave off the addition of Burnet into the Austin MSA for a few more years until Llano can develop a larger direct connection with Travis.

Within the next ten years all of these counties will certainly fall within the lines of Austin's CSA, while San Antonio will finally get the CSA with Kerrville that many here have hypothesized (the trend is certainly in that direction).

http://proximityone.com/demographics2020.htm

Developing these ideas further, Austin's anticipated CSA in 2020 will hold 2,399,472 while San Antonio's will hold 2,661,801.

austin242 Feb 18, 2012 2:09 PM

Maybe in 50 years it will be in the ASA (Austin - San Antonio) metro. :tup:

Schertz1 Feb 19, 2012 4:01 AM

Maybe in 50 years it will be San Antonio-Round Rock-Austin.
The proximityone estimates seem a bit suspect for several cities, San Antonio included.
I prefer the businessfirst estimates.






http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjourna...90089069146346

TexasPlaya Feb 19, 2012 5:01 AM

As a Texas State grad (within the last 5 years) it definitely has more ties to Austin metro. While, there were a handful of students that commuted from Austin (the city), most commuters were from either Kyle, Buda, or the area between San Marcos and New Braunfels.

llamaorama Feb 19, 2012 6:47 AM

Austin, because of the student culture and also because it is just a lot closer. According to Google, from the square its 32.1 miles to downtown Austin and 50.6 to central San Antonio. San Antonio feels even farther because the area around Schertz and Converse is also a speed trap and the traffic congestion around 1604 is beginning to rival anything in Austin. Also Kyle is effectively an Austin suburb and it's city limits actually abut San Marcos's. When the blanco river land starts to be more fully developed there will be a nearly continuous urban sprawl from Austin to San Marcos that breaks to untouched rural dramatically around the village of Hunter and the Heldenfelds plant, only to pick up in New Braunfels which at the county line becomes part of the San Antonio MSA.

Here's my weird subjective opinion:

San Antonio absolutely starts in New Braunfels. That's when the military-related credit union branches and local chain mexican restaurants start lining the interstate. Bexar County officially begins when every exit has a Bill Miller's BBQ location on it. The roads start having stodgy German family names like "Wurtzburger Parkway". Once you get to 1604 because of the hills its also possible to see some of the taller suburban office buildings in Stone Oak and near the airport as well, and even the Tower of the Americas if its not too hazy.

The dividing line is that place where you can waterski in a man-made lake pulled by cables. There you can see SM's embassy suites hotel in one direction and NB's cement factory(the bigger one) in the other.

If you go the other way on 35, the sprawl feels more like Austin with billboards advertising "CENTEX RANCHO TUSCANO AT LIME KILN CREEK HOMES STARTING IN THE 200s!!!!". Naturally the name implies these lovely new McMansions come with a beautiful smog-draped vista of one of the world's largest cement manufacturing facilities. The cars on the road have honor student bumper stickers and "Cupertino Ford" plate frames. Not too far past Buda after the SH45 stack interchange the top of the Austonian is actually visible on the horizon.

Boquillas Feb 19, 2012 8:35 AM

^That's hilarious!

I think it's time to for San Antonio to stop trying to claim San Marcos now that New Braunfels is actually larger. In any event (in my opinion at least), of all the outlying communities in south-central Texas, San Marcos is the least "claimable" by either large city. My best friend is an assistant DA in Hays County, grew up in San Antonio, and went to law school in Austin. He shares my opinion that San Marcos' community and culture are pretty much independently derived. Of course it's going to have stronger commuter numbers going to Austin. It's geographically closer. But that's immaterial. It definitely lacks the desperate, self-conscious hipness of Austin, but it also lacks the blue-collar hustle and categorical "unhipness" of S.A. It does however have a drunken, self-indulgent vibe all its own, which is one of the reasons I avoid it.

wwmiv Feb 20, 2012 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boquillas (Post 5596756)
^That's hilarious!

I think it's time to for San Antonio to stop trying to claim San Marcos now that New Braunfels is actually larger. In any event (in my opinion at least), of all the outlying communities in south-central Texas, San Marcos is the least "claimable" by either large city. My best friend is an assistant DA in Hays County, grew up in San Antonio, and went to law school in Austin. He shares my opinion that San Marcos' community and culture are pretty much independently derived. Of course it's going to have stronger commuter numbers going to Austin. It's geographically closer. But that's immaterial. It definitely lacks the desperate, self-conscious hipness of Austin, but it also lacks the blue-collar hustle and categorical "unhipness" of S.A. It does however have a drunken, self-indulgent vibe all its own, which is one of the reasons I avoid it.

New Braunfels: 57,740
San Marcos: 44,894

Given that student populations are historically massively undercounted, that disparity is probably closer to where it was in 2000 when New Braunfels was also bigger than San Marcos - I.E. I wouldn't phrase this as a "now that blah blah blah" because its been that way for awhile. A better metric to look at:

Comal County: 108,472
Hays County: 157,107

Also, I found your post way too judgmental. Austin isn't desperate and self-conscious, San Antonio isn't unhip at all, and San Marcos does not have a drunken self-indulgent vibe.

kingkirbythe.... Feb 20, 2012 6:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wwmiv (Post 5597687)
Also, I found your post way too judgmental. Austin isn't desperate and self-conscious, San Antonio isn't unhip at all, and San Marcos does not have a drunken self-indulgent vibe.

I have to agree. Saying something bad about all is just a failed attempt at appearing objective. If you don't have anything nice to say....

Boquillas Feb 21, 2012 6:03 AM

???
Context, fellas. This is basically a city v. city thread whose inanity I thought I'd try to neuter in my last sentence with a little "blanket cynicism," but quotation marks must be hard for folks to figure out these days.


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