Quote:
Originally Posted by Urbannizer
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I'm talking about a REAL plaza - one with benches, greenery, something like a water feature (a koi fish pond would be nice) and perhaps two or three eclectic food trucks for lunch and in the evening.
And where are all these ugly "budget" hotels coming from, anyway. It's not like EVERYBODY in Silicon Valley is coming to Austin on business trips!
Europeans tourists are looking for new places to go. The ones who stay in places like The Element, Hyatt Centric, Hotel Van Zandt, or even Hotel San Jose. These middle class Europeans typically have two months paid vacations after three years employment (three to four months for the Germans). AND they rent out their flats to wealthy Americans, Asians and Latin Americans for big bucks while they're on vacation, so they generally DON'T need to travel on a budget!
And seriously, Austin does NOT have a lot of outdoor venues outside of Dirty 6th which does NOT get good writeups in travel guides. Go to Hell's Kitchen, NYC and there are outdoor venues all over the place, including on the rooftops of virtually every 5 to 7 story walkup. Montreal's the same way. People from Across the Pond LOVE the outdoors. I mean, who goes to Paris to spend their time indoors, unless you're at Le Musée du Louvre!
I mean really! Most of these ugly, cheap hotels are destined to go the way of the Alamo Hotel!
It's time to turn Austin into a REAL CITY that everybody can love. I mean, I hear people on this forum talk about how boring our skyline is, sometimes, but I actually think it is a really good mixture of modernism. the skyscrapers we built in our 80s building boom complement the newer buildings on the skyline quite well, so it is quite unique.
And it's time to not just dance in the streets, but on the rooftops, as well, like they do in Montreal and NYC and London and Paris and Berlin and Amsterdam and Copenhagen and Stockholm and Barcelona and Rome.