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Originally Posted by tgannaway89
There have been numerous attempts to redevelop the core. AT&T Center, UTSA-Downtown, Guadalupe Association, and others have not been very successful at changing the areas they occupy. People have decided not to follow these trends.
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I'm not real familiar with UTSA-Downtown, so I'll just comment on the one of those that I do know about. The AT&T Center is a horrible example for urban renewal. It's well within the east side which has been slow to redevelopment, but it's biggest problem is that it went up in an industrial area. You can't tell me that building the new arena would magically fix the area. There's nothing else to do around there. It's all industrial stuff, mostly warehouses and distribution centers.
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Originally Posted by tgannaway90
Medtronics, USAA, Valero, NuStar, Tesoro, etc. all chose to locate in areas closer to where their employees live.
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This is why downtown is so quiet. Those companies are San Antonio companies. They should act like it. They should be downtown building a headquarters that reflects the city they call home. Having those companies in up to a dozen suburban office buildings on the city's edge does not make them stable employers. There's no incentive for them to stay. One of those could pull up roots and move to another city next month.
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Originally Posted by tgannaway89
Do not pretend Austin is any different. You just tend to separate these areas by calling them Round Rock, Cedar Park, and Pflugerville.
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I won't deny that you have a point there. Sprawl is sprawl. The difference though between the sprawl in Austin and San Antonio is that the sprawl in Austin is happening in those suburbs, which have control over their jurisdictions. Austin does not control them. San Antonio though, does control land that far out from its core.
A perfect example of that is from some news that came out this week about two water parks planned in Austin's metro. One is planned for Cedar Park, and the other for Pflugerville, and we have a third existing one on Lake Travis at Volente Beach. All three of those no doubt serve Austin, but neither one of them is inside the city limits. Now, looking at San Antonio's metro, you guys have 4 water parks in your metro, and only one of those is outside of San Antonio's city limits. By the way, how cool is it that we'll have 7 water parks in the region by 2012? The water park planned for Cedar Park will be a new Schlitterbahn park.
Anyway, back to the topic, the suburban sprawl in Round Rock, Cedar Park and Pflugerville is just as far out as the suburban sprawl in San Antonio is. The suburban sprawl in those Austin suburbs doesn't feel even remotely feel familiar to Austin.
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Originally Posted by tgannaway89
Government officials and wealthy college professors have filled a few sporadic high-rise condos.
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That's wrong. Some government officials have bought homes in the condos, and the ones that have live here permanently since they're Austinites. Governor Ann Richards died in her condominium in downtown Austin just across the parking lot from Whole Foods' headquarters. She was a rarity though, most of the government officials don't even call Austin home. They live in their respective city that they represent. They work here, but they don't all live here. In fact, knowing Texas politics as I do, and the kind of people they represent (overwhelmingly suburban in nature) they probably don't prefer urban living at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tgannaway89
and wealthy college professors have filled a few sporadic high-rise condos.
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This isn't necessarily wrong, but still less probable. Most college professors earn modest wages. Unless you're Mack Brown (the highest paid college football coach at $5 million a year), you're probably making at best $50,000 to $60,000 a year, but most only make around $30K to $40K. Even that low end would be barely enough to be able to purchase a condo.
As for college students. First of all, a lesson about condos. Condominiums are to be purchased, not rented. So for a college student it would be pointless, impractical and even impossible for them to buy a condo so that they can go to school for 4 years. At best, they might rent in a highrise apartment. Although, most of the college renters don't actually rent downtown, they're confined to two areas of the city. West Campus, which is a densely packed rental neighborhood of highrise and lowrise apartments just west of UT, and also along Riverside Drive just southeast of downtown in lowrise apartment buildings of say, 3 to 4 floors. Most college students aren't rich either.
Most of the people who are buying and living downtown are normal people with normal jobs, not rich and they don't live fancy lives. I've met several of them. There's at least 10 to 15 people on the forum in Austin who live downtown in highrises. I've met about 4 or 5 of those. They all represented different age groups and were married.
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Originally Posted by tgannaway89
Most new developments still take place in suburban areas.
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Well sure, there's tons of demand there (now). That wasn't always the case when cows outnumbered people. Heck, there were people in one Round Rock neighborhood complaining because a rancher who's property was surrounded by residential neighborhoods, was shooting at coyotes on his land to protect his goats. People in the neighborhood were freaking out from bullets whizzing by their homes. There's still plenty of development, and yes, dense urban development happening right inside of Austin. The area around my neighborhood has become denser, grown and seen more development and amenities in just this decade. There's a new 7-story hospital being built less than 2 miles from me, and ACC built a new 4-story campus just down the street.