Quote:
Originally Posted by Komeht
I will note two things and then let people respond as I've already put most of my thoughts on this. One is, people often say things like "I don't want Austin to become NY". Um, ok. That's fine. Austin is so far from NY it might as well be on Pluto. It is in absolutely zero danger (whether you view this as a good or bad thing) of becoming anything like NYC in anyone's lifetime or any of their children's children's lifetimes. Austin now boasts a few square blocks of interesting urbanism, whereas Manhattan has block after block, street after street, neighborhood after neighborhood, and district after district of dense, highly intense urbanity that just does not in anyway resemble anything Austin is or could become.
And with regard to the impact on skyline, frankly to me this is a secondary concern. Skylines are nice to look at...from outside the city and I'm all for a nice skyline. But What I'm really concerned with and intersted in and what really gets my enines running is what the city looks, feels, acts like from the ground, within it, from the perspective of the persons lucky enough to live or visit. However, I will note that the reason Austin has a rather uninspiring and rather squatty skyline has as much to do with parking requirements as with anything. Fortunately those rules are being revisited.
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Oh I 100% agree there, they are in opposite universes. I only say that because I feel like some on this forum have a "build, build, build higher" attitude and I'm with you in the sense that tall towers do not a city make. I won't pretend I don't love gazing at a city skyline for hours, but for every treasured experience I have admiring skylines from afar, I have a treasured experience being somewhere that was truly alive at street-level.
You're correct about the parking requirements too, I just made a comment about that in the 3rd/Colorado thread on the Austin local forums. That also takes us circling back to the issue of improving transit options, but I digress.
