It looks like we're in brutal sober honesty mode regarding Austin, so I'll give my $0.02 while we're at it.
I didn't feel like a real participant in downtown Austin until I started working down there four months ago. It's nice. I love it. I love walking among the the people, the tall buildings, and the hustle and bustle every day. But I prefer walking among the older buildings. That's partly why I park at 16th Street (and walk to 6th) rather than taking the train and walking from 4th. I do think the new type of development is leading to a more bland downtown. The problem isn't the style of the architecture, it's the floor area of the buildings. If you look at older parts of downtown (places we generally consider the best parts of the city, like Congress) you'll notice that there's a huge diversity of places. Walking one block you may pass 5-10 different little establishments. Maybe some of those establishments don't interest you at all, but others probably do. And, for other people, what they're interested in will be different. There's something for everyone in this kind of development. There's something different happening in each little one. But, nowadays, with the exception of Aloft and the Texas Public Policy Foundation building, we're not seeing this kind of development. We're seeing huge lots being cleared for developments or whole city blocks! Big fat fucking Jabba the Hut kinds of buildings that squat on our most prized real estate and hardly offer anything back to the city. When you walk by them, if you're not interested in the establishment, tough luck. It's the only establishment you're going to be walking by! Or there may be two, if you're lucky. (Our building has a salon and Gloria's in it.) But it's better when the diversity takes the form of multiple buildings, rather than multiple establishments in one building. 2nd Street does a relatively good job of having lots of different establishments, but many of them are too bougie for regular people partly because they're in the ground floor retail of a very few number of buildings. I've only ever been to a couple restaurants, Toy Joy, and the Violet Crown over there.
Anyway, my point is that Austin is getting infill, which is great, but it's not the
ideal form of infill. When big lots go up for sale, they should be broken up into multiple smaller lots and sold off like that. And skinny towers need to be built on these lots, like below, so that we have more diversity of establishments in our city. This will ensure that our city remains a diverse, interesting, culturally rich, and alive place.
