AUSTIN | Project Updates Thread Part II

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Milam will never be added and even if it is, it's a very small county that has negative population growth.

It's about 25K (bigger than Llano). So true, not huge, but that's about 5% of the delta between Austin/San Antonio. It could cut a year off the estimate.
It's also only (slightly)negative in the post-census estimates(again, as was Llano). Last two censuses its been slowly growing. Certainly possible that picks up once Hutto/Taylor start taking off.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

San Antonio could also easily add Kerrville sometime within the next decade.

Possible, but I'd be a bit surprised by within the decade. Kerrville is a long way from San Antonio proper, with not a lot in-between. It'd be a pretty long commute.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

So, isn't as clear cut and dry as you think it might be.

I don't think it's cut and dry, but to a certain extent it's a function of distance (which affects commuting patterns). Will people commute from Kerrville to San Antonio, sure. Especially as San Antonio keeps growing. But it's more likely that people start commuting into Austin from areas currently outside the metro definition that are closer than that, at least in the near term. I think Austin is also helped out by having more and faster growing suburbs, especially on it's north.

[lzppjb]

If Hutto gets the battery plant, Milam County could see a population explosion next door.

[lzppjb]

Small office project at 916 Congress Ave: http://austintowers.net/new-office-s...ngress-avenue/

Permit: https://www.austintexas.gov/devrevie...erRSN=11090634

[LoneStarMike]

^^^ Here's a link to the entire 26-page presentation made to the City of Austin Historic Landmark Commission.

[kingkirbythe....]

This one looks nice.

[MightyYoda]

I like it.

[BevoLJ]

Originally Posted by GoldenBoot

Blanco is already a member of CAPGOG, correct?

http://www.capcog.org/documents/info...seMap24x36.pdf

[BevoLJ]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

Small office project at 916 Congress Ave:

Love it!

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Novacek

It's about 25K (bigger than Llano). So true, not huge, but that's about 5% of the delta between Austin/San Antonio. It could cut a year off the estimate.
It's also only (slightly)negative in the post-census estimates(again, as was Llano). Last two censuses its been slowly growing. Certainly possible that picks up once Hutto/Taylor start taking off.

Hutto and Taylor are in Williamson, not Milam. Hutto is about 30 minutes away from Milam County. There's no way at all Milam will ever be part of our metro.

Originally Posted by Novacek

Possible, but I'd be a bit surprised by within the decade. Kerrville is a long way from San Antonio proper, with not a lot in-between. It'd be a pretty long commute.

Kerrville is only 45 minutes away from San Antonio, whereas Milam is much further away from Austin. Furthermore, San Antonio is much more multipolar than Austin having multiple large business districts, one of which is at 10/1604 substantially closer to Kerrville (which already has decent ties with the S.A. area).

Originally Posted by Novacek

I don't think it's cut and dry, but to a certain extent it's a function of distance (which affects commuting patterns). Will people commute from Kerrville to San Antonio, sure. Especially as San Antonio keeps growing. But it's more likely that people start commuting into Austin from areas currently outside the metro definition that are closer than that, at least in the near term. I think Austin is also helped out by having more and faster growing suburbs, especially on it's north.

You contradict yourself here and essentially support what I said. Kerrville is closer to S.A. than Milam County is to Austin, thus Kerrville being included in S.A. is a much easier proposition to support than Milam being included in Austin.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Hutto and Taylor are in Williamson, not Milam.

I never claimed they were. But Milam starts to become the outer suburbs of Hutto/Taylor as they continue to grow (if it continues to grow at anything close to what Hutto did last census)

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Hutto is about 30 minutes away from Milam County.

20 minutes.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Kerrville is only 45 minutes away from San Antonio

To the city limits, yes
From the center city, 1 hour (65 miles).

Thorndale to Austin
from the city center 49 minutes (45 miles).
To the city limits, 36 minutes.

(all above from Google maps)

Milam county is closer to Austin than Kerrville is to San Antonio.

I don't see how you can try to argue otherwise. (granted its a little bit apples to oranges, comparing Milam county to Kerrville the city, but I'm just sticking with what you claimed. If you instead use Kerr County line, its a bit closer than the above).

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Furthermore, San Antonio is much more multipolar than Austin having multiple large business districts, one of which is at 10/1604 substantially closer to Kerrville (which already has decent ties with the S.A. area).

This is why I mentioned the Austin suburbs. Austin is multipolar as well, it's just more of those poles are in suburban municipalities. 10/1604 to Kerrville is 45 minutes (slightly closer to the county line). Round Rock to Milam line (thorndale) is only 30.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

You contradict yourself here and essentially support what I said.

No, I don't, you're mis-judging the distance.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Novacek

I never claimed they were. But Milam starts to become the outer suburbs of Hutto/Taylor as they continue to grow (if it continues to grow at anything close to what Hutto did last census)


20 minutes.




To the city limits, yes
From the center city, 1 hour (65 miles).

Thorndale to Austin
from the city center 49 minutes (45 miles).
To the city limits, 36 minutes.

(all above from Google maps)

Milam county is closer to Austin than Kerrville is to San Antonio.

I don't see how you can try to argue otherwise. (granted its a little bit apples to oranges, comparing Milam county to Kerrville the city, but I'm just sticking with what you claimed. If you instead use Kerr County line, its a bit closer than the above).

Uh... Austin to the middle of Milam County (where the population center is in Cameron... and given that we're talking about metro inclusion, you have to consider the population distribution of a county itself) is 1 hour and 19 minutes. Thorndale is a miniscule proportion of the county, so you can't measure off of that. Rockdale is 1 hour 2 minutes... and this is all during good traffic. Our traffic problems exacerbate those time distances in such as way as to prohibit their realistic inclusion.

Austin is not truly multipolar, having no actual business core outside of downtown, which means that in order for the daily employment commuter rate to exceed the minimum threshold, most of those people have to travel into our central city. San Antonio, however, has many business centers that allow outlying regions more flexibility in where they commute to AND lacks major traffic flow problems. Yes, Kerrville is an hour away from downtown, but the traffic is substantially less intensive during peak hours in S.A. than it is in Austin, there are ancillary business cores that are much closer (it's 49 minutes to the medical center, and 44 minutes to 1604/10 which is a huge burgeoning business area with many large office complexes being developed in the near future - as in actual midrises, not just an office park or two that would be common in Austin) AND Kerrville has the benefit of being immediately adjacent to a major expandable highway with no other competing metropolitan areas to draw Kerrville away from San Antonio's center of gravity, whereas Milam is much more likely to increase ties with Temple than it is with Austin and has no major roads connecting the major source of population in that county directly to Austin. Cameron, for instance, is only 29 minutes away from Temple.

It isn't impossible for large multipolar metropolitan areas to draw areas that are further outlying into their orbit. Take for instance Houston, which has Austin County. Bellville, the seat, is 1 hour and 3 minutes out. Howabout an example from a metro more San Antonio's size? Kansas City (with large business districts on both sides of the river and a few in ancillary places) includes Linn County, which is an hour and 4 minutes away (Pleasanton, the largest city).

There is literally no example anywhere of a unipolar city with a county whose population core is more than an hour away, let alone an hour and a half away, being part of their metropolitan area. And it's too cute by half that you talk as if Austin is multipolar... referencing specifically a single battery plant that might be built at some point in a bedroom community that is itself a suburb. That isn't going to fuel growth in a rural county whose economic ties are much more likely to develop in the direction of two metros that are substantially closer to it (Temple/Belton and College Station) than it is to develop them with Austin let alone one of Austin's suburbs. Even Marble Falls and the community around it (Burnet and Llano counties) is only about 50 minutes away and that's before the ease of travel increases given the development of tollways out in that direction. And guess what? All of the other places I mentioned for Austin are also only about 50 minutes (Blanco, Johnson City, Burnet the town). All of those are within the realm of possibility for a unipolar city of our size. Milam is simply not.

[Novacek]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Uh... Austin to the middle of Milam County (where the population center is in Cameron... and given that we're talking about metro inclusion, you have to consider the population distribution of a county itself) is 1 hour and 19 minutes.

We didn't say "the middle of Milam County", we said Milam County.

The only way any of these counties join a MSA is through further growth. All the people in Kerrville aren't suddenly going to get jobs in San Antonio while the population stays the same (that would leave Kerrville without teachers, mailmen...etc.). If and when further growth occurs in Milam, it will most likely be on that edge, in the vicinity of Thorndale (as Milam growth will occur as it becomes a suburb of Round Rock, Hutto, etc.). It's meaningless to look at the center of population circa today, as that will totally change in the future.

Originally Posted by wwmiv

And it's too cute by half that you talk as if Austin is multipolar... referencing specifically a single battery plant that might be built at some point in a bedroom community that is itself a suburb.

I said absolutely nothing about a battery plant. I did refer to a growing Hutto, because it saw a population increase of _1000%_ last census. Growth anywhere near that rate (if it continues) will certainly induce growth adjacent to it.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Novacek

We didn't say "the middle of Milam County", we said Milam County.

The problem with this assertion is that the bulk of the population of Milam County is in the middle of Milam County, so you have to calculate the distance to that population bulk because that's where the people will be commuting from and where any future development is likely to happen.

Originally Posted by Novacek

The only way any of these counties join a MSA is through further growth. All the people in Kerrville aren't suddenly going to get jobs in San Antonio while the population stays the same (that would leave Kerrville without teachers, mailmen...etc.). If and when further growth occurs in Milam, it will most likely be on that edge, in the vicinity of Thorndale (as Milam growth will occur as it becomes a suburb of Round Rock, Hutto, etc.). It's meaningless to look at the center of population circa today, as that will totally change in the future.

This is ridiculous. Development happens where there is already a critical mass of development. Development, therefore, is likely to happen adjacent to Round Rock or adjacent to the small cities in Milam County, not the functionally non-existent wasteland in between the two (which includes Thorndale). Suburbs do not spawn suburbs of their own unless and until they develop actual business districts, which Round Rock has yet to do. It is a bedroom community, where the employment core is almost uniformly retail (and thus dispersed throughout).

There are simply no indications that the core of population will change in Milam County anytime in the near future. That would require the growth in the 10s of thousands near the border with Williamson County for it to bring the county (Milam) into Round Rock's orbit (if you could even say that) within a decade. And where exactly is the precedent for such growth? It doesn't exist. If Milam is going to suddenly get growth that it has not seen in 100 years, it will be near Temple where there is already a close by large population center directly linked to the population centers of Milam County.

Originally Posted by Novacek

I said absolutely nothing about a battery plant. I did refer to a growing Hutto, because it saw a population increase of _1000%_ last census. Growth anywhere near that rate (if it continues) will certainly induce growth adjacent to it.

Sorry, it wasn't you who made the battery plant comment:

Originally Posted by lzppjb

If Hutto gets the battery plant, Milam County could see a population explosion next door.

As for Hutto continuing to grow, I never said that wouldn't happen. It certainly will for the foreseeable future. What I'm telling you is that bedroom communities do not spawn suburbs of their own. Hutto is a bedroom community, and there will be further growth in and around it, but in order for growth to occur in Milam County (which is 36 minutes from Rockdale and 51 minutes from Cameron, the two population centers of Milam County) off the basis of Hutto's growth, Hutto would have to have the economic gravity itself of a city larger than Austin. After all, San Marcos, Round Rock, and Georgetown are all closer to Austin than Rockdale or Cameron are to Hutto, let alone their distance to Round Rock. I hate to put it like this, but you're living in a fantasy land if you think Milam is a realistic option for future inclusion.

Going even further, Milam County's population is about the same distance away from Hutto than Austin's is from Marble Falls. Basically, logical extrapolation of these data points would suggest that Hutto would need to be a substantially larger economic powerhouse than Austin to draw Milam into it's orbit... let alone the rest of the metro area (the metric for which is the percent of commuters who commute into CORE counties daily - of which we only have one: Travis).

[Jdawgboy]

Originally Posted by lzppjb

Small office project at 916 Congress Ave: http://austintowers.net/new-office-s...ngress-avenue/

Permit: https://www.austintexas.gov/devrevie...erRSN=11090634

That's going to look nice though I wish it could block the view of that hideous white building with the odd depressions where windows should be. I think its the ugliest building in DT. Does anyone know what its purpose is and why in the world it was built looking so unappealing?

[Jdawgboy]

I'm gonna go ahead and chime in. It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when the Austin Metropolitan area surpasses San Antonio's. Don't forget we're talking about a 5 county Metro area as opposed to an 8 county metro and there really is not a whole lot of gap between the two these days.

I have a hard time thinking Blanco will ever become part of San Antonio's metro. The main population center which is Johnson City definitely identifies with Austin. On top of that, Blanco County has a border with Travis County.

A lot of people who live in Marble Falls work in Austin and while it remains to be seen whether or not Burnet is added to our metro, there will continue to be an increase of commuters.

As for Milam County, theres no doubt it will be influenced by the growth of Williamson, a county which is expected to reach 1 million people. You can already see the growth along the 79 corridor. I take that way when I go visit my sister in Shreveport La. There's always road construction along 79. It's larger and wider now and there's definitely a higher amount of traffic on it than there was 10 years ago. 79 has become the main route into the Austin area from NE Texas. I wouldn't even be surprised if they made it into an interstate in the future.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

I'm gonna go ahead and chime in. It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when the Austin Metropolitan area surpasses San Antonio's. Don't forget we're talking about a 5 county Metro area as opposed to an 8 county metro and there really is not a whole lot of gap between the two these days.

I do agree that Austin will outgrow San Antonio, whether through county additions or pure growth.

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

I have a hard time thinking Blanco will ever become part of San Antonio's metro. The main population center which is Johnson City definitely identifies with Austin. On top of that, Blanco County has a border with Travis County.

Currently, there are more commuters from Blanco into Bexar than from Blanco into Travis, which was the basis for my assertion. Also, the city of Blanco itself is larger than Johnson City, and has more potential for growth going forward. Furthermore, the Spring Branch area (which extends into Blanco) is a growing suburb of San Antonio). For me, this is a very hard county to pin down. It could go either way, like I said earlier.

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

A lot of people who live in Marble Falls work in Austin and while it remains to be seen whether or not Burnet is added to our metro, there will continue to be an increase of commuters.

Agreed fully, but I go further to argue that Llano will be added eventually as well because most of that county's population is part of the Marble Falls area.

Originally Posted by Jdawgboy

As for Milam County, theres no doubt it will be influenced by the growth of Williamson, a county which is expected to reach 1 million people. You can already see the growth along the 79 corridor. I take that way when I go visit my sister in Shreveport La. There's always road construction along 79. It's larger and wider now and there's definitely a higher amount of traffic on it than there was 10 years ago. 79 has become the main route into the Austin area from NE Texas. I wouldn't even be surprised if they made it into an interstate in the future.

This is ridiculous... There are no plans to turn this into an interstate, a planning process which typically takes 20+ years. If it were going to happen, we'd already be hearing about it. There's more traffic on it now because Austin is larger and is more connected to the outside world, not because there are more commuters from Milam County (a county, btw, which is shrinking). When there is actual population growth in that county and we see actual increases in the number of people who commute into Travis County (note that is has to be Travis County, not Williamson, because of the way that the census bureau defines our metropolitan area) I might reconsider, but there is no indication that that will happen.

[GoldenBoot]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

...Currently, there are more commuters from Blanco into Bexar than from Blanco into Travis, which was the basis for my assertion.

Your assertion is based on incorrect data. Blanco county itself did a study in May 2013 and found that 3% of the counties citizens commute to Bexar for work; 9% to Travis; and 61% stayed within the boundaries of Blanco County.

Let's put an end to this bickering and move on to another subject. This is becoming annoying.

Should you and Novacek elect to continue this argument, please do so via PM.

Thank you!

[GoldenBoot]

Has anyone heard more about a possible ECC site announcement?

[wwmiv]

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