The Astonishing Transformation of Austin

This is basically my exact position as a native austinite - personally the transformation was complete for me when Magnolia's on Lake Austin blvd closed.

Now it's all just Tesla's with CA plates

> - The City Council here is undoubtedly the worst part of the problem. They consistently buckle to NIMBYs, and allocate money in just unreasonably idiotic ways. ("No one riding the train that cost $1.1 billion? Easy fix! Spend $7 billion more!") They are making the change much more painful.

Are you referring to Project Connect here? Right now nobody rides the train, but the answer to that problem _is_ to spend more money. Currently the train stops basically nowhere useful unless you are commuting from Leander to downtown, or going to the soccer stadium. The answer to that is to put _more_ stops in, in more useful places. The Domain stop is a ~30 minute walk from all the large businesses in the Domain. The train stops running into town at 6pm, meaning if you stay a little late you miss the train at your Domain office, and its not useful at all if you're trying to go out drinking or something in the city.

Additionally, there are network effects associated with public transit usage, the same as road or bike lane usage. The more places you can get to by public transit, the more likely you are to take public transit to get there. The new rail corridors will make the city far more connected by transit, and thus potentially increase usage of transit.

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So, I have lived in Austin since the mid-90's, having come here from the midwest via Silicon Valley (back when it was based on actual silicon, i.e. semiconductor companies).

You know you have become a true Austinite when you first say "it's not as cool as it was back when I first moved here". I was hearing it in the mid-90's when I moved here, I have heard it continually in the 25+ years since. Sometime in 2050, Austinites will be talking about how it is no longer as cool as it was in 2022, back when they moved here.

The thing is, Austin's vibe comes in part from the large number of newcomers. Newcomers to a city add energy, because they are still out and about looking for things to do and new friendships to make. A town of the same size, with the same industries, etc. which had been that size for a while, would not have the same vibe. Cities are vectors, not scalars; what gives Austin it's cool vibe is in part that there is a lot happening, and a big part of that is that new people are constantly showing up.

Sure, Austin has problems from this, because building enough housing to keep the prices down is hard, and keeping the infrastructure up is also hard, and Austin needs to do better on both. But, if you could somehow freeze Austin's size where it is, or where it was in a few decades back, you would not get the same feel. Rather, it would feel stultifying, full of people who already have their close circle of friends and don't feel a need to go out much, or if they do go only to the same things they went to last year. You can't freeze a candleflame, and a growing city is more like a candleflame (reacting and changing) than it is like an ice sculpture.

You could just support new housing development and sane urban planning. Then maybe Austin will still be a pleasant and semi-affordable place to live in 10 or 20 years. Lots of moderately wealthy people moving in could be, in some ways, a boon for Austin, if you don't do everything exactly wrong.

(The alternative is to refuse to build new housing or do any reasonable urban planning out of resentment towards newcomers, and then watch in frustration as traffic becomes even worse, housing prices continue to skyrocket, and you have rapidly rising homelessness and crime. The same way most cities in California handled this situation.)