Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

kinder.rice.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 139 posts

Re: The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

#51

Post by dumbo-octopus »

mikepurvis wrote: post #31
basil-rash wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rephrased, Texans think the rights of private land owners matter more than the latest politician’s talking points. The people downvoting this have clearly never had government agents steal anything from them. Or believe that when they do, it’s always “for the greater good”.

I mean, China has 45,000 kilometers of HSR and the US has zero. So I'm not saying that taking people's houses to build public infrastructure is always the right thing to do, but there's a case to be made for a more balanced view than just "never". (Also China is a huge, spread out place just like the US, so miss me with those arguments about that being the reason passenger rail doesn't work here.)

The case you've presented is "China does it, so we should too", which is not all that strong of an argument.

Re: The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

#52

Post by coloneltcb »

this reads more like content marketing for a private college based in Texas than a substantive academic commentary.

The author has several associations, but his official title on LinkedIn is: Director for Economic Growth at George W. Bush Institute https://www.linkedin.com/in/cullum-clark-09549159/

Re: The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

#53

Post by aaroninsf »

Caveat emptor.

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/02/university-texas-aus...

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/09/texas-legislature-ab...

Said it for years, thinking you're safe because you live in a comparatively liberal community or subculture within a state dominated by right wing zealots is foolish in the extreme.

They "came" for "immigrants," trans kids, gay marriage, women's rights, etc., and they're going for more.

I would never move there, I won't travel there, and my daughters sure as f--k won't apply to colleges there or take jobs there.

Not until Abbot and Paxton and Cruz and their ilk are gone forever.

Re: The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

#55

Post by dylan604 »

bombcar wrote: post #9
laweijfmvo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

other than maybe parts of the Northeast Corridor, do any of the othe "megaregions" solve that problem?

The San Diego - LA basin is moderately well covered, but the train is still slower than driving - most of the time. Unless you have exceptionally fast and direct rail, the train is almost always slower than driving, even in Europe, when counted door to door.

I disagree with the slower than driving. I could take the train from the Valley to downtown SD in less time to drive. The train is a fairly consistent amount of time where driving totally depends on day/time. Leaving the Valley on a Friday afternoon has taken more than 4 hours. On the train, it is very close to 2 hours.

As more fine grained details, from my place in Burbank to my friend's place in Carlsbad was 99 miles. It took longer to drive that than it takes me to drive from Dallas to Austin with is twice as far.

Re: The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

#56

Post by dashundchen »

dumbo-octopus wrote: post #48
nickpp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that the government can't convince owners to sell. I mean - we're talking about politicians. They manage to negotiate everything and compromise even in the middle of wars. See prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine right now. Or Israel and Hamas. Worst enemies and they can still find a compromise. It can't be just about money - governments successfully negotiate with unions that hold the whole…

It's a tragedy of the commons situation - you might be able to buy 90% of the land for a "reasonable price" (which is hard to define - depending on the type of land use, the value of the owner's entire plot would change significantly by having a train going by every day, sometimes greater sometimes lesser), but if the remaining 10% don't play ball you can't have the train. So the government is in a position of "we'll…

> So the government is in a position of "we'll give you X for this, but if you don't agree we'll just take it from you", which is a... non-Texan position for government to be in, to say the least.

Texas government doesn't seem to have that reservation when it comes to highway expansions within cities, that's for sure.

Re: The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

#57

Post by rflrob »

saghm wrote: post #14
RajT88 wrote: post #2

I never thought about it before - but seeing that chart of "Megaregions", almost none of my work travel within the US from the last 15 years has been outside of those regions.

I feel like I'm missing some nuance, because it looks like it's basically just taking the largest population cities in the US and drawing circles around the ones near each other. "Most economic activity happens where the most people live" doesn't seem like a particularly novel insight.

The claim, as I understand it, is that commerce within a megaregion is more tightly integrated than commerce between megaregions. If this is the case, there should be more trade between Baltimore and Boston than Baltimore and Raleigh (controlling for population/GDP/infrastructure, I suppose, and therein lies the rub), despite the fact the latter pair is closer.

Re: The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

#58

Post by NewJazz »

tensor wrote: post #45
sarchertech wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP said “unless you have exceptionally fast rail” and was talking door to door. When you add in getting to the station, waiting on a train to arrive, and getting from the station to your destination, the average speed of the train does need to be a good deal faster.

The context of this thread is travel between major economic hubs. So if you are in say Rome, it does not take 30 min to get to the station. Also, the OPs wording made it sound rare, especially given his claim that it is rare, but the examples I gave are typical, not rare.

But it could take an hour to get from where you want to go in Houston to/from the station. Houston is not Rome!

Re: The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

#59

Post by dylan604 »

NewJazz wrote: post #36
tantalor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article tries & fails to convey this megaregion is "distinctive". Main pieces of evidence it offers are, 1. Distinctive set of demographic and economic realities This is not a very compelling argument. Different places have different people. We should not be surprised by this observation. 2. Integrated economic system within a single state Same article also cites other one-state megaregions like Florida, Southern…

Don't forget the triangle shape! Unleash the power of the pyramid! Much better than boring old oval megaregions.

Does that make Waco the all seeing eye in the middle of the pyramid?

Re: The Texas Triangle: A rising megaregion unlike all others (2021)

#60

Post by gregw2 »

NewJazz wrote: post #49
chasd00 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That triangle is why Southwest Airlines exists. I think the original brainstorming napkin drawing of the triangle routes is on display at Dallas Lovefield airport.

OK but was that before or after 2001?

1967

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Southwest_Airlines#.... also https://southwest50.com/our-stories/when-herb-met-rollin-the....

Post reply on HN