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My aunt moved to Austin in the late 1960s when it was a sleepy little college town of 50,000 residents and 250,000 students. The population waxed and waned wit

My aunt moved to Austin in the late 1960s when it was a sleepy little college town of 50,000 residents and 250,000 students. The population waxed and waned with the seasons and you could still swing on a rope into Bull Creek or camp under the stars in the nearby hills. I have many happy memories of that and swimming in the other places in and around Austin. More than twenty years ago there was enough growth that people asked City Council to consider annexing the unincorporated areas around Austin but they refused. City Council didn't want the responsibility, so developers built in the hills and put in septic systems in an area with a lot of clay soil. Now the waterways are so polluted from runoff you don't want your dog in Bull Creek much less yourself. You have the tussle over Barton Springs that resulted in the salamander habitat taking precedence and suddenly big chunks of the pool are off limits because of aquatic plants that can't be removed. Still, probably better than Nestle just coming in and damming off the pool so they could bottle the water and sell it. Change is inevitable, but managed change is far preferable the other kind; Austin planning for their growth would be much more charming place than it is today. It might not be any less expensive and the locals would still be grumbling about the influx of outsiders but their quality of life would be better.

cryptonector 9y ago
Requiring sewers is hardly "planning". You can't really plan growth. Planning is political, and local politics is all about protectionism. Austin's growth politics is a bunch of NIMBYism ("keep the neighborhoods as they are!") combined with / resulting in terrible traffic planning because it's not possible to improve the main thoroughfares when they're all going through neighborhoods that must be left as they are. Austin's zoning/planning is all about protecting neighborhoods property values (in a place where they only go up anyways!). It's a mess.
- technofiend 9y ago
  >Requiring sewers is hardly "planning". You can't really plan growth. Of course you can! "Gee, we're growing like a weed so now we need to annex the areas surrounding us." "Hey developers, you're required to hook up to city sewerage, which we'll supply because that's what responsible cities do." Done. If you want another good example of failure to plan look at all the development in Addicks Reservoir in Houston. It was trivial to plan for growth by banning development in the 100 year flood plain. We chose not to. Now 40 years too late we're trying to kinda sorta but not really regulate in the 500 year flood plain. Having the political wherewithal to just say "You know what? No building houses in the flood plain!" would have saved the taxpayers billions. But nobody had the stones to tell developers no. So those developers got to build in a risky spot and walk away with the profits while shifting the risk to taxpayers.
  - cryptonector 9y ago
    Manhattan was planned North of Canal anyways. It's a mess. You can't plan growth, sorry. You can't see 40 years into the future, let alone 100. Sure, don't build on flood plains. Got it. But that's not planning failure. That's our government bailing people out all the time, so no one is afraid of building where they should know better.

cryptonector 9y ago

Requiring sewers is hardly "planning". You can't really plan growth. Planning is political, and local politics is all about protectionism. Austin's growth politics is a bunch of NIMBYism ("keep the neighborhoods as they are!") combined with / resulting in terrible traffic planning because it's not possible to improve the main thoroughfares when they're all going through neighborhoods that must be left as they are. Austin's zoning/planning is all about protecting neighborhoods property values (in a place where they only go up anyways!). It's a mess.

technofiend 9y ago
>Requiring sewers is hardly "planning". You can't really plan growth. Of course you can! "Gee, we're growing like a weed so now we need to annex the areas surrounding us." "Hey developers, you're required to hook up to city sewerage, which we'll supply because that's what responsible cities do." Done. If you want another good example of failure to plan look at all the development in Addicks Reservoir in Houston. It was trivial to plan for growth by banning development in the 100 year flood plain. We chose not to. Now 40 years too late we're trying to kinda sorta but not really regulate in the 500 year flood plain. Having the political wherewithal to just say "You know what? No building houses in the flood plain!" would have saved the taxpayers billions. But nobody had the stones to tell developers no. So those developers got to build in a risky spot and walk away with the profits while shifting the risk to taxpayers.
- cryptonector 9y ago
  Manhattan was planned North of Canal anyways. It's a mess. You can't plan growth, sorry. You can't see 40 years into the future, let alone 100. Sure, don't build on flood plains. Got it. But that's not planning failure. That's our government bailing people out all the time, so no one is afraid of building where they should know better.