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Manipulate public perceptions and actions through taxation to force people to alter their lifestyles? Am I reading this correctly, that you're now advocating what you've railed against for so long?
Tears you up inside doesn't it.
Manipulate public perceptions and actions through taxation to force people to alter their lifestyles? Am I reading this correctly, that you're now advocating what you've railed against for so long?
Well, there is an argument that gas is undertaxed. Personally I feel, every dollar of military expense in the middle east should be passed on via gas. Thats nothing more than paying for what you use.
Whats wrong with the location of the ATT center?
You don't even need to go that far to make the arguement. Gas taxes fund our roads and in Texas the combination of increasing traffic, increased fuel efficiency and a stagnant gas tax rate has left the state without adequate funding to keep up with demand. Personally, I think the state gas tax rate needs to be doubled with half the proceeds going to fund new road projects and half going to help fund transit projects.
I'd rather the tax from reduced fuel stay in USA rather than export 100s of $Bs to VZ, BR, and Muslim Middle East. But Repugs would rather starve the US govt beast while gorging the Middle East countries with our treasure. ing stupid, but that's Repugs for ya.
American love to sound bad and tough assed and say There Ain't No Free Lunch, while expecting everything to be painless and cheap.
Makes sense. If that's the case then they built the Lakeline stop at a ridiculous location. It's located on a long stretch of back road with no other businesses nearby. There is a shopping center about a mile to the north, and my apartments are about a mile to the south, and those are the closest things.
Like you said, if you took the train to the Lakeline stop, you'd still need to hop a bus to get to Lakeline Mall.
Truth. The People Mover is a laughable, utterly pathetic mode of transit, but it sure as beats walking from the limited locations it does service.
BTW, a LightRail project has been confirmed for downtown Detroit. Will run from downtown to 8 mile road along (iirc) Woodward Avenue. Hopefully, its just a very meager start.
Real Estate people run the local government. Sprawl benefits the real estate market churning relatively cheap agriculture land into high-dollar lots. Taxpayers provide the infrastructure for the sprawl so that real estate investors make money off your tax money and some of that money is re-channeled to back real estate-friendly policies and politicians.
The only solution is initiatives that limit the spread of infrastructure-and there will be a lot of screaming and gnashing of teeth. Once you have stopped the sprawl the market will turn towards brown-field development which benefits the community and makes other forms of transit possible.
First off, isn't there a Amtrak line that goes from Austin to SA and back every day? I'm sure it runs more than once a day. Passes by my store everyday.
Second, the one idea that was being tossed around on lightrail was to have the train go to major Park & Ride/Transit Centers. The light rail would hit major parts of the city, but for anything heading out towards 1604, you take the train, then catch a bus the rest of the way.
For as large as San Antonio is, this seems like a cost effective method for those commuting from outside 1604 into the city.
As for a grocery store downtown, most of the people who live or work downtown end up in my store, off of Hildebrand and San Pedro. I just don't see a place where it's feasible to build a 60,000 sq ft grocery store. Not to mention that HEB likes to own the land that they build their stores on. A good chunk (I've actually heard more than half) of HEB's profits are from real estate, not the stores themselves.
Your store is the one off San Pedro north of Monte Vista? Your store ing blows. The produce there was always gross as when I lived in Monte Vista. Get your in order, imo.
Having done ISM in high school with a mentor in SA City Planning, I think I can say this:
The city of SA is not surrounded by any natural barriers to expansion. Thus, developers who respond to the growing consumer market in SA can buy up land in greater size rings around the city to build out more retail and residential areas. More development on cheap land = more profit potential in a growing city.
The concept of urban sprawl has been around for a long, long time and is due to a number of factors including district politics (like you guys have mentioned), property taxes and values, and natural barriers to expansion. The whole concept of urban planning is to define ways to bring communities together with common areas (like a downtown) to prevent natural socioeconomic separation and promote unity in our cities. Things like parks and nice downtowns also make cities more appealing, and thus the concept can indirectly lead to greater tax revenue.
The problem is, with no barriers on any side of SA, the city will naturally expand with the population size, until a super-city is created which annexes the surrounding towns. In order to prevent this, the voters need to be educated about the dangers of this possibility (listed above) and the "old boy" system of electing council members needs to be fought to prevent the developers from being in everyone of influence's pockets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_sprawl
Some reading for this (a gift given to me by my old mentor):
The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs
http://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Gre.../dp/067974195X
it all comes down to costs and funding of a project and the sort of revenue it can make....
then again why not connect the rail to the airport and to the downtown area....
I don't work produce.
Then tell the ers who do to get that under control. TBH the fish and meat always looked like ass too though. Made it a lot easier to just go to Central Market since it was almost as close. Your HEB made me go to gucci HEB a lot.
That's nice. Don't really care as I'm looking to transfer because it's just my time to move on. If you have anything to say about the Receiving area, then we can talk. Of course if you walk into my department I'll probably just tell you I'll find the person to help you and then tell you to wait outside.
But if you must know, I keep my department running like a Swiss watch.
Oh and I wouldn't eat the fish. But then again, I don't like fish so I'd never eat the fish. Make of that what you will.
Cause this is Texas ! Not New Yok.
Rob
Development always has the potential to be profitable. The problem with sprawl is that a great deal of it is subsidized by public infrastructure, "public-private" partnerships that are partnerships in name only, etc. If projects truly had to pay their own way in terms of infrastructure costs and city service costs, you would see more density because it would be an economic necessity for the projects to make money; even on "cheap land".
Not saying all sprawl would disappear. But there would be considerably less.
This is an excellent point. You've had some great posts on the subject, Mark.
Agreed, but what would make increasing density and revitalizing urban, inner-city areas cost efficient? Rebuilding, re-zoning and revitalizing all have costs that are arguably greater than those associated with expansion into the hill country. Not to mention that expansion has the potential to increase city limits, thereby increasing jurisdictions, taxable areas and government funding.
I'm not arguing on the side of old boy city council members, just asking if anyone sees a solution in this space. Because I don't see one that's easy to implement. Meanwhile, I heard of neighborhoods in SA that didn't even have running water.
I suppose you could argue it if you like, but there are several things to consider:
1. The very concept that "building new" is somehow cheaper than "reusing" is warped by a couple things: As I mentioned, a lot of "new" development has been subsidized by taxpayer infrastructure like roads, utility lines, water and sewer treatment plants, schools, etc. And these costs are rarely passed on to the developers and in turn, the end users in full. If you are a developer and your only choices are between developing a tract of land that already has roads, sewer, water, etc or developing a tract of land where YOU have to put in all those things, which one are you going to chose?
2. It's not about revitalizing inner city areas - in many urban centers this is already happening. In many cases, especially in sunbelt cities, it's about revitalizing the first ring of suburbs that are now in decay (for instance the area around what used to be Windsor Park Mall, now Rackspace). That was a solidly middle class area that has steadily lost ground as growth accelerated into the far north side.
3. It's actually not even about just building new vs. reusing. It's about how you build no matter where you are. One of the best videos I've seen on building walkable places is about Atlanta (which is a city like San Antonio that has no natural boundaries) and the development of the Glenwood Park neighborhood: (skip to the 4:00 mark if you want to get to the main point)
The neighborhood in the video was built on "re-used" land, but was built in a very specific way to allow pedestrian activity and walkability. This is by no means exclusive to rebuilding projects though. Check out the aerial photos here. The photos are of the New Town at St Charles, just outside of St. Louis. It was built on "new" land and has been the fastest growing / selling neighborhood in the region.
Any serious city official will say that sprawl is the LEAST efficient way to increase city income, because of the incredibly high cost per person to develop and service compared to more dense development. For example, in Austin at this point all the downtown property taxes paid by people in condos and denser neighborhoods are not only paying for their own city services, but are actually subsidizing the services for the suburbs. Without the denser areas, there is no way the city could have maintained a (more or less) balanced budget over the past 15 years of explosive growth.
Yes. One of the answers is here. A development pattern that incorporates the ideas of walkability, mixed uses, parks, and sustainability. It's not the only answer, or necessarily for every situation, but it is one that I know works.
You're absolutely right - growth isn't easy. Neither is heart surgery, rebuilding an engine, being a great teacher, or being a good parent. But like everything else that we do that we want to do well, we work hard at it. And there are professionals out there that are trained to help us if it is something we can't or don't want to do ourselves.
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