Samson's Wig

I'll bet it's fewer than 10%. I'll take a look.

No, but I can see how you might mistakenly pull that out of what I wrote. There are many things missing from downtown Austin to make it a place people might actually want to live. Most of these things are commercial and not government-owned or funded: Grocery, retail, etc., not to mention housing that attracts actual residents and not investors alone. Building more condos for absolutely no one to live in is fucking stupid and benefits no one locally at all. I also have seen no noticeable reduction in my local taxes since the building of all of these condos, have you? Or are you a suburbanite with no actual skin in the game? The city loves all that extra revenue, I guess so they can build more bike lanes for all those folks who don't live downtown to never use, but they sure as fuck aren't using it to offset what they charge the rest of us. I might actually get behind that scenario. Texas cities are some of the slowest in America to recover from white flight, in part because our state government ensures that white evangelicals in the burbs are made as comfortable as possible. Given how quickly our population is growing, we're going to have to get over it, and soon.

A lot of SMBs came to the realization during the pandemic that a certain percentage of their customer base isn't worth dealing with anymore. A lot of it is generational, I think, as older folks need their hands held much more than younger folks ("I want to talk to someone before I place an order, by god! No real reason other than I want to!"). Whether or not that is reasonable is beside the point, as businesses will eventually stop caring what customers who require more effort to close want and for good reason. Younger buyers value efficiency and ease of transaction i.e. they don't want to talk to someone, they want to order it and have it in hand as soon as possible. Older buyers often still like to be sold something, and want the human interaction. They require much more time and effort for the same sale. From a business standpoint, one of these customers is much more attractive than the other, and the folks complaining the loudest about the lack of customer service these days tend to fall in the less attractive category. As wealth continues to shift from the gigantic older generation to the gigantic younger one, older folks are going to complain more and more about customer service. It won't matter when those old folks are GenX, as we've been too small in numbers for anyone to ever give a shit about anyway. The point: customer service seems worse for the neediest customers because businesses have stopped focusing on attracting their business.

For some, no downtown is livable because they just prefer single-family housing, and by livable, I'm not talking about affordable (which is another discussion), but for those who enjoy urban living, there are plenty of great cities with great downtowns in America. Austin just isn't one of them (at least not yet). Based on personal experience, New York, Boston and Chicago come to mind immediately. Toronto (while just across the border) is amazing for downtown living. Downtown Chicago was primarily a business district for decades up until the last fifteen years or so, but the edges of it made for excellent livable areas even before the recent push for downtown residences. Cities like Miami and San Diego provide a functional downtown living experience. There are tons of mid sized cities that provide great downtown living as well, such as Greenville or Burlington. These places have the infrastructure and amenities (not just laundromats, but museums, art galleries, etc.) to make living downtown comfortable and functional, starting with transit systems but also including everything one might need within walking distance or a short transit ride. Austin has places to eat and drink downtown and rows and rows of condos. Living down there takes a lot of effort you don't have to put in many other major cities, and provides very little in terms of features. The library stands out as something great for reason. It's about all we have. Downtown Austin is designed for tourists, not residents, and building more condos won't change that.

Does anyone have evidence that a significant number of people live in those downtown condos? I'm talking about human beings, not trust fund babies partying on daddy's dime, but actual functional working adults who contribute to our local economy and community and have a primary residence downtown? We've got some friends who work downtown and have a condo for when they work late and don't want to drive home to the hill country, but I'm not counting that either. I've lived in the downtown area of a number of major cities, within America and outside of it. The downtown area is a genuine center of the city in these places, with jobs and the necessities of daily life (laundromats, grocery stores, hardware stores, etc.) Like KaiserSoze, I used to live just across the river off Congress, but it was at a time when no one lived downtown at all (in the olden times before the birth of the highrises). As far as residents go, it was a dead zone then, and it still feels like one now. My wife worked downtown at the time and we liked that she could bike to work, but she seemed like the only one doing it. We had to drive to actually run any basic errands at all. Nothing about downtown Austin today seems attractive for a permanent residence unless you're a young person with disposable income, no responsibilities, and enjoy partying at nightclubs. South of the river is a slightly different story, of course. Are these condos being built for anything more than vehicles for money laundering? I appreciate the notion of a livable downtown and think it's a great thing. I just don't see any evidence that we have one in this city. We have built many residences but have done little else to make downtown an attractive place to live. The jobs aren't even there in significant numbers. Building more condos doesn't seem like a solution to anything other than satisfying more developers, short-term rental investors, and foreign money launderers. More investment in things like the library appeals to me much more. Make downtown a place people actually want to live, then build the condos. We've put the cart way before the horse, and I don't see a single benefit to Austin residents and taxpayers.

I think the comments were driven by the notion that I brought up rather than your response, which was perfectly reasonable. Sorry you were caught in the crossfire.

But we've also been told in this very thread that the cost of education isn't going up. What gives?

It's lovely, and I would live there in a heartbeat if circumstances allowed for it. But what's good for the Copenhagen ain't necessarily good for the Austin. I'm in a midsize truck as well, and don't regret the change a bit (except when on long drives at times).

I agree that some folks are overly cautious to the point of being irrational, but they're nowhere near the top of the list of folks whose brains were broken by the pandemic. They're also not hurting anyone but themselves, if that.

I suspect that stems from this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33420786/#:~:text=Conclusions%3A Current smoking status was,CoV-2 requires further research. It makes no fucking sense to me whatsoever, and I'm a former heavy smoker. I also don't think this study is remotely definitive, and I'd be shocked if it isn't tied to the tobacco industry somehow, but I think it spurred this line of thinking after journalists and YouTubers took it and ran with it as they are wont to do.

I made my post with nothing but love, as someone with a couple of those completely worthless bleeding heart liberal arts degrees that some posters seem to despise so much.

So you're saying you're in the English department? Or is it philosophy?

This is already happening through corporate sponsorship and direct involvement with university departments. The saddest part is how many folks think it's a good thing (I suspect mostly folks without a well-rounded education).

Even when we do something right, we have to fuck it up at least a little with politically based choices that make nitwits who wish they lived in Denmark happy, even if it's at the expense of reason. All in all, I'd still call this one a win. In my case, the try-hards actually won. I gave up and sold my full-sized truck a long time ago. Navigating this city in one isn't worth it. It makes our frequent camping and fishing trips a much bigger pain in the ass, but c'est la vie.

Perhaps that's your reward for having to deal with raising five children. You'll never retire, but you'll never get covid. Congrats!

Please don't bring facts to an Internet argument, sir.

Chiming in very late to say I love the downtown library. One of the few things this city has done right in the last twenty years or so.

Layer on your facts all you want, but we all know it's just that older generations worked harder to pay their own way through school, and kids these days are soft. It has nothing to do with state university tuition being subsidized at 90% or more for boomers and less than 10% now. Those good folks would have never accepted a government handout. We know this to be true.

Yeah, that would fall under "directly involved" in my book. I understand why these parents are being prosecuted. I was speaking more to the general notion of parent culpability for their teenager's actions. We have to be very careful what precedents are being set, in my opinion, as overreach is likely.

I don't have a problem with culpability for the parents from the straw purchase perspective. I don't know much about this case, so I don't know if the mother was involved in that aspect of it. As a general rule I don't think it makes any sense at all to punish parents for the actions of their kids unless they were directly involved. Good parents have terrible children all the time, just like good kids have terrible parents all the time.

What I'm gathering from this is that moms are stupid and maybe we shouldn't listen to them. Children everywhere should take note and rejoice.

So it's a tech company. The few that make it know how to manage the grift better.

You are all clearly just misguided and uninformed. The notion presented above by our resident urban jingoist that the city council or city management in this town will listen to citizens who bother to participate is hilarious when time after time, this city's leadership moves forward with all kinds of graft-laden nonsense expressly after hearing from countless citizens just how much they don't want it. It often takes lawsuits and voter referendums to prevent the city from ramming crap down the majority's throat precisely because they don't listen. We haven't reached Chicago levels of backroom skullduggery, but damn if this isn't a sweet city to work the local government for easy money. The average voter here will eat any pile of shit put in front of them so long as it's seasoned with imitation progress.

I like roundabouts and have no issue with the one at 51st. It's not the best setup, but it's better than before. It will probably feel like you're risking your life when using it for another generation before Austinites learn how to use it, though. Lots of fuckery every time I go through it. To be fair, that's the case at almost every intersection in this town lately. Some people never hear of a modern urban planning concept they don't like. Sometimes they're right. Often they're just distracted by new shiny things and can be easily taken advantage of. This city is too easily distracted by new shiny ideas, and we waste an insane amount of money on projects that add zero value but feel good because they tickle the right ideological bone. That roundabout at 51st is not one of those things. Kudos are due when they're due.