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koogle said:
you won't understand the rich and wealthy until you have become one yourself.
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This is why, if I did make gazillions of dollars, I'd redirect it into various philanthropic city building projects, and only save enough for an upper-middle-class income for myself.

So I don't become entitled, and live a life of UT fantasies.
 
I know this is yesterday's conversation, but I just returned from Austin on business and it is insane how appalling a city can be designed, built and neglected from a transit standpoint. It's not just that the traffic is bad, it just seems pointless and almost intentional. Most of the people I was around (for work) spoke wistfully about the plot of land outside of the city with a pool even with a 90 minute commute. Austin is also, not even remotely a walkable city. There are elements of downtown that are connected and fine and loads to like (really enjoyed the east end). Still, transit. The appalling disregard for transit in any form. It's like a petri dish of planning dysfunction (yeah, it's a Texas thing and yeah the fetish like overbuilding of highways in Dallas, Houston, St Antonio etc.. is another topic). We must take every opportunity to embrace every transit option, to hold dear every streetcar, bus, subway, rent a bike, everything we have and fight for the new. To all the comments, yes, I believe people will use transit if it's accessible, all levels of and strata.
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
This is why, if I did make gazillions of dollars, I'd redirect it into various philanthropic city building projects, and only save enough for an upper-middle-class income for myself.

So I don't become entitled, and live a life of UT fantasies.
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Of course you would, LOL.
 
brianmac said:
I know this is yesterday's conversation, but I just returned from Austin on business and it is insane how appalling a city can be designed, built and neglected from a transit standpoint. It's not just that the traffic is bad, it just seems pointless and almost intentional. Most of the people I was around (for work) spoke wistfully about the plot of land outside of the city with a pool even with a 90 minute commute. Austin is also, not even remotely a walkable city. There are elements of downtown that are connected and fine and loads to like (really enjoyed the east end). Still, transit. The appalling disregard for transit in any form. It's like a petri dish of planning dysfunction (yeah, it's a Texas thing and yeah the fetish like overbuilding of highways in Dallas, Houston, St Antonio etc.. is another topic). We must take every opportunity to embrace every transit option, to hold dear every streetcar, bus, subway, rent a bike, everything we have and fight for the new. To all the comments, yes, I believe people will use transit if it's accessible, all levels of and strata.
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It is odd how Americans perceive traffic congestion and an absence of public transit as somehow Manly, Libertarian and expression of Free Markets. I don't get it (and I like Americans a lot)
 
Texas is especially auto reliant. A great example is that Houston has exactly one thing in its zoning by-law - parking minimums. Nothing else. Want to build 30 floors in the middle of a residential neighbourhood? Cool. Just make sure it has enough parking.
 
buildup said:
It is odd how Americans perceive traffic congestion and an absence of public transit as somehow Manly, Libertarian and expression of Free Markets. I don't get it (and I like Americans a lot)
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Think driving, SUVs, and demand for low gas prices. Nevermind that driving at peak hours should have the highest cost given supply and demand, but what do I know about the free market...

AoD
 
buildup said:
It is odd how Americans perceive traffic congestion and an absence of public transit as somehow Manly, Libertarian and expression of Free Markets. I don't get it (and I like Americans a lot)
Click to expand...

I think that's mostly a thing in flyover states and rural communities.Most Americans I know also hate that about their fellow Americans.
 
^ my experience more so is that americans like to complain about crappy transit, but transit is always for someone else to take to free up space on the road for themselves. "if only ___ city had good transit, traffic would be so much better!" is a fairly typical statement.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Texas is especially auto reliant. A great example is that Houston has exactly one thing in its zoning by-law - parking minimums. Nothing else. Want to build 30 floors in the middle of a residential neighbourhood? Cool. Just make sure it has enough parking.
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I completely agree. It really has 100% been my Houston experience. Vacant lot. RV sales. High rise. Abandoned lot. Homes. It's like it's anti-planning not just lack of planning. Like to hell with everyone, it's my land, I'll build what I want. It's so strange. It's even stranger that both Houston and San Antonio appear to be reasonably progressive. I did think on some level that Austin would be more of a straight up enclave, which it wasn't. Perhaps transit is controlled at the region or state level. In the end it is politics. You just knew that the waterfront LRT wasn't going to be funded under a Ford government. Interestingly, there is an argument that problems can be forcing functions, that is if your traffic problems get bad enough, people will seek alternative solutions. That seems to be completely missing from the Austin discussion (I dug around a little) and thankfully that isn't the case for the most part here. (It's good to be home)
 
I expect that the tallest tower at 1 Yonge will still be marketed and priced at somewhat of a premium beyond the average Toronto condo, but that doesn't mean it will be in quite as high a bracket as The One. There are multiple brackets within 'luxury'; this isn't a binary thing.

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