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  #41  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 2:34 AM
lio45 lio45 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edale View Post
I don't mind painted brick at all. Cincinnati has tons of painted brick, and I think it adds a lot of much needed color to the city, especially in the gray of winter.
Those are from the mid-1800s. I agree with Steely and nearly everyone else that high-quality-brick buildings from the 1920s and 1930s are totally NOT ever meant to be painted.
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  #42  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 3:02 AM
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If I was in charge of my city (NYC), I would:

1) Change occupancy regulations and allow illegal units and smaller square footage requirements and allow conversions of existing units into sub components to cram more folks within the same unit.
2) Provide tax benefits for developers based on unit count and make it harder for unions to negotiate and make it harder for the community to derail projects
3) Rezone large areas of Queens and Brooklyn.
4) Eminent domain of single family homes in Queens for 1000-2000+ unit projects.
5) Get rid of some of the set back and sky plane requirements
6) General bump to FAR and general zoning increase in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx.
7) Fire Manhattan and Brooklyn's Borough president(s)
8) Allow the private sector more ownership of public corporation entities like the MTA (kinda goes back to the Union BS).
9) Clean up the area around MSG
10) Increase NYPD funding
11) Bring Amazon HQ back to LIC
12) Get rid of air rights. Cap the max height for Manhattan at 2300'.
13) Instill a design committee requirement for any tower over 1300'.
14) Get rid of red light cameras
15) Force road construction at night, and not at 7 am!
16) Cut parking enforcement employees
17) Raise taxes on those with incomes 350k or more.
18) Increase the amount of trains running per hour for all lines.
19) Make the George Washington Bridge on the NJ side toll booth free (can be billed via mail, speed traffic up!)
20) Increase the timing of traffic lights (they are too damn short). Add more left turn only arrows in many intersections.
21) Bring tourism back to NYC
22) Legalize Marijuana and psyches. Tax them. NJ doesn't need all the tax revenue
23) Add some gas stations in Manhattan
24) Convert some older office stock into micro units and no cap on the amount of units. 200-250 sq-ft units when applicable.
25) Bars don't have to close nor clubs.
26) Tax religious institutions and their real estate holdings
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  #43  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 5:05 AM
homebucket homebucket is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chris08876 View Post
If I was in charge of my city (NYC), I would:

1) Change occupancy regulations and allow illegal units and smaller square footage requirements and allow conversions of existing units into sub components to cram more folks within the same unit.
2) Provide tax benefits for developers based on unit count and make it harder for unions to negotiate and make it harder for the community to derail projects
3) Rezone large areas of Queens and Brooklyn.
4) Eminent domain of single family homes in Queens for 1000-2000+ unit projects.
5) Get rid of some of the set back and sky plane requirements
6) General bump to FAR and general zoning increase in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx.
7) Fire Manhattan and Brooklyn's Borough president(s)
8) Allow the private sector more ownership of public corporation entities like the MTA (kinda goes back to the Union BS).
9) Clean up the area around MSG
10) Increase NYPD funding
11) Bring Amazon HQ back to LIC
12) Get rid of air rights. Cap the max height for Manhattan at 2300'.
13) Instill a design committee requirement for any tower over 1300'.
14) Get rid of red light cameras
15) Force road construction at night, and not at 7 am!
16) Cut parking enforcement employees
17) Raise taxes on those with incomes 350k or more.
18) Increase the amount of trains running per hour for all lines.
19) Make the George Washington Bridge on the NJ side toll booth free (can be billed via mail, speed traffic up!)
20) Increase the timing of traffic lights (they are too damn short). Add more left turn only arrows in many intersections.
21) Bring tourism back to NYC
22) Legalize Marijuana and psyches. Tax them. NJ doesn't need all the tax revenue
23) Add some gas stations in Manhattan
24) Convert some older office stock into micro units and no cap on the amount of units. 200-250 sq-ft units when applicable.
25) Bars don't have to close nor clubs.
26) Tax religious institutions and their real estate holdings
Aren't you in rural PA now? What would you change there?
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  #44  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 7:49 AM
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Who knew Green Valley, Arizona, had such urban problems!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pedestrian View Post
"If I was in charge of my city, I would" . . . (1) stop raising business taxes and driving business out of the city, (2) cull the bureaucracy and limit its benefits (e.g move to defined contribution pensions, not defined benefit ones and increase employee contributions vs city ones), (3) fire much of the city leadership (the ones not already going to jail thanks to the feds), (4) JUST SAY NO to camping on the sidewalks (but find someplace to create an authorized camp site with security and sanitation), end the policy of removing traffic lanes used by most of the populace and handing them over to the small minority of young, fit bicycle riders.
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  #45  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 8:37 AM
mrnyc mrnyc is online now
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for nyc i would take out a lane of traffic on major avenues in manhattan and some in the boros and widen the sidewalks.

and around downtown cleveland i’d take out two lanes and double wide the sidewalks.
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  #46  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 1:37 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pj3000 View Post
Yeah, let’s get real deep into zoning and city-wide adoption and adherence to the latest iteration of the IECC. That’ll be a fun thread.
I was just poking fun. I've appreciated your and Steely's SSP contributions for years
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  #47  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 1:42 PM
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chris08876 chris08876 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by homebucket View Post
Aren't you in rural PA now? What would you change there?
I am (Right in Forks Township - see location near my post count) but you can't take the Jersey out of me or the NYC heart.

What I would change?

Eh... nothing much really. PA is nice, and we have a lot of New Yorkers, NJ, and Connecticut folks moving to the area.

I'd probally push for some policies to attract more businesses and residents. And also fix the roads in Philadelphia and clean up certain towns. Push for further growth in Philly. Philly has so much potential. Its a different world versus the rest of PA in my view.

Oh... and reeducation camps for some of the backwards ass views I've encountered from folks in PA. Like this anti-vaccine rubbish.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mrnyc View Post
for nyc i would take out a lane of traffic on major avenues in manhattan and some in the boros and widen the sidewalks.

and around downtown cleveland i’d take out two lanes and double wide the sidewalks.
I wish they altered the light timings for traffic lights and added a ton of "proceed" arrows for left turn only. Traffic is so slow in Brooklyn because of the asinine traffic light timings and the difficulty of making a left. People don't give no chances.
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  #48  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 1:45 PM
toddguy toddguy is offline
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I would make disincentives for entities to continue to hold onto surface parking lots downtown.

Incentivize over-the-garage type apartment housing in most areas of the city that have alley access for single family housing and thereby getting two households onto one lot.

Bring about free public transportation and make it a priority to have BRT, expansion of circulators outside of OSU and the High Street strip(basically downtown), and seriously plan for some light rail lines where TOD could also occur along the line.

Establish minimum height requirement for downtown locations and stick to it!

Reduce the input/influence of neighborhood review when it comes to major arterial/major roadways that could use more density/greater height. Let the reviews be more about design aspects and less about height and density.

ROAD DIETS! where appropriate-use the room for public transit only or expand sidewalks/create bike lanes, etc.

Incentivize densification and redevelopment of aging retail corridors especially when they are dying mall/strip malls and override the NIMBYS)looking at you German Villains and Clintonvillains.

Do everything possible to encourage densification of multiple uses including office, retail, recreation and cultural facilities and especially housing at Easton, making it more like a dense third node to the city(after the CBD and OSU area) and connect it better through public transit to those other nodes.

Annex more land near Rickenbacker to get some of those warehouse tax dollars(why should Groveport and Obetz be getting it all?)

Upgrade John Glenn international like was intended(it has been put off)-create better public transit options between it and the dense nodes already listed.

Make the metro area bear a collective cost for institutions such as the zoo-it is located in another county-it is a regional entity and regional entities should be supported by the region and not just the city and county.

Can't think of any more right now but there are more.

*also these:

Quote:
2) Provide tax benefits for developers based on unit count and make it harder for unions to negotiate and make it harder for the community to derail projects
Quote:
17) Raise taxes on those with incomes 350k or more.
Quote:
22) Legalize Marijuana and psyches. Tax them...
Quote:
25) Bars don't have to close nor clubs.
-I am too old for this now but I would have loved this when I was younger.

Last edited by toddguy; Jan 16, 2021 at 1:51 PM. Reason: additions
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  #49  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 1:55 PM
toddguy toddguy is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin View Post
I don't mind painted brick so much, but then Toronto has always had a lot of painted brick historically.

What I do mind is the plague of old brick buildings being reclad in EIFS:


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exte...nishing_system



But worse yet, facadism passing for heritage preservation:


https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.red...oronto_canada/
My God, both of these are absolutely offensive as hell! How was this allowed to happen? Who signed off for it?
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  #50  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 5:39 PM
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Make it so there are no street parking lots and have the buildings at the sidewalk and put the parking lots behind them so theres at least a streetfront and less asphalt to see at one time.
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  #51  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 7:03 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigs View Post
I was just poking fun. I've appreciated your and Steely's SSP contributions for years
Yeah, I know. No need to even mention it, but I appreciate your rustbelt magnanimity. I was doing the same with my post.. sarcastic joking around.
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  #52  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 7:33 PM
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In Miami, I would...

1) enact an immediate road diet, permitting no more than 2 travel lanes in each direction on all surface-level streets.

2) open up the entire waterfront along Biscayne Bay to public access

3) develop a public transit passenger ferry system

4) ban construction of condo towers greater than 15 stories for 10 years
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  #53  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 7:38 PM
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In my whole country I would outlaw vinyl siding and order all of it to be replaced
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  #54  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 7:57 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chris08876 View Post
If I was in charge of my city (NYC), I would:

1) Change occupancy regulations and allow illegal units and smaller square footage requirements and allow conversions of existing units into sub components to cram more folks within the same unit.
2) Provide tax benefits for developers based on unit count and make it harder for unions to negotiate and make it harder for the community to derail projects
3) Rezone large areas of Queens and Brooklyn.
4) Eminent domain of single family homes in Queens for 1000-2000+ unit projects.
5) Get rid of some of the set back and sky plane requirements
6) General bump to FAR and general zoning increase in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx.
7) Fire Manhattan and Brooklyn's Borough president(s)
8) Allow the private sector more ownership of public corporation entities like the MTA (kinda goes back to the Union BS).
9) Clean up the area around MSG
10) Increase NYPD funding
11) Bring Amazon HQ back to LIC
12) Get rid of air rights. Cap the max height for Manhattan at 2300'.
13) Instill a design committee requirement for any tower over 1300'.
14) Get rid of red light cameras
15) Force road construction at night, and not at 7 am!
16) Cut parking enforcement employees
17) Raise taxes on those with incomes 350k or more.
18) Increase the amount of trains running per hour for all lines.
19) Make the George Washington Bridge on the NJ side toll booth free (can be billed via mail, speed traffic up!)
20) Increase the timing of traffic lights (they are too damn short). Add more left turn only arrows in many intersections.
21) Bring tourism back to NYC
22) Legalize Marijuana and psyches. Tax them. NJ doesn't need all the tax revenue
23) Add some gas stations in Manhattan
24) Convert some older office stock into micro units and no cap on the amount of units. 200-250 sq-ft units when applicable.
25) Bars don't have to close nor clubs.
26) Tax religious institutions and their real estate holdings
Talk to Cuomo and the state. That's their call and they are dragging their feet. At least New York has medical now. I would be eligible if I still lived up there. My brother lives behind one of the biggest grow houses in the state.
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  #55  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 10:54 PM
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NY State is likely fully legalizing marijuana, as well as sports betting, this legislative session. Took them long enough.
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  #56  
Old Posted Jan 16, 2021, 11:03 PM
mrnyc mrnyc is online now
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nys will probably fully legalize weed, we’ll see. they would have the last time it came up, but they could not agree on where the money would go so it died. they need to straighten that out first.
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  #57  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2021, 2:33 AM
Hindentanic Hindentanic is offline
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If I were in charge of San Antonio, Texas... (Wall of Text incoming!)



Merge Bexar county and city governments, eliminating the needlessly wasteful duplication of systems and services across 27+ independent local municipal governments. Similarly, the 19 independent school districts all duplicating functions while segregating local funding and student attainment would be merged and reduced.

City elections would be moved from odd-year and off-year elections in May to instead coincide and join with national and state elections regularly held on even years in November. The current odd-year May scheduling is deliberately, cynically, and expensively designed to reduce citizen participation. Terms of office would be increased from 2 years to 4 years, to reduce the exhausting cycle of constant campaigning, and to allow city leaders and staff to see projects through without constant leadership turnover forcing professional staff to continuously bring novice officials back up-to-speed on ongoing projects. The experiment in fleeting government-of-the-moment has been too divisive and unproductive.

The property tax system would be adjusted to be more progressive, potentially as a land value tax, to re-incentivize building improvement and maintenance while de-incentivizing speculation and fringe sprawl. A primary aim is to cease penalizing current property owners within the inner ring suburbs with higher taxes when they improve their buildings, which has fermented a status quo of dilapidation and a mindset accepting of stagnation.

Designate a restrictive urban growth boundary across the northern quarter of the county to prevent any further suburban growth across the vital karst recharge zone of the Edwards Aquifer. We cannot allow the continued spread of suburban sprawl, runoff pollution, and impervious cover to threaten the key water resource that allows inhabitation here. A similar boundary would go into effect around the Camp Bullis area to prevent further suburban encroachment from imperiling the camp's military medical training mission and inviting broader base closures.

Restart the Applewhite Dam and Reservoir Project, completing the dam of the Medina River on the southside and filling an open water reservoir to serve downriver communities in drought-prone and drought-devastated South Texas. That would sadly inundate ancient Native American archaeological sites and natural scenic trails, but we need to balance that against mass die-offs of harrowingly skeletalized livestock and wildlife as the impoverished region experiences ever-worsening droughts as the climate changes.

The Greenway Trails system of linear parks will be expanded. All urban and suburban area river, creek, and stream systems will be upgraded into linear parks and interlinked to form a compete greenway network. Developer retention and drainage systems will also be mandated for improvement and integration into the greenway nature system. Plastic bag ban goes into immediate effect to reduce the shocking amount of discarded plastc bags that end up in city waterways.

The San Antonio International Airport runway would be lengthened to accommodate more long-haul and direct flights. It will never be able to compete against nearby Austin-Bergstrom for routes if it doesn't have the basic capacity to handle larger, heavier planes as its competitors can.

Proposed high-speed rail systems for the Texas Triangle are leaning towards T-bone plans with Austin as the central T-crossing directly linked with Houston and Dallas and with San Antonio as an offshoot appendage from Austin. San Antonio absolutely cannot allow this incarnation to happen and must ensure the complete circuit connects San Antonio to Houston following the existing Amtrak lines, with the system continuing from San Antonio to Austin, Dallas, and back to Houston. I would begin now buying up enough of the necessary right-of-way leading from San Antonio to Houston, such that when formal planning actually begins, the donation of already accumulated right-of-way would make the San Antonio-Houston route paralleling the existing trans-continental southern Amtrak route more cost-competitive than the Austin-Houston route. National high-speed rail plans already promote a line following the I-35 corridor from Dallas through Austin to San Antonio, with potential extension from Dallas to Oklahoma City. San Antonio will further encourage proposed extensions to Monterrey in Mexico with eye to a future revived Aztec Eagle rail service to Mexico City.

The downtown streetcar system that was killed off in the 2014 midterms elections would be reimplemented and completed. The 2014 city charter amendment that was cynically and pettily concocted by conservative rail opponents as an end-run poison pill to kill any future rail programs would be repealed. The city charter would be streamlined and strengthened to prevent such disputes about infrastructure policy to be pettily enshrined into a document chartering government structure.

Light-rail utilizing existing inner city rail right-of-ways and former rail stations linking to the downtown streetcar system and future high-speed rail hubs will begin construction. Initial light-rail lines will follow corridor proposals to link downtown to the airport, medical center, and major university centers.

The innermost and largely-elevated highway loop formed by I-10, I-35, I-37, H-90, and H-87 encircling downtown will be redesigned, for it has strangled off the inner city core. The most expensive option would be to bury it all a la Boston's Big Dig, but perhaps the more reasonable option would be to bring it to ground level and redesign it into a ring of boulevards similar to Vienna's Ringstraße. We can then work to redevelop the frontage properties away from what has largely been urban blight and restitch our downtown and inner city back to their surrounding neighborhoods, such that the vasts swafts of underutilized and stagnant land in that rings the downtown core can be a prime area to absorb a city population growth of over 1 million new residents expected by 2050. Traffic will adapt, and the cost of disruption as traffic finds its new normal will be far less than the deep costs already born over the decades by a strangled and excised city core.

Houston Street from 3rd Street to Santa Rosa Street, spanning from the Alamo to San Pedro Creek and including the consolidated government center at City Tower, the new Frost Tower, the Majestic and Empire Theatres, and the Alameda Theater, would become an urban pedestrian mall.

The botched Reimagine the Alamo Project would go back to the drawing board, with the Disneyland Davy Crockett recreations of wooden defensive palisades in our downtown squashed. Ownership of the city plaza will no longer be conveyed to the State of Texas. Alamo Street from Commerce Street to Travis Street will still become a pedestrian mall intersecting with the Houston Street pedestrian mall. The Beaux-Arts Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building and United States Courthouse will become the new Alamo Museum, preserving the western commercial blocks of Alamo Plaza from potential demolition and allowing displaced urban fabric businesses to return. The Alamo Cenotaph will be moved and restored 100 feet north closer towards the current Federal Building to continue to dignify within the Alamo grounds the north head of Alamo Plaza while opening the actual plaza space to use and tying the ensemble to the museum. Alamo Plaza will not be permitted to be walled or fenced off. The Long Barracks would be restored and the south gate excavated. Sightlines within Alamo Plaza will be improved to connect in procession the Alamo Cenotaph to the excavated Alamo south gate, the restored Alamo Plaza Gazebo, and the sculpture La Antorcha de la Amistad at Alamo Plaza's south entrance. The destroyed Grand Opera House formerly on Alamo Street would be rebuilt.

In the immediate wake of Neo-Nazi riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, a Confederate memorial statue in San Antonio's downtown Travis Park was swiftly taken down by the city. The statue's proposed removal had previously been so contentious that an armed militia in surplus military garb took it upon themselves to surround and intimidate the City Council inside the public Municipal Building in a dark harbinger of the radical terrorist militant tactics later used in the armed occupation of the Michigan State Capitol and the attempted putsch and violent storming of the U.S. Capitol. The nighttime removal of the statue remains politically and emotionally controversial, and efforts continue to forcibly re-erect it. Ordinarily the removed statue might be relocated to a history museum, however, its continued focus as a rallying point for radicalized, far-right militancy, white nationalism, and their apologists and enablers requires that it be swiftly pulverized and disposed into the dustbin of history. In the meantime, the highly centralized Travis Park has an empty and unsatisfying flower bed at its physical focal point. A new civic monument, either a sculpture or neutral fountain, should be commissioned to restore the focus of Travis Park and permanently mute future attempts to return any Confederate glorification monuments to that location.

Miraflores Park was a 1920s Mexican and Aztec sculpture garden of fountains, pools, waterways, and follies that was allowed to deteriorate under institutional neglect into a ruined yard of broken statuary targeted for conversion to an official parking lot. It will be fully replanted and restored as a public access historic sculpture garden of Mexican and Aztec art. The palatial Quinta Urrutia house associated with the park will also be rebuilt.

The Veramendi Palace is ordered reconstructed and it's recreated courtyard will connect down to and offer public access with the Riverwalk. Artifacts from the former Veramendi Palace currently displayed in the Alamo would be restored into the palace.

City Hall will have its 1889 dome, turrets, and cupola restored. The 1930s fourth floor addition will be removed and its offices permanently relocated to facilitate the historical architectural restoration. The Gilded Age colonaded porch entry may also be restored in lieu of the 1930s Beaux-Arts arched entry if deemed architecturally necessary.

Architectural street sidewalk canopies would be strongly encouraged for downtown buildings, along with architectural vertical signage. Historical-based vertical signage would be restored to the Majestic Building, the Empire Theatre, and the remaining façade of the former Texas Theatre. Setback requirements would be dropped, while build-to frontage lines would be the norm. Downtown streets will become either tree-lined or architectural canopy-lined.

The controversially demolished Texas Theatre will be reconstructed in it's 1926 Spanish Rococo Revival glory. The current IBC Centre Building 1 corporate block will be demolished for the restoration, but the city will diligently work to compensate and relocate tenants into a new downtown office building in choice locations near City Tower.

Beethoven Hall and Magik Theatre will be reconstructed from its current institutional Post Modern bleakness and dreck to its original German Baroque Revival grandeur when it was the Beethoven Maennerchor Hall.

Arquitectonica's unbuilt Horizon Hills Center is pre-approved. The aborted Joske's Tower is pre-approved should there be any revival. The currently proposed 305 Soledad tower, expected to be around 400 ft. tall near the recent Frost Tower, is pre-approved. The Dream Hotel project targeted for 107 E. Martin Street is pre-approved. A new IBC Centre to replace the block displaced by the ordered reconstruction of the Texas Theatre is pre-approved. Though not proposed, any reconstruction of the demolished Blue Bonnet Hotel, complete with vertical sign, is pre-approved. The Hemisfair redevelopment is ordered fast-tracked.

City designers once again will look beyond Houston, Dallas, or Austin for inspiration and instead to our roots and historical design peers, particularly Monterrey, Saltillo, Mexico City, New Orleans, and Savannah. We know what the elements are, we just haven't had the will to implement them. Meanwhile, a prevailing local design mindset is that individual buildings have to "fit in" with the current built environment, and this has to be done largely via conservative colors, materials, and style in order to preserve a status quo image of the city. This has resulted mostly with prescribed boring, brown, and earth-tone dreck left after all the prohibitions and proscriptions, or outright driven away projects and further stagnation. I would shift more towards considerations of scale, type, use, and accessibility, emphasizing "complementary" rather than "fit in," and re-orient the design outlook onto public space and humane streetscape rather than on buildings as isolated objet d'art. Design-by-fear-and-proscription will be replaced by a more liberated approach such that if it meets safety regulations and streetscape criteria, then it is allowed. The investment and construction needs to commence.



After the reactionary riots have settled, the massive debts defaulted, and the mayor's house torched to the ground, we will all be bequeathed a beautiful, functional, and progressive city of San Antonio.

Last edited by Hindentanic; Jan 19, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
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  #58  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2021, 3:54 AM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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I'm spitballing here (three hours of sleep last night) but can't help but wonder if we'll start seeing a lot more city/county mergers in the next few decades to eliminate redundancies?

I don't see it happening in Arizona (we have 15 counties, many of which are huge land-wise, but sparsely populated), but in states with smaller sized counties, who knows?
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  #59  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2021, 3:57 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001 View Post
I'm spitballing here (three hours of sleep last night) but can't help but wonder if we'll start seeing a lot more city/county mergers in the next few decades to eliminate redundancies?

I don't see it happening in Arizona (we have 15 counties, many of which are huge land-wise, but sparsely populated), but in states with smaller sized counties, who knows?
I hope so... or at least municipal consolidation.
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  #60  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2021, 4:05 AM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati hate each other, but a part of me thinks it'd sure be nice to see them merge. Townships are a completely foreign concept to me despite growing up in one.
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