Could Austin and San Antonio be the next Dallas-Fort Worth?

[M II A II R II K]

Could Austin and San Antonio be the next Dallas-Fort Worth?


3.11.14

BY JOHN EGAN



Read More: http://austin.culturemap.com/news/ci...ext-mega-city/

A busy 80-mile stretch of I-35 connects Austin and San Antonio, with flourishing suburbs like Buda, Kyle, San Marcos and New Braunfels sitting between them. Yet, even though Austin and San Antonio are fairly close physically, they’re not fully linked economically or psychologically.

- Both the Austin and San Antonio metro areas boast booming populations; while faster-paced Austin is celebrated for its tech, music and college scenes, slower-paced San Antonio is hailed for its tourism, healthcare and military sectors. If anything, Austin and San Antonio may be friends, but they don’t hang out much in the same social circles. --- Some observers expect Austin and San Antonio to ultimately be wed like Dallas-Fort Worth, San Francisco-Oakland and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. Other experts aren’t ready to set an Austin-San Antonio wedding date just yet, though.

- Austin entrepreneur, author and speaker Gary Hoover thinks that by 2050, the U.S. Census Bureau will label Austin and San Antonio as a mega-metro area like Dallas-Fort Worth, whose population exceeds 6.7 million. “Just the natural growth of the two cities will cause them to collide,” Hoover said. “Together, we’d be even more vital.” --- The place where they’ll “collide” is the border of Hays and Comal counties. Given that it’s about halfway between Austin and San Antonio, San Marcos — the largest city in Hays County and home to Texas State University — essentially would be the epicenter of a 13-county mega-metro.

- Based on current population figures, 4 million residents would live in an Austin-San Antonio combo — 1.8 million in the Austin part and 2.2 million in the San Antonio part. If projections turn out to be correct, the population of an Austin-San Antonio mega-metro would be 4.5 million in 2030 — 2.2 million in the five-county Austin area and 2.3 million in the eight-county San Antonio area.

- An iconic “shared” project, such as a regional airport, would make a big difference in speeding up the union of the Austin and San Antonio areas, according to Hoover. A proposed high-speed rail line between the two cities could also help trigger mega-metro status, he said. --- “To my mind, the single most influential event that would propel the coming together of these two great cities is high-speed rail,” said Ryan Robinson, the City of Austin’s demographer. “Imagine stepping on a train in downtown Austin and seeing the Alamo out the train window about 30 minutes later. Talk about time-space convergence.”

- While Hoover forecasts the birth of an authentic Austin-San Antonio fusion, Robinson isn’t convinced it will transpire. Austin and San Antonio remain culturally, economically and demographically far apart, Robinson said. Not to mention that the two cities are 80 miles apart, compared with a 30-mile gap between Dallas and Fort Worth. --- “I’d be really surprised to see Austin and San Antonio collectively begin to resemble the DFW urban cluster,” Robinson said. “But I do expect them to become far more interrelated than they’ve been in the past.” --- Steve Murdock, former head of the Census Bureau, and Lloyd Potter, the Texas state demographer, share Robinson’s view. Potter said it’s unlikely that the “growing together” of Austin and San Antonio will match the stature of Dallas-Fort Worth, the country’s fourth largest metro area.

- “The economies and the labor force characteristics of Austin and San Antonio are fairly different,” Potter said. “It is quite likely that as the areas become more integrated economically, the relative strengths of each and the diversity represented will result in seeing the Austin-San Antonio economy as one, with many strengths and not one just with concentrated strengths in one or two sectors.” --- Now a sociology professor at Rice University in Houston, Murdock said a fundamental difference between the Austin-San Antonio corridor and Dallas-Fort Worth is their roadway systems. While several major highways unify the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I-35 is the only major highway that directly ties Austin to San Antonio.

.....

[mrnyc]

not likely - too far apart and only linked by 1 hwy.

[AviationGuy]

Too bad they couldn't post an Austin photo that resembles today's skyline.

As for the article, it answers all the questions already. These two cities are too far apart and way too different to be a cohesive metro area. Population wise, I can see linking the two, since the area between the two cities is already highly developed. But other than that...

[M II A II R II K]

High speed rail and high speed automated highways.

[memph]

I wonder what their population forecasts based on. They're calling for growth rates 4 times lower than 2010-2012.

[dc_denizen]

"Flourishing" sprawlburbs between the two cities, how exciting and futuristic! Wow!

[fflint]

Originally Posted by the article

Some observers expect Austin and San Antonio to ultimately be wed like...San Francisco-Oakland....

Not to mention that the two cities are 80 miles apart, compared with a 30-mile gap between Dallas and Fort Worth.

Not to mention that the two cities are 80 miles apart, compared with a 0-mile gap between San Francisco and Oakland. They border one another. That comparison is ludicrous.

With that said, it's entirely possible 25 years from now Austin and San Antonio two could be connected by sprawl. Who knows?

[KevinFromTexas]

We should be less concerned with whether we'll be a single metro one day and more concerned with how to make the two metros function in a more cooperative way that benefits both metros. The biggest issues for both without a doubt are transportation and water policy. I would so take a train to San Antonio every weekend if there were a train connecting the two cities. We do have Amtrak which runs twice a day a few days a week, but it's not true commuter rail since the trip takes 3 1/2 hours. You can drive to San Antonio from South Austin in just over an hour when the traffic is good.

[10023]

Not only is this unlikely, but every effort should be made to ensure that it doesn't happen. Ideally you'd draw a line around each city's current borders and not allow development outside of them.

I'd say the US needs to start doing greenbelts, but it's already too late for that.

[ue]

^ Aren't there any cities in the US with greenbelts? Portland comes to mind, though it's still fairly sprawly...at least it isn't as much of a failure as Ottawa's greenbelt.

[texcolo]

^

Boulder, CO has a greenbelt.

[10023]

Yes but they tend to be smaller places that are well known for being "green".

It would be nice if Chicago/Illinois had restricted development beyond I-294 decades ago, or VA/MD had drawn a line a reasonable distance from DC, etc.

Then you'd still have commuter satellite cities, but these would also have more character and urbanity. Perhaps Naperville would be like Reading (almost the same population and distance from the city). Not that Reading is very nice, but at least it's a real town.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by ue

^ Aren't there any cities in the US with greenbelts? Portland comes to mind, though it's still fairly sprawly...at least it isn't as much of a failure as Ottawa's greenbelt.

I'd say Lexington, Ketucky's is probably one of the more - if not the most - successful one for what it wanted to accomplish.

My equally smallish city has been developing something far less defined and voluntary - which basically makes it a failure - with its Farmland and Open Space Preservation millage. Aside from the problem of it basically being a program where the county has to go out and get farmers and open space owners to agree to the purchase of conservation easements on their land, my city is literally wedged in the northwestern corner of the county. The other two neighboring metropolitan counties have not passed such policies, so it's basically just redirecting sprawl. It's basically the regional issue my urban area always deals with almost any issue (transit, parks, etc...)with it being significantly split between three different administrative divisions; the city, itself, exists in all three of those counties.

[Steely Dan]

distance matters.

the downtown to downtown distance of these two cities is ~75 miles as the crow flies. that's similar to the distance between downtown chicago and downtown milwaukee, and those two cities are nowhere near forming a single metro.

and no, a regular rail route alone won't automatically make the two into a single metro area either. chicago and milwaukee are connected via amtrak's hiawatha line between the two downtowns, with 3 intermediate stops along the way. it's a 90 minute ride that runs 7 times each way 7 days a week. milwaukee and chicago have been connected by similar passenger rail service for well over 100 years. they're still not a single metro area.

distance matters.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by 10023

Not only is this unlikely, but every effort should be made to ensure that it doesn't happen. Ideally you'd draw a line around each city's current borders and not allow development outside of them.

I'd say the US needs to start doing greenbelts, but it's already too late for that.

Actually, Austin does have several greenbelts, particularly on the west side of town. There's the Barton Creek and Bull Creek greenbelt in Southwest Austin and West Austin. There's even a few more right in the city. There's even one a half mile from me that meanders around South Austin for miles.

There's also the hike & bike trail which is really just a jogging/biking trail around the river around downtown. Right now they're completing a section of it southeast of downtown by building a "boardwalk" over the river. Really it's a concrete pier that goes out over the water to complete the gap in the trail through sections where land is scarce onshore. There is also the Waller Creek flood control tunnel project that will remove almost 30 acres of land from flood plain on the east side of downtown. That'll allow more development. A new trail is planned along the creek that will eventually connect to the hike & bike trail at the river. This creek runs all the way up through downtown all the way through the UT Campus. It will serve as an urban trail for recreation and even pedestrian/bike transportation. There is also Shoal Creek on the other side of downtown with a trail that runs all the way into Central Austin for about 40 blocks. With those two trails on either side of downtown being connected by the hike & bike trail, which is also connected to the Barton Creek greenbelt in Southwest Austin, you could walk or bike from Central Austin all the way out to Southwest Austin which is about 6 1/2 miles as the crow flies. Actual miles traveled is probably more like 30 with all the twists and turns of the creeks. We also have the Lady Bird Wildflower Center and Nature Preserve, the Barton Creek Wilderness Preserve in Southwest Austin and the Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve in West Austin.

Another greenbelt and trail is the Violet Crown Trail that eventually aims to stretch for 30 miles. It's even planned to go into Hays County south of Austin and could possibly be continued on further. In that case you could use the greenbelts and trails in Austin to commute up to 40 miles. Money is already being set aside to buy land along the planned route, and there have already been purchases made. To give an idea of how close this is to downtown, Zilker Park is Austin's "central park". It's just 2 miles southwest of downtown. There have been other purchases made by the county and paid for by voters, such as Reimers Ranch Park which is a 2,400 acre ranch that the county bought from the Reimers Family southwest of Austin. There's also the Hamilton Pool Nature Preserve.


http://www.hillcountryconservancy.or...ewsletter.html

[10023]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Actually, Austin does have several greenbelts, particularly on the west side of town. There's the Barton Creek and Bull Creek greenbelt in Southwest Austin and West Austin. There's even a few more right in the city. There's even one a half mile from me that meanders around South Austin for miles.

I think you are misunderstanding what I mean by "greenbelt".

I don't mean a long section of greenspace that allows for running/cycling trails through the city. I mean a long, broad area of farmland, forest and open space on the outskirts of town, ideally forming a complete ring around the city, in which any kind of development is permanently disallowed.

The idea is to create an outer limit to urban sprawl and ensure that the city center is never too far from open space (open space being different from an urban park). If the city grows it needs to get denser, not continue to expand outwards. If there's enough demand of course the metro area can "hop" the greenbelt, but then what you get are satellite cities linked by rail and not sprawl.

London for example, as well as several of the other main cities in England (Manchester/Liverpool, Birmingham/Coventry, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol... even Oxford):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Green_Belt




The kind of thing you're thinking of exists in Chicago (and I'm sure other cities as well), but is wholly inadequate if the goal is to reign in urban sprawl. I'm referring to things like the long stretches of forest preserve that run along the Des Plaines River and Salt Creek in the near western suburbs. Nice for a run or riding a bike, but you hardly notice them when you drive across.

[KevinFromTexas]

Yeah, I guess I sort of was. Still, there is an effort at least to discourage development west of Austin and instead buy up the land and preserve it. East of the city it seems to be open for business as usual, and nevermind what's happening north and south of Austin with tons of sprawl, especially north.

[10023]

I can't imagine that the idea would ever fly in Texas. But it would be nice given how fast the city/metro area is growing.

This is a better description of the kind of greenbelt policy I'm talking about:
http://www.londongreenbeltcouncil.or...site/about.htm

... with a not-so-subtle jab at American sprawl: "They have helped to maintain a clear distinction between town and country which can be lacking in some other parts of the world."

Note that London's greenbelts cover 485,000 hectares (1.2 million acres), so we're talking about quite a lot more land than any urban park. I'm not sure how many examples of that there are in the US, but it would have been nice if such areas had been established between NYC and Philly, DC and Baltimore, etc.

[jg6544]

Austin and San Antonio are kind of like San Jose and Santa Rosa - part of the same urban complex, but not twin cities like Dallas and Ft. Worth; Minneapolis/St. Paul, Seattle/Tacoma, etc.

[dave8721]

Similar to Orlando/Tampa (85 miles apart). Two mid-tier Metro's that are sprawling towards eachother.