The next metroplex in texas unfolds

[Riverranchdrone]

Originally Posted by jd3189

Regardless of the higher speed limits, why do people feel it's worth it to drive long distances to and from work every weekday? You'll be paying more for gas and car repairs. Of course, Texas makes this lifestyle easier by not having the high gas prices of California. But I'm now being extremely disillusioned by it. It's fucking retarded when you think about how many people are willing to put up with this.

Texans dont seem to care about distance as far as actual miles but rather in time. We know how many hours it takes to get to each city. If you think just driving to San Antonio is bad, I know people that drive from Houston to work in Austin. Thats why I said that distance is not really the issue that people are making it out to be. IN 30 years you have 3 to 4 million more people in the Austin/ San Antonio area. It will be filled in between the two cities.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

But urban/suburban development doesn't respect municipal limits.

If we wanted to know how far away Milwaukee and Chicago were from each other, why would the distance from Milwaukee's southernmost city limits to Chicago's northernmost city limits be any more meaningful than measuring from Milwaukee's southernmost city limits to Evanston's northernmost city limits? Or Wilmette's? Or Highland Park's? Or Lake Forest's? etc.

It really doesn't tell us much of anything about the reality on the ground.

If I were driving from Milwaukee to Chicago I would say I'm "in Chicago" as soon as I cross the city limits.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

If I were driving from Milwaukee to Chicago I would say I'm "in Chicago" as soon as I cross the city limits.

and if you were heading south on I-94 from milwaukee, you'd have no idea where that point is, unless you have a photographic memory of the precise definition of the city of chicago's municpal limits.

there's no sign or anything. there are no distinguishing features alerting you to that fact that you've crossed some magical line. nothing changes the moment you travel under the devon avenue overpass.

WELCOME TO CHICAGO!!!



pop quiz!

in the streetview below, one side of the street is chicago and the the other side is evanston.

without cheating by zooming out, which is which?

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.0194...7i16384!8i8192

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and if you were heading south on I-94 from milwaukee, you'd have no idea where that point is, unless you have a photographic memory of the precise definition of the city of chicago's municpal limits.

there's no sign or anything. there are no distinguishing features alerting you to that fact that you've corssed some magical line. nothing changes the moment you travel under the devon avenue overpass.

WELCOME TO CHICAGO!!!

Chicago is the exception. Most places do have signs identifying if you are in the city limits. But you ARE in the city limits at that point. If your job is any place south of this point you work "in Chicago".

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

But you ARE in the city limits at that point.

which is cool esoteric knowledge for urban nerds like us, i guess, but it doesn't really mean anything on the ground when you're driving through it.

i fail to see what's all that meaningful about knowing that this particular point is 64.5 miles away from this particular point.

to me, knowing that downtown chicago is ~81 miles from downtown milwaukee is a billion times more meaningful when answering the question of how far apart the two cities are.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

which is cool esoteric knowledge for urban nerds like us, i guess, but it doesn't really mean anything on the ground when you're driving through it.

i fail to see what's all that meaningful about knowing that this particular point is 64.5 miles away from this particular point.

to me, knowing that downtown chicago is ~81 miles from downtown milwaukee is a billion times more meaningful when answering the question of how far apart the two cities are.

So if someone drove between those two points you would not consider that to be a drive from Milwaukee to Chicago?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

So if someone drove between those two points you would not consider that to be a drive from Milwaukee to Chicago?

of course i would.

just as i would also consider someone driving from oak creek to lincolnwood being "a drive from Milwaukee to Chicago", in the general non-technical sense.

knowing how far apart their centers are tells me much more about how far away they are in a real world sense, as opposed to getting lost in the extremely blurry world of our non-edged metropolitan areas.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

of course i would.

just as i would also consider someone driving from oak creek to lincolnwwood being "a drive from Milwaukee to Chicago", in the general, non-technical sense.

But driving between those two points would be a drive from Milwaukee to Chicago in the literal sense. It would be just as accurate to say you drove from Milwaukee to Chicago if you started and ended your trip at those two points, or started and ended your trip in downtown Milwaukee and the Loop. Likewise, a commute from Milwaukee to Chicago that doesn't start and/or end in the downtown of either city is still just as legitimate as a commute from downtown to downtown.

[Steely Dan]

^ i'm not really all that concerned about technical issues of "legitimacy" here.

i think that determining how far apart two cities are is best measured by going from city center to city center, and you think the best way is measuring from municipal limit extremity to municipal limit extremity.

we're probably talking past each other at this point, so perhaps it's best to agree to disagreee and move on.




as for san antonio and austin being combined into a single MSA in 2 or 3 decades?

i don't see it happening.

ditto for other major city pairs in a similar distance range like NYC/philly, chicago/milwaukee, or tampa/orlando.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

If I were driving from Milwaukee to Chicago I would say I'm "in Chicago" as soon as I cross the city limits.

To me, that would be the Chicago area.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by JManc

To me, that would be the Chicago area.

right.

if someone drove from oak park to visit their mom up in wauwatosa, it would still be 100% cromulent to say that they went from "chicago" to "milwaukee", in the general sense.

now, if someone in kenosha drove up to visit a friend in racine, that phrasing wouldn't really work anymore.

the large gray area in between the two cities doesn't fully belong to either of them.

the CB chops up the tweener counties and throws them one way or the other, but in reality, there is no hard "edge" to this game, only ever-increasing amounts of blurry fuzziness.

kenosha county doesn't fully "belong" to either chicagoland or milwaukeeeland. it's pulled in both directions simultaneously; it's both and neither all at the same time.

bears fans living right nextdoor to packers fans.

total fucking insanity!!!

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

To me, that would be the Chicago area.

Even though you're actually in Chicago? Whenever I'm here, here, or here I'll say I just crossed into NYC/Staten Island/Queens/Bronx.

[theOGalexd]

I don't see an MSA happening anytime soon (maybe ever), but I don't see a CSA or a "region" being out of the realm of possibility. New Braunfels is growing like a wildfire, has a fortune 5 company and is part of the SA MSA. San Marcos has Texas State and I'm sure some other companies. Hays County is growing extremely fast as well. With Austin becoming astronomically expensive, Buda/Kyle seem like a much more attractive option being closer to the city vs Georgetown/Leander.

If lots of people are commuting between New Braunfels and San Marcos, wouldn't that technically fit the bill between commuting the 2 metros? I'm not sure how many people commute from SA to Austin proper and vice versa, but there are people that do it. I was doing it for a while and as long as you avoid rush hour it's not a bad drive especially if you're in north SA. People do it for Spurs games too. Texans drive fast, it's not like Chicago where the speed limit is 55 haha. South of DT Austin to 1604 can be a 45 min drive with a lead foot.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by theOGalexd

I don't see an MSA happening anytime soon (maybe ever), but I don't see a CSA or a "region" being out of the realm of possibility. New Braunfels is growing like a wildfire, has a fortune 5 company and is part of the SA MSA. San Marcos has Texas State and I'm sure some other companies. Hays County is growing extremely fast as well. With Austin becoming astronomically expensive, Buda/Kyle seem like a much more attractive option being closer to the city vs Georgetown/Leander.

If lots of people are commuting between New Braunfels and San Marcos, wouldn't that technically fit the bill between commuting the 2 metros? I'm not sure how many people commute from SA to Austin proper and vice versa, but there are people that do it. I was doing it for a while and as long as you avoid rush hour it's not a bad drive especially if you're in north SA. People do it for Spurs games too. Texans drive fast, it's not like Chicago where the speed limit is 55 haha. South of DT Austin to 1604 can be a 45 min drive with a lead foot.

Yes. Both Comal and Hays are core counties of their metro areas, so any commuting between the two would qualify when considering the commuter interchange metric the OMB uses to define a CSA. There don’t need to be many people commuting between Austin and San Antonio themselves for a CSA to develop. The focus on this specific dynamic above is misguided. If there are loads of people commuting from New Braunfels into Austin and San Marcos into San Antonio and between and among the various mid-cities in Comal, Hays, and Guadalupe counties, that is what will actually matter given the math used to create a CSA.

I commuted from Pflugerville to the San Antonio Riverwalk every day for almost a year during COVID. I had the drive perfected and down to ~50 minutes door to door.

[C.]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

Yes. Both Comal and Hays are core counties of their metro areas, so any commuting between the two would qualify when considering the commuter interchange metric the OMB uses to define a CSA. There don’t need to be many people commuting between Austin and San Antonio themselves for a CSA to develop. The focus on this specific dynamic above is misguided. If there are loads of people commuting from New Braunfels into Austin and San Marcos into San Antonio and between and among the various mid-cities in Comal, Hays, and Guadalupe counties, that is what will actually matter given the math used to create a CSA.

I commuted from Pflugerville to the San Antonio Riverwalk every day for almost a year during COVID. I had the drive perfected and down to ~50 minutes door to door.

Exactly! San Marcos to New Braunfels are 18 miles apart. They're among the fastest growing cities in the country. Over the next few decades these cities will continue to become interconnected. Does it make sense that they will forever remain different metros?

Austin's housing market is one of the hottest in the nation. There is also growing tech industry on top of robust job growth. I can see a scenario where New Braunfels sends more commuters to Austin than to San Antonio. As San Marcos and New Braunfels will become the affordable options to Austin under an hour commute. Will Austin start picking off counties that belong to the San Antonio metro?

2050 population projections: https://demographics.texas.gov/Resou...tionsBrief.pdf

[futuresooner]

That "under 1 hour" commute from New Braunfels to Austin will become a massive joke very soon with how jacked up I-35 is becoming on a regular basis at almost any hour between 0600 & 1900.

[WibblyWobbly]

To me, a 'Metroplex' might be being misinterpreted in this thread. It's less about any 'distance between centers' and more of a visual thing.

Dallas Fort Worth, for example is fully merged, touching, visually, in both satellite and on the ground in day-to-day life.

Not the same sense in Chicago-Milwaukee, but certainly approaching a vague notion of that sense in San Antonio-Austin.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yeah they are popping up like crazy man! Don't forget about the Buffalo-Toronto metroplex -- only 60 miles apart across the Big O!

You may as well throw Hamilton into that mix..Heck, on clear days you can see the CN tower across the water from both Oshawa and St. Catherines, so toss those in there as well.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Razor

You may as well throw Hamilton into that mix..Heck, on clear days you can see the CN tower across the water from both Oshawa and St. Catherines, so toss those in there as well.

Toronto-Buffalo has light ties at best, both culturally and economically. The border is a big barrier. From my experience most people in Toronto are only vaguely aware that Buffalo even exists, and are mostly completely unaware what it offers or even how close it can actually be, beyond maybe the fact that the Walden Galleria exists and that there is an NFL team there.

[mrnyc]

there is a kind of a beaded hudsonriverplex from nyc all the way up to montreal too.