The next metroplex in texas unfolds

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by edale

Yeah, using downtown to downtown doesn't paint an accurate picture, when Downtown Cincinnati is located at the southern border of the city...

yes. this is where merging metros meet, so its quite to the point. actually downtown to downtown is what is misleading.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The shortest distance I can get between NYC and Philadelphia is about 54 miles. Fairly similar to the distance between Austin and San Antonio, but I imagine that the development is far more contiguous in the former.

via mostly I-95 i got 62.2 miles from lavender rd in benselem, which looks to be where the very most ne part of philly is nearby, to outerbridge crossing in staten. of course that highway route curves a bit, its not a straight line. so thats driving-wise i guess.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

actually downtown to downtown is what is misleading.

I fully disagree.

"City limits" are just political lines drawn on a map that are arbitrary and vary wildly from city to city.

Knowing the straightline and driving distances between the two main poles of a set of given cities gives us a MUCH clearer idea of how "far apart" they actually are, IMO.

You're obviously free to disagree, but you won't convince me of your position

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

via mostly I-95 i got 62.2 miles from lavender rd in benselem, which looks to be where the very most ne part of philly is nearby, to outerbridge crossing in staten. of course that highway route curves a bit, its not a straight line. so thats driving-wise i guess.

Did you measure from Manhattan or Staten Island?

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by Riverranchdrone

Distance issue is pretty mute with Texas's high speed limits. You can easily get from Austin to San Antonio in an hour most days. IH-35 is almost completely built up from Austin down to San Antonio. Its hard to tell where the cities start and end. Now for the future we should see the 130 corridor start filling up from Austin to San Antonio. I just wonder if 281 to the west is too far out from Austin to be another effective travel corridor. The cities right now are on two different paths. San Antonio is building out while Austin is building up.

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.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I fully disagree.

"City limits" are just political lines drawn on a map that are arbitrary and vary wildly from city to city.

Knowing the straightline and driving distances between the two main poles of a set of given cities gives us a MUCH clearer idea of how "far apart" they actually are, IMO.

You're obviously free to disagree, but you won't convince me of your position

no, actually its the exact opposite.

your "main poles" or whatever you think that is, are what is vague.

a city limit is a hard line in the sand, at least at a given point in time.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

yes. this is where merging metros meet, so its quite to the point. actually downtown to downtown is what is misleading.

So are city limits. It's like saying Russia is close by because we have islands a few miles away from each other. Meanwhile Moscow is a 10 hour flight. People on the northern most fringes in San Antonio aren't going to commute to work in south Austin but downtown, north Austin or Round Rock where the jobs are. Same with going into San Antonio; downtown, the bases, USAA and other employment centers.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by JManc

So are city limits. It's like saying Russia is close by because we have islands a few miles away from each other. Meanwhile Moscow is a 10 hour flight. People on the northern most fringes in San Antonio aren't going to commute to work in south Austin but downtown, north Austin or Round Rock where the jobs are. Same with going into San Antonio; downtown, the bases, USAA and other employment centers.

don't sleep on vladivostok!

but no one is saying city limits are some perfect measure of a metroplex, just that they are not arbitrary, unlike some debateable internal city markers.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

as a matter of fact i just picked up my spouse at lga yesterday from a flight from dayton. for her going to the northern dayton airport is about an equal pain in the neck to going to the cinci airport from southern suburban centerville where her dad lives. same for columbus airport. she complains equally about all three options.

The airport situation has been an ongoing oddity for Cincinnati travelers, including each's respective location within their metros (DAY-North; CVG-South; CMH-East)

When CVG was a Delta hub a lot of people (my family included) went to Columbus, Indianapolis, Dayton or even Louisville or Lexington for cheaper flights. That's changed somewhat recently with Allegiant and Frontier serving CVG. For a long time, I knew my way around CMH better than I did CVG (and to this day I still don't like CVG because of how spread out it is). But with cheaper airfares, some new nonstops from legacy carriers began flying more regularly to CVG (within the last year, there's at least one nonstop to AUS and PHX from CVG on American).

Which, tying this back to the Texas metroplex conundrum, begs the question of would it be beneficial to have an airport somewhere between San Antonio and Austin?

Then again, both airports probably cater to different types of travelers (mostly government and corporate at AUS, tourists at SAT?)

And also, didn't Bergstrom open within the last 25 years?

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by edale

Of course, Cincinnati's airport is in Kentucky, and Dayton's is on the north side of that metro. If there was a single airport in the middle of the two, they would probably be a single CSA at this point. As it is, there are almost 700,000 people living in Cin-Day Land (Butler and Warren Counties-- the two counties between Dayton and Cincinnati). It wouldn't surprise me if the two become a single CSA in 2030, but I doubt they will ever become a single MSA, and I hope they do not.

I'm an idiot east sider and always forget that a part of Warren County (one of Ohio's fastest growing counties...) is part of the Dayton metro. The only times I ventured up that way was en route to Columbus or Kings Island/The Beach.

[Steely Dan]

^ airports are another wonderful example why dallas/fort worth is a single "metroplex", and SA/Austin likely never will be.


as the crow flies:

DFW to downtown dallas: 16 miles
DFW to downtown fort worth 19 miles


DAL to downtown dallas: 5 miles
DAL to downtown fort worth 28 miles




AUS to downtown austin: 6 miles
AUS to downtown san antonio: 73 miles


SAT to downtown san antonio: 7 miles
SAT to downtown ausitn: 67 miles

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

So are city limits. It's like saying Russia is close by because we have islands a few miles away from each other. Meanwhile Moscow is a 10 hour flight. People on the northern most fringes in San Antonio aren't going to commute to work in south Austin but downtown, north Austin or Round Rock where the jobs are. Same with going into San Antonio; downtown, the bases, USAA and other employment centers.

I don't think this is how we should be thinking about it, tbh. Most people that have inter-metro or even inter-city commutes don't commute from the downtown of one to the other. It's more likely that one would commute from the outskirts of one to either the core or outskirts of the other. That said, these metros seem to cover a lot of area for being so relatively small. Both the Austin and San Antonio MSAs cover larger land areas that Detroit's, even though they're both much smaller. Merging the two as is would create one of the least dense major metro areas in the country.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That said, these metros seem to cover a lot of area for being so relatively small. Both the Austin and San Antonio MSAs cover larger land areas that Detroit's, even though they're both much smaller. Merging the two as is would create one of the least dense major metro areas in the country.

that's mostly just an artifact of the CB's county mash-up game.

if you start with "big" counties, you tend to get "big" MSAs.


here are the UAs of the two regions in question, as defined back in 2010 (we're still waiting on the 2020 UA redefinitions):


dallas/forth worth (a single UA):






san antonio/austin (two separate UAs):





the argument that SA/austin are on the verge of coalescing into a single unified "metroplex" any decade now, in the same vein as dallas/forth worth, simply falls very flat for me.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

The airport situation has been an ongoing oddity for Cincinnati travelers, including each's respective location within their metros (DAY-North; CVG-South; CMH-East)

When CVG was a Delta hub a lot of people (my family included) went to Columbus, Indianapolis, Dayton or even Louisville or Lexington for cheaper flights. That's changed somewhat recently with Allegiant and Frontier serving CVG. For a long time, I knew my way around CMH better than I did CVG (and to this day I still don't like CVG because of how spread out it is). But with cheaper airfares, some new nonstops from legacy carriers began flying more regularly to CVG (within the last year, there's at least one nonstop to AUS and PHX from CVG on American).

Which, tying this back to the Texas metroplex conundrum, begs the question of would it be beneficial to have an airport somewhere between San Antonio and Austin?

Then again, both airports probably cater to different types of travelers (mostly government and corporate at AUS, tourists at SAT?)

And also, didn't Bergstrom open within the last 25 years?

i know -- unfortunately allegiant and frontier arent really options for nyc though.

i dk why cvg was built way out in bf ky and not between cin-day as it obviously should have been? do you know why that happened? more gov money assistance i would assume as its in another state? and don't get me started on the stupid too far north placement of the dayton airport either.

and to the point here, i wonder if a midway san antonio-austin airport was even considered? probably not as using bergstrom afb was a real gift for austin.

oh well no airports are perfect -- if anything dfw metroplex is the winner for having the airport central.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

i know -- unfortunately allegiant and frontier arent really options for nyc though.

i dk why cvg was built way out in bf ky and not between cin-day as it obviously should have been? do you know why that happened? more gov money assistance i would assume as its in another state? and don't get me started on the stupid too far north placement of the dayton airport either.

and to the point here, i wonder if a midway san antonio-austin airport was even considered? probably not as using bergstrom afb was a real gift for austin.

oh well no airports are perfect -- if anything dfw metroplex is the winner for having the airport central.

Nope. Not considered. Nobody wants to drive 40 miles or more (most of Austin population lives north of downtown, many live far north or northwest) to an airport. Similar considerations apply to San Antonio. You outlanders really ought to give this Austin/San Antonio metroplex thing a rest and revisit the question in a decade or two.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't think this is how we should be thinking about it, tbh. Most people that have inter-metro or even inter-city commutes don't commute from the downtown of one to the other. It's more likely that one would commute from the outskirts of one to either the core or outskirts of the other. That said, these metros seem to cover a lot of area for being so relatively small. Both the Austin and San Antonio MSAs cover larger land areas that Detroit's, even though they're both much smaller. Merging the two as is would create one of the least dense major metro areas in the country.

But to use the Russia/ USA analogy, most Americans and Russians don't commute back and forth between northern Alaska and eastern Siberia because there's not much on either side. Same with Austin and San Antonio; most of their commercial centers are further away than their closest points. Requiring super commutes.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

i dk why cvg was built way out in bf ky and not between cin-day as it obviously should have been? do you know why that happened? more gov money assistance i would assume as its in another state? and don't get me started on the stupid too far north placement of the dayton airport either.

Cincinnati's original commercial airport, Lunken, sat in a flood plain and was, save for the control tower, completely under water during the 1937 flood.

There were plans to turn Blue Ash Airport (now closed, but north of Cincinnati) into a commercial airport but for whatever reason that fell through in the 1950s and CVG, which began as a WWII air field, had its first commercial flights in 1947.

Its a tale as old as time in the Tri-State: Kentucky undercutting Cincinnati for piece of significant economic development.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

But to use the Russia/ USA analogy, most Americans and Russians don't commute back and forth between northern Alaska and eastern Siberia because there's not much on either side. Same with Austin and San Antonio; most of their commercial centers are further away than their closest points. Requiring super commutes.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that these are the same metro. But I do think the point about measuring the distance from the city border to city border was fair. But even using the border to border metric doesn't really change my opinion that these seem too far apart to be the same metro.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

But I do think the point about measuring the distance from the city border to city border was fair.

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.

[C.]

The year is 2052. Texas has a population of 86 million people. The Office of Management and Budget announces revised Metropolitan Statical Areas. San Marcos, San Antonio, and Austin, TX is proposed with 7.8 million people. However, due to outrage from the world largest Internet forum, SkyscraperPage.Com, President Zendaya Coleman reverses the directive to avoid continued hostilities from Southern Urbanists.