The next metroplex in texas unfolds

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by JManc

That doesn't mean there's any real cohesion between the two. If the Bay Area isn't considered a singular metro area, no way will SATX-ATX will anytime soon. San Marcos, New Braunfels have their own vibe. I do think that corridor will continue to fill out though. No doubt.

Being a metro (msa) or csa in the US doesn’t have anything to do with vibe or cohesion and has everything to do commuting patterns. As it stands, commuter patterns don’t support the idea currently.

[R1070]

I could see the corridor becoming a continuous CSA, but never one MSA in our lives. It's roughly 12 miles between Dallas and Fort Worth city limits. There's a reason why it's one metro area.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I would think San Marcos would have to become a big city. Then it would be the Austin-San Marcos-San Antonio megalopolis.

Maybe they could start building a high-rise district just south of downtown San Marcos, probably around here. They could turn the railroad into a high-speed commuter railroad going in-between the 3 cities.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by R1070

I could see the corridor becoming a continuous CSA, but never one MSA in our lives. It's roughly 12 miles between Dallas and Fort Worth city limits. There's a reason why it's one metro area.

And the fact that they are 12 miles apart limits to limits and ~30 miles apart downtown to downtown are neither among those reasons.

[AviationGuy]

Dallas, Fort Worth, and the other cities in the Metroplex did end up growing together. It's essentially one gigantic city. Austin-San Antonio, as someone else mentioned, is more of a largely developed corridor. I don't see it being anything like DFW for many, many years.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by LAsam

Similar to the "Bay Area" and "Southland" in California. A unique term to describe the larger unique urbanized area. I wonder what other names there are out there for like these. Is "Chicagoland" a thing? I feel like I've heard that term before.

"Chicagoland" is definitely a thing, and has been used for nearly a century now to collectively refer to Chicago and its vast suburban realm, and at times its even vaster rural hinterlands.

But Chicagoland isn't a terribly unique urbanized area. It's just a big old giant legacy city, circled by pre-war inner-ring suburbia with strings of older railroad suburbia radiating out like a sunburst, and then all back-filled in the post-war era by one of the most vast and pervasive suburban sprawls around.

We could have just as easily had a "Detroitland" or a "Bostonland" or a "Houstonland" or whatever.

For some reason, the Chicago region is the only one that I'm aware of that took on the "-land" suffix.

Perhaps the citizens of other US cities weren't as high on their own supply as chicagoans were back in the day to conflate themselves with a european nation? (ie. England, Ireland, Scotland, Poland, Finland, etc.)


that said, this separate identity that chicagolanders hold on to is another contributing factor in the great IL political/economic/cultural divide between the big city and downstate. i legit don't really think of myself as an "illinoisian" the way that bay area people still think of themselves as "californians", or that metroplex dwellers still think of themselves as "texans". from a chicagoland perspective, "illinoisians" are a different tribe of people who live down among the corn.

[Don't Be That Guy]

Originally Posted by wwmiv

T
2020s:
• Austin MSA adds Milam and Lee counties.
• Marble Falls mSA recreated from Blanco, Burnet, and Llano.
• Austin CSA recreated from Austin MSA and Marble Falls mSA.

2030s:
• San Antonio MSA captures both the Kerrville mSA and Pearsall mSA.
• San Antonio CSA adds Fredericksburg mSA and Uvalde mSA.
• Austin MSA captures Marble Falls mSA.
• Austin and Killeen-Temple-Belton become a CSA.

2040s:
• San Antonio MSA captures Fredericksburg mSA.
• Austin MSA captures Killeen-Temple-Belton.

2050s:
• Austin-San Antonio CSA becomes a reality.

2060s:
• Single Metro?
• Mega-region with Waco?
• Fool’s errands?

You forgot precipitous decline due to an uninhabitable climate with sustained triple digit temps in summertime.

[MolsonExport]

The Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal Metroplex!


(pay no attention to the forests and farms filling most of the intercity space)

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by pj3000

NYC-Philadelphia... 80 miles city hall to city hall.... the next metroplex?

It could be, if we had modern transportation options like HSR between them.
Fun fact, the closest distance between New York City and Philadelphia city limits is only 46 miles, from northeast Philly to Staten Island.

[austlar1]

I've lived in the Austin area for 26 years now. During that time, I think I've been to San Antonio less than 10 times. The other day a friend of mine went down there to look at a used car that he saw advertised online. He hadn't been to San Antonio in over a decade. I don't think our experience with San Antonio is out of the ordinary for an Austin resident. There really isn't a lot of connectivity between the two cities. That probably changes a good bit for folks living between the two cities, but the vast majority of residents of either metro don't live along that stretch of the I-35 corridor at this point in time. I don't know anyone who is eager to embrace the idea of a new metroplex identity for this region.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Don't Be That Guy

You forgot precipitous decline due to an uninhabitable climate with sustained triple digit temps in summertime.

The Texas Hill County is not an area that anyone expects to actually become uninhabitable. Furthermore, the weather in the hills is a fair bit different than below the Balcones Faultline, usually being 15-20 degrees cooler at any given moment.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by austlar1

I've lived in the Austin area for 26 years now. During that time, I think I've been to San Antonio less than 10 times. The other day a friend of mine went down there to look at a used car that he saw advertised online. He hadn't been to San Antonio in over a decade. I don't think our experience with San Antonio is out of the ordinary for an Austin resident. There really isn't a lot of connectivity between the two cities. That probably changes a good bit for folks living between the two cities, but the vast majority of residents of either metro don't live along that stretch of the I-35 corridor at this point in time. I don't know anyone who is eager to embrace the idea of a new metroplex identity for this region.

My sister who just visited me in Denver believes in this shared identity and so does her employer, a developer. I’ve known multiple people - including myself - who commuted daily from one or the other. I do think slowly the mentality is changing.

[Buckeye Native 001]

A coworker of mine from Austin says the closest he got to San Antonio was attending college at Texas State, although he went to San Antonio occasionally for Spurs games.

I think I can count on one hand the number of times I went to Dayton when I lived in Cincinnati, but most of my family lives on the east side of town or in Northern Kentucky.

[iheartthed]

That sprawl must be crazy for these two relatively small metros to almost be connected.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

A coworker of mine from Austin says the closest he got to San Antonio was attending college at Texas State, although he went to San Antonio occasionally for Spurs games.

I think I can count on one hand the number of times I went to Dayton when I lived in Cincinnati, but most of my family lives on the east side of town or in Northern Kentucky.

Because the significant size differential, the Cincinnati to Dayton interactions are kind of one sided. People from Dayton come down to Cincinnati to shop, go to pro sporting events, visit museums and the zoo, etc, but you don't see much of the reverse because there's not much that Dayton has that you can't find in Cincinnati.

Personally, I visited the Dayton area a fair amount. I've been to the Air Force Museum at Wright Patt a couple times, visited friends at UD a couple times, went up to see a specific show at the Dayton Art Institute, flown in/out of the Dayton airport several times, and would regularly go to Yellow Springs to hike. Even in high school, we'd always play a couple of tennis matches each year against Dayton schools, which is how I came to know about the super charming Oakwood neighborhood. Going from Hyde Park up to Dayton for a tennis match seemed absurd at the time, and it still does all these years later

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That sprawl must be crazy for these two relatively small metros to almost be connected.

Austin to San Marcos along I-35 (Kyle and Buda mostly) has grown very rapidly and will continue to do so, but a lot of that growth is likely to spread eastwards towards Lockhart in Caldwell County. Most of this growth is very much oriented to the Austin eco-system. Something similar has happened north of San Antonio towards New Braunfels and west into the Hill Country, and this expansion is mostly coming out of San Antonio. New Braunfels and San Marcos, both sizeable little towns in their own right, are slowly creeping towards each other with new housing developments, etc. If a major league sports franchise ever set up shop in that area, I think it would go a long way towards cementing the Austin-San Antonio dual identity. In an era of downtown stadiums, though, it is hard to imagine that happening. I think wwmiv's timeline is about right. It's too soon to think of Austin-San Antonio as a thing unto itself. There are folks with a foot in both cities here on SSP that might be a bit eager to jump the gun.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by edale

Personally, I visited the Dayton area a fair amount. I've been to the Air Force Museum at Wright Patt a couple times, visited friends at UD a couple times, went up to see a specific show at the Dayton Art Institute, flown in/out of the Dayton airport several times, and would regularly go to Yellow Springs to hike. Even in high school, we'd always play a couple of tennis matches each year against Dayton schools, which is how I came to know about the super charming Oakwood neighborhood. Going from Hyde Park up to Dayton for a tennis match seemed absurd at the time, and it still does all these years later

Had I stayed in Cincinnati through high school and college I might've gone up to Dayton more, but yeah, Hyde Park to Dayton for tennis is a bit out there

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

That sprawl must be crazy for these two relatively small metros to almost be connected.

They are connected by I35 and a lot of small towns in between that have ballooned. San Marcos is a college town that has grown significantly and New Braunfels is a tourist town that has also grown significantly.

People really don’t commute between San Antonio and Austin but their respective suburbs are expanding between the two metros.

[tdawg]

By this logic wouldn't Orlando/Tampa be considered a metroplex as well?

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by tdawg

By this logic wouldn't Orlando/Tampa be considered a metroplex as well?

Sort of true, per Wiki:
"The central cities of both metropolitan areas (Orlando and Tampa) are in close proximity (85 miles (137 km)), and as a result, their two metropolitan areas blend together in the area of Lakeland to make up a larger contiguous population center often referred to as the I-4 corridor. This is a population concentration that stretches from Tampa Bay on the west coast to Palm Coast and Cape Canaveral on the east coast of the state."