NO !!!! Two of the things Houston has laid its hat on was 1) Texas largest city and 2) Texas tallest building (really top 2). Houston also has/had the tallest building longitude-wise between Chicago and Los Angeles. Austin is blowing up -- population has grown to ONE million and now is set for tallest building in Texas. I'm surprised Austin is even capable of supporting a building that tall (other skyscrapers too). It's cool to have tall buildings, but they're not just build to say they have it -- there needs to be logical economical necessity. Austin is blowing up fast. Maybe that region finally gets more than pro sports team (MLS is decent, but meh). The SA-Austin area has 6 million people, yet the Spurs (and Longhorns) are its representatives. A professional baseball or football seems deserved. And before you argue "it's Cowboy Country", well, New York and Los Angeles are Yankee and Lakers territory, but the cities still multiple franchise in the same sport. NYC has 3 damn hockey teams, plus another in Buffalo. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...line-tower-tallest-building-texas/8000108001/ Good for Austin and Texas in general, but damn, I liked having the tallest building in the state. Houston needs an NHL team -- and I don't even like hockey.
I'm scared to see what will happen if Austin explodes in population even more. Their road infrastructure sucks.
Circuit Of The Americas Circuit Of The Americas: FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX (OCTOBER 18-20, 2024)
Texas only has one season: CONSTRUCTION. --- Austin (and every other Texas city) has plenty of it. I-35 thru downtown Austin is the most congested stretch of the interstate in the entire country -- it goes Mexico (Laredo) to Canada (Great Lakes/Minnesota). They attempted to lessen traffic with the 130 Tollway, but it's expensive to drive. Austin has too many toll roads anyway IMO. Solution... 1) stop charging tolls 2) add lanes to I-35 -- but that project would be a gruesome 5-year process. Traffic will get much worse before it gets better. Texas seems to have a real problem with freeway planning. There's been new construction around Houston (only 1-3 years old) that's already being demolished and rebuilt. THAT'S the main reason your property taxes have increased so much recently. It costs money tear sh** down -- AND, it costs money to rebuild it.
I lived in Austin for 17 years and saw a lot of this change firsthand (even though everyone in Austin knows it stopped being Austin 20 years ago from any point of their choosing). When I left the city was unrecognizable from when I first moved there. Its road infrastructure cannot support much more growth. Housing supply is a major issue especially in places with shorter commute times to downtown. When it comes to pro sports, I don't think they'll ever have anything other than MLS. Austin FC games are a blast and the city supports them especially transplants with no connection to UT. But UT is a behemoth that can't share its arena with an NBA team (too small; the Moody Center only seats 15k) and doesn't want to divert attention away from it. Beyond that, there's not a lot of good land for new stadiums. Austin FC tried to build their stadium on Town Lake before that was shot down and they settled for the Domain. I can't imagine that Jerry Jones would allow for an Austin team to park itself between him and an incredibly large San Antonio Cowboys fanbase.
Austin doesn't need an NBA/NHL arena with the Spurs so near -- MLB or NFL is the better option, especially with Texas being "football country". Austin is not huge, but the Austin-SA area has grown very well (SIX million people). So if a stadium gets built, both cities should be considered. San Marcus or New Braunfels seems a good location. There is plenty land in between Austin and SA. If Jerry Jones impedes, then there's more reason to say "F**k Jerry Jones". NYC has the Yankees, but the Mets exist and spent big money. LA has the Lakers, but the Clippers exist and still spent big money. Houston should get NHL too.
Engineering technology and lack of land in central Austin have lead to this. On the other hand, white-collar 'thought' jobs don't need to be in person, except assholes like Musk and the Boomers who need to retire just like people there.
Houston still with more stories. Austin's building 74 stories - Houston's building 75 stories - Checkmate b****es Just construct something 21 feet tall on the roof of the Houston Chase tower.
We’ve lived in Austin for 44 years. Moved here from Houston (the Montrose area) in the summer of 1980. We rented a house in what would now be called South-Central Austin, Austin having expanded far beyond Oltorf and South First, which we were a few blocks from. Our rent for a 3 bedroom one bath place adjacent to a city park was $165 a month, bills paid. Now? I can’t even imagine what it would be today. This skyscraper is going up a block from the condo tower on Lady Bird Lake that a good friend of mine is leasing. Thankfully, it isn’t blocking his view. The economic climate has changed a bit in the Austin area. Rents are going down, or so I’ve read, (my daughter’s apartment that’s pretty close in is still absurdly expensive, though). There were going to be two 70+ story towers built at the same time, but one of them lopped off about 20 floors due to the decrease in demand at the very high prices that remain for downtown Austin’s condo and apartment towers. I think the design of this tower, however tall it is, sucks.
St Louis is weird. Its boxed in on one side by the river and on the other side by a whole bunch of little towns that are very old and long since encorporated and cant be eminent domained. Its bottled up and only the poor remain in the actual city. The city of St. Louis is basically the inner city ghetto for the greater metro area which has a population of like 2.8 million. That is slightly larger than the Austin metro area.
When I was visiting Austin in April I stayed in one of those new towers by Ladybird lake. It was so new the concrete still had the sheen of the releasing agents. Across the street was another major residential tower under construction. What I found interesting was right on the other side of 35 it hadn’t looked like new construction was going.
A lot of this is poor planning and poor infrastructure. It’s also why Houston is having. So many flooding issues.
I lived in Austin in the 70’s. Absolutely loved it there. Nice size town, easy to get around. Thought I might retire there someday. But, now when I go back, all I see is freeway, cars, and trucks……
Maybe they think that'll keep people from leaving Austin (a.k.a. the yearly California resident migration).
