Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
why "native"
VTAndy4
>"Growing grass where grass won't grow" and "longer term source of the water" are, for me, the two main reasons to go with native species. Sure, the others are "natural," but they often require extra chemicals to protect them and extra water to flourish --- two things that I find to be destructive.
... and don't get me started on all the non-native varieties of mosquitoes we have here!!!
(So I think we agree here?)
Re: So does that mean...
Ernie Miller
>Todd you can move to Ks the grass grows pretty good here if you let it grow high enough the county will drive a tractor thru you yard and mow it. cost about $25 and they don't weed whip.
Re: If You Never Heard This by Joni Mitchell, . .
Todd O. Cronkhite Maine Native, Presently Away
>It's coming Bob, it's coming. :~( It is also the Primary reason that I work with as much recycled wood as I can. The birds and the bees, the squirrels and the tress are having a hard enough time as it is just trying to survive without having me come along and destroy another tress just in the name of persuing my hobby.
T.O.
Re: If You Never Heard This by Joni Mitchell, . .
thomd coralseacat@yahoo.au
>Oh come on! Let a little light in, they aren't browsing the leaves off a 20" oak. Joni grew up is Saskatchewan, she might have noticed LA was different...
I Think You're the One in Need of Seeing the Light
Bob Hutchins in central TX
>It's encouraging that you know that Joni grew up in Saskatchewan (but then you coulda googled that easily enough). I suggest you go to Northern Virginia then travel down the I85 corridor to Atlanta. If you can't see the sprawl -- the paving of paradise and the proliferation of parking lots -- you need more than an eye exam. Make a side trip to Raleigh, The City of Oaks, and tell me how many oak trees you find. It's about a tenth the number there were 50 years ago. (Believe it or not, 50 years is a very short time). If population increase and development continue for the next 50 years at the pace that they did for the last 50, I suggest you invest in a tree museum 'cause that's the only place you're gonna be able to see 'em.
BobH
Re: I Think You're the One in Need of Seeing the L
thomd coralseacat@yahoo.au
>I don't know, up here we are positively tripping over them. Fly over Canada, and that is pretty much all you see except for the water. Population is the 600 pound gorilla, it's hard to talk about negatively but you loose control over just about every other argument if you don't adress it.
Re: I Think You're the One in Need of Seeing the L
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>True about population, way too true; but in Austin we have a group (Envision Central Texas) that's pushing higher and closer in density, because a survey taken of the population said that's what we're prefer to highway/exurban sprawl. We're also developing commuter rail, etc. It's going to be a real interesting few years.
However, over population (as defined by not having enough food and water to service a population) problems have traditionally been solved via disease, starvation, low birth rates, war, and swarming. It may turn out that the best thing we can do is figure out how to live on other planets.
Pam
Ha! Bob look who has a foot in there mouth now?
Ernie Miller
>We aren't even finished distroying this world and you think we should start on another one.
Re: Ha! Bob look who has a foot in there mouth now
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Not at all, I think people should have some self-discipline and stop having so many kids; but what people actually do is swarm. Now that we've swarmed the earth, it's time to move on to other worlds. Maybe you'd prefer we go extinct? Or have massive numbers of us killed in disease, starvation, and war? :)
Pam
Yeah, Now!
Bob Hutchins in central TX
>"Paul Bunyan used to work in Africa, in the Great Saharan forest."
"What Great Saharan forest? The Sahara is a DESERT!"
"Yeah! NOW ! ! ! ! "
You really shoulda seen the area between Atlanta and Washington in 1960! No one believed then that what happened was even remotely possible, either!
You are absolutely right about the gorilla being population explosion. From 125 million then to over 300 million now.
Can You Track the Sprawl by Year
Bob Hutchins in central TX
>in Travis and adjoining counties? Urbanization and centralization have come far too slowly and show too little sign of catching fire with the majority of the population. If the sprawl hadn't occurred, light rail wouldn't have been an issue.
Where did all the population growth come from - not just in Austin but in the United States? The increase has been near threefold in the last 50 years and the baby boomers were in the base number. We're living longer, yes. But the average number of offspring is declining. I wonder how many citizens have been naturalized in the last 50 years and what there progeny number. How about those that didn't bother to become citizens? This is not a negative statement about immigrants as much as it is interest in population demographics.
CoralSeaTom, you should venture forth from the GWN and visit - no live in - some of the sprawl areas below the border. After all, Canada has 90% of its population within about a 100 miles of its Southern border but is the second largest nation in terms of land mass; so you really haven't experienced the same things that have happened to your neighbor to the South.
BobH, CWP, FOIBLK
Re: Can You Track the Sprawl by Year
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Couple of problems with urbanization/centralization. First, seems that all who have kids want lawns and bigger houses than they can afford in town. Of course, I think that if they added in commuting costs, they'd see they could afford much more if they moved into town. Second, there are all the real estate people who love and encourage sprawl. Third, seems that many companies are trying to accommodate this exurban event by doing such things as setting up satellite offices. Fourth, the human propensity to swarm.
Central Texas growth is the result of Interstate 35 and the universities in each town along the way, immigrantion from the northeast (like me), immigration from Latin America (don't forget, their birth rate until recently was much, much higher), and lately immigration from industrial cities in the midwest thanks to all the auto and other manufacturers who hope to take advantage of the lack of unionization. Austin anticipates a doubled population by 2020.
I think light rail is necessary, whether commuter or trollies. Even if you live in town you can be 6-10 miles from downtown. But yes, you're right, it's also made necessary by long commutes. We're building a new I35 bypass, a toll road maybe, and it amazed me to hear the local news shows even talk about how something like that would increase sprawl in the process of trying to make existing commutes viable. That's exactly what the urbanization groups have been saying for years, just surprised me that it was becoming Austin doctrine.
We also need to do much more in the way of accommodating bicycle transportation. There are huge numbers of cyclists here who'd love nothing better than to bike to work if they could do so safely. Almost all the buses have two bike racks each.
Pam
Re: Can You Track the Sprawl by Year
Bob Hutchins in central TX
>Hi Pam!
I certainly hope that Austin can learn from its past mistakes. I can't believe anyone but a vested interest would have contrived to build the interstate right through the middle of the downtown district. Even in the fifties that was considered a stu ... oops, an inappropriate thing to do. What is it 5 blocks east of Congress and right on the edge of the campus? How much do you suppose LBJ and his cronies made off it? Bell County is talking about preparing for the swarm that will land here because of Austin's growth. We're talkin' 50+ miles.
I hate to see Bell County affected by it but I certainly understand it. The problem is that what makes it so attractive is the fact that it doesn't have the population and the development. Again paving paradise to put up parking lots.
My hometown went through somthing akin to what Austin is experiencing. In 1960 there were about 175,000 in its SMSA. It recently topped 900,000. What used to be a very nearly perfect place to live is now more like Houston (or LA or Chicago or Boston . . . ) than Houston. Quality of life has halved so many times that familes -- like mine -- that were there since before we through the king out, have left in droves.
Guess we're pollutin' the places we moved to, too.
Austin is a fine city. I sincerely hope that it can do a better job in the future than it has in the past. I think water is going to limit Austin's growth. They are already piping water from a Bell County lake to support Austin's growth. I don't think they will be able to find many more sources.
BobH
Re: Can You Track the Sprawl by Year
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Well, I've only been here since 1999, and only kept an eye on the place since 1990 or so. As nearly as I can tell, Austin hasn't made too many mistakes in that time, a very well run town. It was fairly common in the long past to put freeways through towns. Witness Boston.
And as rainless as it's been this summer, we still didn't experience a drought; although we couldn't sustain that for too terribly much longer.
Pam
Re: Can You Track the Sprawl by Year
Bob Hutchins in central TX
>Hi Pam!
Beat you to central Texas by 3 years arriving in Belton in 96 but had been in Sugar Land since 94. Probably not a lot of difference in our perceptions of the growth in Austin. I have several friends who went to UT during the 60s who remember being well out of town by the time one got to the Art Deco building on the West side of 35 the name of which escapes me. To a man, they talk about Round Rock as being nothing but pastures and scrub brush.
[edited for political commentary �WRD] 'Course I realize that public projects have to be undertaken. It's just that I've rarely seen any done that were either planned or executed properly. As far as freeways running through the center of town, that started after WWII, before the IH system. By the time they started funding IH projects they were bypassing towns [edited for political commentary �WRD]
Maybe if cities could get some kind of impact fee from cars coming from the exurban areas, there would be more motivation to get folks to live in cities like so many do in Europe. Make the cites unfriendly to cars and friendly to public transportation. But then, they wouldn't grow at exponential rates like the projection for Austin in the next 15 years. Or acquire right of ways but first build light rail in the center and get it functioning with ridership before building roadways AND put an impact fee on the cars registered exurban.
As for water, consider a drought on the scale of the one in the 50s with a 2020 Austin population. The Edwards acquifer would be pumped dry, Ozarka would pump Van Zandt county dry for bottled water and cities would be in court wasting taxpayer money fighting over surface reservoirs. I bet they'd run straws several hundred miles to take water. What will that cost? [edited for political commentary �WRD] Population growth aint always good and the result usually reduces quality of life for all. [edited for political commentary �WRD]
Oh well, better stop afore I get into another mega rant.
BobH, CWP, FOIBLK
Re: Can You Track the Sprawl by Year
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Yes, but keep in mind that it's TXDOT that makes most of the highway decisions, individual cities have relatively little clout. And it was Dell that populated Round Rock, and, in fact, companies like Dell that now require the new bypasses and/or faster access to trucking and the like. This is all exacerbated by just-in-time manufacturing methods. That exurbans need to commute is almost a side issue.
And this bypass will most likely be a toll road, which commuters are yelling about even as we speak.
These days there's very little population growth that is good, the exception being that experienced by cities that attract the exurbans.
Pam
Requiem for a Lawnmower
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Patrick, just finished Requiem. What a great book, wish I'd known about it six years ago, would have been great to be able to quote chapter and verse when fending off the neighbors and city code enforcers. Thanks for the recommendation, I also got the names of a couple or three new plants to foster.
Pam
Re: Requiem for a Lawnmower
Patrick Gibbons
>Glad I could help Pam. If you go to the wildflower center there in Austin you'll find a number of other books that will point you in the right direction for plants. Then take a trip to Brenham and go to the Antique Rose Emporium. Not just for roses.
Re: Requiem for a Lawnmower
Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX
>Will do, have been meaning to get down to the Lady Bird center for years.
Thanks,
Pam