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Samson's Wig

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Everything posted by Samson's Wig

  1. And yet that man-child built his fortune by founding a company that has done more to make home ownership a pipe dream for most Americans than any other factor. Don't forget he's also an Elon bootlicker and on the Tesla board. Fuck Joe Gebbia.
  2. I'm sure they'll get that knocked out and passed in no time.
  3. Sorry if I missed someone already posting this. https://www.kut.org/2024-02-12/bozeman-montana-city-manager-austin-hiring-job
  4. The world is full of insufferable cunts, but it doesn't matter much until they inherit a shitload of money. I assume PETA will take ownership of the real estate when she's gone?
  5. I'll take the curbside shoppers over the old ladies at the grocery store any day. They both take up the entire aisle and couldn't less that anyone exists or is trying to shop, but only the old ladies look at you like you're a piece of shit when you politely ask to get by them.
  6. Unless I glanced past it, the article is missing the obvious part of him laundering the money in Vegas, not actually wasting it in the casinos.
  7. Were all his victims real estate developers? If so, this may be a Batman/vigilante justice type of thing that the feds should just mind their own fucking business about. It would also explain why his victims would readily believe they did something to piss someone off enough to put a hit on them.
  8. Thank you for putting this more eloquently than I did. How anyone can remotely try to compare what Austin has going on to any of those places is ridiculous.
  9. Not really making an argument so much as trying to understand what Austin is trying to accomplish with its complete lack of direction downtown. I don't hate condos, I owned and lived in them. I wouldn't buy one in Austin if they were giving them away. It is not a pleasant place to live for the demographic you just described. Downtown Austin is simply nowhere in the same stratosphere as any of those neighborhoods in terms of a functionally livable environment. I have actually lived in River North, the Financial District, and downtown Austin (albeit well before the boom). Austin doesn't just lag behind these other locations, it's not even reasonable to compare them. Pied-à-terres are not the issue, as we clearly have way more than anyone wants to inhabit. The issue is what surrounds them, and while not a complete dead zone it's damn close. I don't know who we're trying to attract to downtown, but it isn't exactly filled with DINKs, affluent singles, or downsizing empty nesters. There's a reason. And those neighborhoods you mention did not start to revitalize by building condos and nothing else. If I have a point at all, that's it. We're doing it backward and I'm trying to understand why. It's not working. My concern is I don't think we're moving forward. We have a bunch of dwellings with no one living in them full time, like a Chinese suburban development.
  10. I agree with you, but that's a bit like bragging about being the fittest guy in the buffet line at the Golden Corral.
  11. I'll bet it's fewer than 10%. I'll take a look.
  12. No, but I can see how you might mistakenly pull that out of what I wrote. There are many things missing from downtown Austin to make it a place people might actually want to live. Most of these things are commercial and not government-owned or funded: Grocery, retail, etc., not to mention housing that attracts actual residents and not investors alone. Building more condos for absolutely no one to live in is fucking stupid and benefits no one locally at all. I also have seen no noticeable reduction in my local taxes since the building of all of these condos, have you? Or are you a suburbanite with no actual skin in the game? The city loves all that extra revenue, I guess so they can build more bike lanes for all those folks who don't live downtown to never use, but they sure as fuck aren't using it to offset what they charge the rest of us. I might actually get behind that scenario. Texas cities are some of the slowest in America to recover from white flight, in part because our state government ensures that white evangelicals in the burbs are made as comfortable as possible. Given how quickly our population is growing, we're going to have to get over it, and soon.
  13. A lot of SMBs came to the realization during the pandemic that a certain percentage of their customer base isn't worth dealing with anymore. A lot of it is generational, I think, as older folks need their hands held much more than younger folks ("I want to talk to someone before I place an order, by god! No real reason other than I want to!"). Whether or not that is reasonable is beside the point, as businesses will eventually stop caring what customers who require more effort to close want and for good reason. Younger buyers value efficiency and ease of transaction i.e. they don't want to talk to someone, they want to order it and have it in hand as soon as possible. Older buyers often still like to be sold something, and want the human interaction. They require much more time and effort for the same sale. From a business standpoint, one of these customers is much more attractive than the other, and the folks complaining the loudest about the lack of customer service these days tend to fall in the less attractive category. As wealth continues to shift from the gigantic older generation to the gigantic younger one, older folks are going to complain more and more about customer service. It won't matter when those old folks are GenX, as we've been too small in numbers for anyone to ever give a shit about anyway. The point: customer service seems worse for the neediest customers because businesses have stopped focusing on attracting their business.
  14. For some, no downtown is livable because they just prefer single-family housing, and by livable, I'm not talking about affordable (which is another discussion), but for those who enjoy urban living, there are plenty of great cities with great downtowns in America. Austin just isn't one of them (at least not yet). Based on personal experience, New York, Boston and Chicago come to mind immediately. Toronto (while just across the border) is amazing for downtown living. Downtown Chicago was primarily a business district for decades up until the last fifteen years or so, but the edges of it made for excellent livable areas even before the recent push for downtown residences. Cities like Miami and San Diego provide a functional downtown living experience. There are tons of mid sized cities that provide great downtown living as well, such as Greenville or Burlington. These places have the infrastructure and amenities (not just laundromats, but museums, art galleries, etc.) to make living downtown comfortable and functional, starting with transit systems but also including everything one might need within walking distance or a short transit ride. Austin has places to eat and drink downtown and rows and rows of condos. Living down there takes a lot of effort you don't have to put in many other major cities, and provides very little in terms of features. The library stands out as something great for reason. It's about all we have. Downtown Austin is designed for tourists, not residents, and building more condos won't change that.
  15. Does anyone have evidence that a significant number of people live in those downtown condos? I'm talking about human beings, not trust fund babies partying on daddy's dime, but actual functional working adults who contribute to our local economy and community and have a primary residence downtown? We've got some friends who work downtown and have a condo for when they work late and don't want to drive home to the hill country, but I'm not counting that either. I've lived in the downtown area of a number of major cities, within America and outside of it. The downtown area is a genuine center of the city in these places, with jobs and the necessities of daily life (laundromats, grocery stores, hardware stores, etc.) Like KaiserSoze, I used to live just across the river off Congress, but it was at a time when no one lived downtown at all (in the olden times before the birth of the highrises). As far as residents go, it was a dead zone then, and it still feels like one now. My wife worked downtown at the time and we liked that she could bike to work, but she seemed like the only one doing it. We had to drive to actually run any basic errands at all. Nothing about downtown Austin today seems attractive for a permanent residence unless you're a young person with disposable income, no responsibilities, and enjoy partying at nightclubs. South of the river is a slightly different story, of course. Are these condos being built for anything more than vehicles for money laundering? I appreciate the notion of a livable downtown and think it's a great thing. I just don't see any evidence that we have one in this city. We have built many residences but have done little else to make downtown an attractive place to live. The jobs aren't even there in significant numbers. Building more condos doesn't seem like a solution to anything other than satisfying more developers, short-term rental investors, and foreign money launderers. More investment in things like the library appeals to me much more. Make downtown a place people actually want to live, then build the condos. We've put the cart way before the horse, and I don't see a single benefit to Austin residents and taxpayers.
  16. I think the comments were driven by the notion that I brought up rather than your response, which was perfectly reasonable. Sorry you were caught in the crossfire.
  17. But we've also been told in this very thread that the cost of education isn't going up. What gives?
  18. It's lovely, and I would live there in a heartbeat if circumstances allowed for it. But what's good for the Copenhagen ain't necessarily good for the Austin. I'm in a midsize truck as well, and don't regret the change a bit (except when on long drives at times).
  19. I agree that some folks are overly cautious to the point of being irrational, but they're nowhere near the top of the list of folks whose brains were broken by the pandemic. They're also not hurting anyone but themselves, if that.
  20. I suspect that stems from this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33420786/#:~:text=Conclusions%3A Current smoking status was,CoV-2 requires further research. It makes no fucking sense to me whatsoever, and I'm a former heavy smoker. I also don't think this study is remotely definitive, and I'd be shocked if it isn't tied to the tobacco industry somehow, but I think it spurred this line of thinking after journalists and YouTubers took it and ran with it as they are wont to do.
  21. I made my post with nothing but love, as someone with a couple of those completely worthless bleeding heart liberal arts degrees that some posters seem to despise so much.
  22. So you're saying you're in the English department? Or is it philosophy?
  23. This is already happening through corporate sponsorship and direct involvement with university departments. The saddest part is how many folks think it's a good thing (I suspect mostly folks without a well-rounded education).
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