TyHolden said:

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Austin's best years were around 2000 when they were around 900k-1000k. They didn't have one decent sports bar at the time though.

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Early '70s. Amarillo World Headquarters, Old Alliance Wagonyard, 2J's, Les Amis, Hippie Hollow, Broken Spoke, and many other places I'm beginning to forget. Traffic was easy to navigate and rarely gridlocked, and this is from a small town boy who never lived there but spent a lot of time visiting.

woodiewood1 said:

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BiochemAg97 said:

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turfman80 said:

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Maximum growth will always be the mantra of B/CS governments due to the control of developers and realtors.

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Interesting point, and probably valid.

Makes me wonder what is argument for less growth or no growth?

What would a city govt do to moderate growth, other than completely sucking and driving everyone away?

Austin tried the "don't build roads" and we won't grow strategy and that was a disaster. Not only did it not stop the growth, but then it put them decades behind on building roads.

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You don't want no growth, but slow and managed growth.

You ask, "what is argument for less growth or no growth?"

You answered your own question when you mentioned Austin.

We are growing at about 4,000 persons, 1 to 2%, a year now. The city doesn't have to do a dang thing with our tax money to increase the growth rate.

I am not convinced that a high level of growth in our population will have major benefits for the existing homeowner taxpayers?

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Clearly, the govt need to plan for growth or they get way behind when the growth happens. Road planning with ROW for major N/S and E/W corridors. Plan for utilities (power, water, gas, sewer). You don't have to build it until you need it, but have an idea of what want to happen rather than responding after the fact. Also, need a process for builders to add more places to live, otherwise you get to skyrocketing housing costs.

Need to do stuff to make the current residents happy. Parks, events, etc.

Also need economic development, which would include attractive and retaining businesses. That could be bringing in large businesses and it could be not being a PITA to the businesses that are already here.

I'm just not sure what the difference is between "maximum growth" and "planned for growth" from a policy standpoint. If you have jobs and happy residents, people will come. And you better have a plan for it.

Pantera said:

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No. AI will erase the human race far before this happens.

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My view, too. Ten years ago I said that by 2035 to 2040 Terminator had a risk of coming true. Self-replicating robots who can improve themselves and have built in AI way beyond today will look around and decide that resource consuming humans are not worth having b around.

BryanPooch said:

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Pantera said:

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No. AI will erase the human race far before this happens.

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My view, too. Ten years ago I said that by 2035 to 2040 Terminator had a risk of coming true. Self-replicating robots who can improve themselves and have built in AI way beyond today will look around and decide that resource consuming humans are not worth having b around.

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I'm starting to think SkyNet was the protagonist. Change my mind.

turfman80 said:

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Maximum growth will always be the mantra of B/CS governments due to the control of developers and realtors.

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