Am I the last person on earth to realize that downtown Austin’s SkyHouse apartment tower at 51 Rainey Street has identical twins all over the country? This may be common knowledge for the extremely cosmopolitan readership of TOWERS Austin, but it’s news to me that the SkyHouse residential brand by Atlanta-based developer Novare Group essentially reuses a…
Ora Houston, City Council’s Least Predictable Voter, Would Like You to Stop Selling Austin’s Soul
That 10 of the 11 elected leaders in the Austin City Council are at least nominally associated with the Democratic Party does not mean there is any shortage of divisions on the dais. The Council’s all-too-frequent marathon sessions, often stretching into the wee hours of the morning, reveal the many differences of opinion that exist…
YIMBY is not left or right but both and neither
The YIMBY moment hasn’t exactly arrived in America but it’s on the platform and the train is coming. The framework for political arguments in many City Halls has transformed from “Neighborhood vs Developer” to “YIMBY vs NIMBY.” State Houses like California are being shaken up by YIMBY legislation, both passed and proposed. The movement’s growth has created…
Take Our Fabulous Austin Survey and You Could Win a Fabulous Prize
Here at TOWERS.net, thinking about Austin is a full-time job. That’s why we’ve decided to take an opportunity to make you think about Austin for a change — what you like, what you don’t, that sort of thing. We’ll be running surveys every once in a while on various Austin topics in an ask-the-audience-style attempt…
40 Years Ago, Downtown Austin Was on the Brink. What Have We Learned?
In 1978, journalists Bruce Hight and David Frink collaborated on seven stories in the Austin American-Statesman, published every day for seven days between May 8 – 14. The title of the series was “Downtown: On the Brink,” and this week of warnings told the story of a declining downtown Austin — highlighting both the early…
Can Austin’s Bike-Sharing Go Dockless Without the Entire City Losing Its Mind?
Earlier this month, a former mayor of San Luis Obispo, California, wrote a letter to the editor of that town’s newspaper in which he felt it perfectly acceptable and cool to describe a proposed bikeway as a “gigantic urban rape.” “Yes, rape!” Ken Schwartz wrote before graciously elaborating, “No other word would be proper. The rape will not…