Saturday, March 10, 2012

Ralph McQuarrie, Space Exploration, and Cities

Earlier this week there was a disturbance in the force.  Ralph McQuarrie, long time illustrator and the man who brought much of George Lucas' imagination to life has died.  Ralph was one of my favorite artists.  So much so that in high school I took Art 1 and Art 2 in consecutive years just to draw pictures of Star Wars characters in oil pastel, pencil, and prisma color.  Unfortunately my art teacher didn't see this as well rounded. I was constantly hounded to stop drawing Star Wars and try something else.  Ultimately the only pictures I've ever drawn that are framed (and hanging in the house) are Obi Won Kenobi in Prisma and an Imperial Royal Guard copied from Ralph McQuarrie's original thinking about the character.

Jawa Encampment via Wookiepedia


But I feel he can also have a profound impact on people's thinking about cities on our planet as well as others. I was listening to NPR's Science Friday, which happened to have everyone's favorite Astrophysicist from the Bronx Neil deGrasse Tyson, and he was lamenting the loss of the manned space program and imagination that is gained from exploration.  In thinking about Ralph's death this struck me as sad as well.  There is no doubt in my mind that both George Lucas and Ralph McQuarrie among others were inspired by our moon shot. In fact McQuarrie was an artist for Boeing and his illustrations graced newscasts covering the Apollo program.  Without their images and dreams, I probably would have never taken art.  Not that my taking art changes the universe but it shows that people can be influenced to do things through a national imagination for something greater.

And I agree with Tyson that space exploration shouldn't be a partisan issue and Newt Gingrich's idea of a moon base is quite intriguing.   If not for the foothold that it creates to explore other planets and worlds, it could start a new discussion about city design.  To which Ralph would certainly be an influence.  Just looking at a few of his images of cities, it starts me thinking, what would our cities on other worlds look like?

Would they be shining spires on an island like McQuarrie's vision of Aldera of Alderaan?

Aldera via Wookiepedia

Or more like the Crevasse city of that made its way onto the screen in Episode III as Utapau  (Also one of Tim DeChant's Favorites apparently.)

Crevasse City via Wookiepedia

Perhaps the moon would be our first version of Coruscant

Via Architizer

 Some of McQuarrie's other City Images via Wookiepedia.  Also visit McQuarrie's website for more.

Cloud City

 Coruscant Monuments

Ewok Tree City

We can always dream.  Fortunately McQuarrie's drawings will help us along.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Growing Regions Can't Be Affordable if They Don't Build Housing

Austin can keep its tax base at home.  But there are some things that need to happen first.  They aren't hard to understand, but for some reason they are a hard political sell.  At some point you have to come to the realization that the actions of those in the city who refuse to allow the construction of new housing en mass are at odds with goals of affordability and preservation of valuable tax base.  Of course it's not just Austin that has these issues, San Francisco and other cities have the very same issues of affordability and building which I discussed last month and refuse to address the core issues.

To me the largest of these issues is allowing new housing.  Economics tell us that if something is scarce, it will cost more to buy.  But local leader Brigid Shea, who's running for Mayor, doesn't seem to call out the connection between Austin's ZOMG TRAFFIC ways and the rising cost of housing, and sprawl in the region.  In fact, she leaves the point out completely in her recent discussion about affordability in Austin.

The 2010 Census showed that in the previous 10 years, 71 percent of new growth took place in Austin's suburbs. The increasingly high cost of living in Austin is not only bad for our residents, it's threatening our economic future by forcing people out of our tax base.

Where did that high cost of living come from?  And I'm assuming the high cost of living referred to is housing.  But what actually happened in terms of new housing from 2000 to 2010?  In the five county region outside of the city limits, housing units increased by 133,102 units according to the census.  72% of that growth was in Hays and Williamson Counties, just north and south of Austin.   Inside the city limits, housing units only increased 77,339 units.  As a whole region, there was a 210,501 unit increase (42% increase).  So in order to lose that growth to other parts of the region, there has to be a demand for those units that is not being met by the central city.  And people still WANT to live in Austin, so they drive the price up on a scarce good.

I know that people are tirelessly focused on affordability in Austin.  It's an important issue and they are attacking it head on, but through other interventions that should be a compliment to new housing, not a supplement.  They focused on affordable housing in the TOD zoning code.  They have programs that focus on helping build affordable housing near transit.  They even have discussed density bonuses and other methods a lot for providing that housing they need to keep costs down.  You can create tools focused on affordability all you want, but until you actually make it a priority to construct the units that will fill the actual demand in the region it's just spitting into the wind.

AC posted about Austin's density as compared to other comparable cities like Columbus Ohio and Denver Colorado and noted that Austin has a lot of work to do in order to catch up.  Even other Texas cities have greater densities.
If Austin were populated at Dallas' density, it would have an extra 258,000 people. At Houston's density, it would have an extra 289,000 people.
Putting this in context with the discussion above about housing units is important for the main fact that Austin doesn't have a place outside of West Campus and Downtown that has been allowed to ratchet up the densities.  In Houston, Midtown and the Galleria are going bonkers while Dallas' Uptown was also the construction of a new truly urban place. I also have to throw in the Pearl.

Absent of any type of intervention like the University Neighborhood Overlay (I also posted on it last year) on other parts of the city that have the market and bones to support it, I'm afraid Austin will continue to sprawl into the hinterlands.  You can't expect affordability to come down if the construction of new units is fought at every turn.