RightRevBear said:

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The problem is much more complex than this article makes it out to be. Waco was economically depressed for years. It was on the path to becoming chronically, economically depressed, if it wasn't already.

I look at cities like Jackson, MS that have poverty issues, and there is really no hope of it getting any better. They can't even provide clean drinking water. The state gave them money and put a conservator over the money, but the local government still found loopholes around it. Now they don't have clean water, and they have squandered away the money for fixing it.

I feel for the people that are losing their homes due to taxes or ones that can't afford rent. On the other hand though the economic changes give their offspring a better chance of thriving. Waco's infrastructure has suffered for years due to lack of a tax base. They are now being able to upgrade roads, schools, etc. many of the houses were barely able to be lived in or not able to be lived in. I know I lived in one of those houses for 3 years.

The hope is that with the economic boom people will get better paying jobs. Unfortunately, my experience is that wages are not growing as the cost of living is in Waco. I was offered a managerial position with a large, established company in Waco. They offered me only 5k more for a promotion that would necessitate a move from Temple to Waco. The job was going to be a grind too. I would basically be on-call 24/7. They were underpaying for the position about 15-20k for the area. They went up 2k in negotiations, and then argued that it was 5k more than the previous manager made. Many Waco employers are not increasing salaries, but they are increasing their prices. This is a national phenomenon though.

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BaylorHistory said:

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Go on Google Maps and walk down Austin Ave from Nov/Dec 2007 and then do the walk down in 2023 and you can see what has happened to our city.

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PartyBear said:

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BaylorHistory said:

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Go on Google Maps and walk down Austin Ave from Nov/Dec 2007 and then do the walk down in 2023 and you can see what has happened to our city.

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I went to google maps but did not see a way to do this. Can you elaborate a little more?

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FranchiseBear said:

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Speaking of gentrification…. I was in town early Nov and had tix to go to an outdoor concert that got moved to the Hippodrome. Wow - I had never been before and was very impressed. Upstairs bar very cool as well!

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hodedofome said:

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Funky Town Bear said:

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atomicblast said:

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All for gentrification! Waco needs to be hit with the gentrification hammer as many times as it can! Going to school and living there from 09-13, the downtown area was a very sad state of affairs. It always astonished me that the city never bothered to build a water plant to deal with the water quality out of Lake Waco for decades either.

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You have no idea how far downtown had come by 09 compared to 15 years prior to that.

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My dad had a meeting downtown in the early 90s to talk about how to revitalize downtown. He left my brother and I outside the building. We proceeded to throw rocks at the busted out windows of the building across the street. Of course dad was upset when he found out, but that tells you how bad it was. It was so run down that my brother and I, who never did anything like that before, thought it was perfectly fine to pass the time that way.

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atomicblast said:

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All for gentrification! Waco needs to be hit with the gentrification hammer as many times as it can! Going to school and living there from 09-13, the downtown area was a very sad state of affairs. It always astonished me that the city never bothered to build a water plant to deal with the water quality out of Lake Waco for decades either.

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hodedofome said:

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You can either have cheap real estate because nobody wants to live there, or you can have expensive real estate because everyone wants to live there. I don't think this is going to change while humans are on the earth.

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[Americans increasingly moved into cities over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a movement motivated in large measure by industrialization. Eleven million people migrated from rural to urban areas between 1870 and 1920, and a majority of the twenty-five million immigrants who came to the United States in these same years moved into the nation's cities.]

Jackson Bear said:

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atomicblast said:

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All for gentrification! Waco needs to be hit with the gentrification hammer as many times as it can! Going to school and living there from 09-13, the downtown area was a very sad state of affairs. It always astonished me that the city never bothered to build a water plant to deal with the water quality out of Lake Waco for decades either.

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Waco built a plant for that about 20 years ago. Right by the dam. State of the art and did a great job of getting rid of the foul taste.

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Alf said:

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" A rising tide lifts all boats"

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SteamedHams said:

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Alf said:

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" A rising tide lifts all boats"

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That lift includes property tax liability, which, if you are a fixed income resident, is like being anchored to the sea floor as the tide rises.

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cowboycwr said:

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I wonder if the author feels the same way about farmers and ranchers being bought out for expansion of cities. IT has happened in every city/metroplex. An area that was once outside the city and farmland gets bought out and a suburb is built, with shopping, restaurants, etc. and the city expands.

In Waco, for example everything west of about 25th street was farmland at one point. Or even more recently, the new university High school was built on farmland.

Or a metroplex like DFW- there used to be separation between Ft. Worth-Arlington-Grand Prairie and Dallas- now it is solid growth the whole way.

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Redbrickbear said:

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cowboycwr said:

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I wonder if the author feels the same way about farmers and ranchers being bought out for expansion of cities. IT has happened in every city/metroplex. An area that was once outside the city and farmland gets bought out and a suburb is built, with shopping, restaurants, etc. and the city expands.

In Waco, for example everything west of about 25th street was farmland at one point. Or even more recently, the new university High school was built on farmland.

Or a metroplex like DFW- there used to be separation between Ft. Worth-Arlington-Grand Prairie and Dallas- now it is solid growth the whole way.

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If Texas really does hit 55 million citizens by 2050 (and if 90% of that growth does in up being in the Texas Triangle)

Its very unlikely that Waco to Austin or Waco to Dallas will also not look basically built up with little separation.

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atomicblast said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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cowboycwr said:

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I wonder if the author feels the same way about farmers and ranchers being bought out for expansion of cities. IT has happened in every city/metroplex. An area that was once outside the city and farmland gets bought out and a suburb is built, with shopping, restaurants, etc. and the city expands.

In Waco, for example everything west of about 25th street was farmland at one point. Or even more recently, the new university High school was built on farmland.

Or a metroplex like DFW- there used to be separation between Ft. Worth-Arlington-Grand Prairie and Dallas- now it is solid growth the whole way.

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If Texas really does hit 55 million citizens by 2050 (and if 90% of that growth does in up being in the Texas Triangle)

Its very unlikely that Waco to Austin or Waco to Dallas will also not look basically built up with little separation.

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I think Dallas to Waco is more likely as Austin would squeeze out towards San Antonio.

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