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Comment by psychometry | Hacker News Reader

The usual attitude of regressive red-state governments towards cities pursuing left-leaning ideas (raising the local minimum wage, relaxing zoning, building municipal broadband infrastructure, etc.) is to make it illegal for cities to do those things. So I find it odd that Texas is the location for this thought experiment. If these plans were put into action, the state of TX would probably pass laws and regulations requiring things like minimum amounts of street parking.

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It's true that the right-leaning government will override local control when it comes to most controversial issues in the blue cities, but when it comes to land use, Texas leaves cities alone. I grew up in Dallas, now own a home in Los Angeles. Aside from the local zoning ordinances (Dallas is "zoned", but compared to Los Angeles, no it's not; and Houston doesn't have any formal zoning at all), California has _way_ more state-level codes than Texas when it comes to land development.

Also, I would argue that, for better or worse, Marfa, TX in West Texas is a real manifestation of this essay. It's only a town of about 5000, completely walkable, and homes that were selling for $20k when news got out it was a secret artist enclave just 10 years ago are now going for north of $1 million. And, to assuage your concern: yes, it's blue (not enough to turn the rest of the rural county blue, but close enough to make the vote of the county 48% Biden - 52% Trump, almost exactly mirroring the overall result in the state). Marfa even disbanded its entire police department in 2009, and the red state government still left it alone.

https://www.themanual.com/culture/marfa-texas/

https://www.npr.org/2012/08/02/156980469/marfa-texas-an-unli...

Citation needed on the Texas leaving cities alone claim: Austin was very recently blocked from doing any significant rezoning due to state law

https://www.kut.org/austin/2020-03-18/judge-throws-out-city-...

Though granted this law was passed previously and wasn't a reaction to something Austin did a la TNC regulation

As you noted, thar was procedural rather than reactive — Dallas passed a similar “form-based” code almost a decade earlier that Austin is using as inspiration, I believe, and it’s only been expanded since [1].

Austin also just passed a historic public transit capital program via referendum that the GOP was openly against, and though the state government could have used some shady but technically legal tactics to prevent Austin from building a subway under a state-owned park (simply by refusing to bring a bill up for a vote rather than actively taking the right away, too!), they didn’t and gave Austin a 99 year lease on the ground rights for $1. [2]

Dallas and Austin are currently in a competition to ban parking minimums, which funnily enough has found much bipartisan agreement [3]

[1] https://dallascityhall.com/departments/sustainabledevelopmen...

[2] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kvue.com/amp/article/news/p...

[3] https://dallascityhall.com/departments/sustainabledevelopmen..., https://communityimpact.com/news/2019/07/23/austin-parking-r...

Don't upend his leftist religious beliefs

I mean, Texas is home to the largest unzoned city in the country. It’s also the most successful red state in the country, so it’s favorable amongst some groups, especially those with business leanings. I don’t think they’d enforce parking minimums, but we do have municipal broadband restrictions.

As a resident, I also found it an odd choice. I’d build an experiment city (especially one that wants to be walkable with less reliance on a/c) somewhere with more amenable weather. Water is also more of an issue. West Texas land isn’t just cheap because it’s flat and brown, it also is a crapshoot if your wells pull up brine vs fresh water, or if you have to dig absurdly deep wells that you have to replace every 5 years.

West Texas has some kind of fatal attraction for a certain type of person, like the Ron Paul followers who tried to establish Paulville in Hudspeth County. Wrath of Gnon, much as I enjoy certain of their tweets, has that "reject modernity, embrace tradition" vibe that is also very closely aligned in several dimensions with libertarians and separatists. Compound that with the fact that land in most parts of far west Texas is incredibly cheap (because it is useless) and you can see how people fall into that trap.

I think people should just remember that if they see some incredibly cheap Texas land advertised for sale online, it was probably used at some point to spread New Jersey sewage imported by rail.

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/02/us/for-some-texas-town-is...

I consider it the “western frontier” type person, and it goes thru Texas, Utah, Nevada and up to Idaho the Dakotas and Montana, with smatterings of eastern Washington, Oregon and California. Which makes some sense just from a hereditary standpoint since much of it’s only been started to get settled (by non natives) for a hundred years. Nomadland as a movie does a good job of getting the mood right.

Often the type of person is someone who thinks they're a "western frontier" type, but can't afford enough land to actually support themselves. I found this story absolutely riveting: https://magazine.atavist.com/outlaw-country-klamath-county-o...

Weather is a 12 month phenomenon though. Where do you want to walk in March or november?

As long as it had a gun range and shop, they’d probably let it pass on cars.

Could sell it as an old west town, horses allowed. Maybe wild west recreations on weekends for tourists.

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