[Lifestyle] NEW BRAUNFELS’ SUBURBAN LIFESTYLE THREATENS SMALL TOWN CHARM

[-Kenzo]

                                       

The City of a Prince grew by 56.4 percent over the last decade, putting it easily in the list of the country’s fastest growing large cities. That’s right, y’all. New Braunfels is a “large city” according to the U.S. Census Bureau—and it has been since 2007.

With every new resident, the diversity of lifestyles here increases. We should be overjoyed that everyone from recent college graduates to business leaders want to call New Braunfels home. Now, it’s up to all of us to make sure our city serves long-time residents and newcomers alike.

It comes as no surprise that an influx of residents means more cars on the road. I’ve written about how the way we’re developing demands car use before, but, facing reality, suburbia isn’t going away anytime soon.

SO, LET’S TALK SOLUTIONS.
New Braunfelsers deserve greater agency over how they travel. Buses, rail lines to more distant locales, and space for other motorized vehicles could provide efficient options for travelers. Additionally, improved pedestrian and bike infrastructure would open up existing roadways to others who might prefer not to drive.

An impressive 82 percent of respondents in a recent survey by the City of New Braunfels indicated support for fixed-route bus transit. With some 70 percent of the labor force coming from outside of the city (ibid.), reliable, inexpensive transit could do much to unclog roads without the eminent domain claims and environmental degradations massive road expansions require.

Further, we should welcome transportation innovations of all kinds. Unfortunately, our city leaders took the opposite approach. Unlike Austin, we didn’t regulate Uber out of our city, but we did something just a bad for fans of innovation and markets like me.

Rather than accept the growing demand for short-term, electric scooter rentals, local leaders banned them outright. When our city should have opened up roadways to more and better uses, it closed them to all but cars. This was an egregious use of city authority to engineer residents’ lifestyles. The City Council’s decision was a show of government favoritism that should unsettle all of us. But even further, it discourages private-sector innovation that is attempting to meet the needs of contemporary urban spaces.

THE NEED FOR LEADERSHIP
Whether you’re hoping to limit the number of cars on the road to save scenic hill country or because you want more room for your own car, our political disposition needs changing.

According to geographer Richard Florida, there are three Ts of growth for 21st century cities: Technology, Talent, and Tolerance. If we continue on our current trajectory—banning innovation, coercing residents into one form of transportation, and designing our city for a single lifestyle—it’ll be near impossible to score highly in any of these categories.

Whether we like it or not, and no matter how much we dig our heels in, more people are coming. A comprehensive suite of policy reforms and private initiative are urgently needed to prepare our city for its impending growth.

This means taking our transportation issues seriously before it’s too late. Investment in public transit and making room for multiple modes of transit can provide new options to access and live in everyone’s favorite parts of town.

Cutter W. González is a member of the New Braunfels’s Transportation and Traffic Advisory Board, descendant of the Prince Solms expedition, and resident of the city’s West End. He is the President of Musikverein New Braunfels and The Localism Institute. Follow him on Twitter at @CutterWGonzalez.