30 April 2010

Austin Like Portland

My wife was in Austin, TX last week, and she sent me these two photos because they struck her as similar to scenes in Portland, OR, which we visited together a few years ago.

First here is an extra wide sidewalk:
 
Some effort was made here to narrow the part of the right-of-way that is for driving and widening the sidewalk. This was also done in areas of Portland.

Secondly, these look a lot like new condos you would find in Portland's Pearl District:
 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The the condo's in this pic look a lot like the banks condo drawing's.

5chw4r7z said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
5chw4r7z said...

Your post dovetailed with this post I read yesterday, widening the sidewalks, narrowing the street, takes the racertrack feel away and slows cars.

Crowdsourced street to become permanent

Kareem said...

I love Austin! I used to live just north of there and would be in the city very often. Those condo's pictured look like those just south of the city's 6th Street, where Sandra Bullock used to own a condo.

Ryan said...

The apartments in your second photo are pretty universal these days, even here in Scotland they all look quite similar.

CityKin said...

^yeah, everywhere except here for some reason.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the condos look like everywhere - world, yet being aware of this universal blah-ness even before they are built at the Banks, they still build them. The opportunity for something unique is right there in front of us. Why is it being missed?
Go back to the drawing board for the Banks before it is too late. Maybe each building in the banks should be designed by a different architect. That way it won't end up looking like one massive generic building trying to look like a bunch of different ones with limited character.