Once again, if you go back to my original point, any developable land around Seattle is north or south of the city.
Duball, Sammamish are west of Seattle ... only a few minutes drive from MSFT HQ. Oh but they're across a county line and are "exurban". Which means nothing.
Everett is 20 miles north. To the West of Everett is Lake WA
To the west of Everett was the Pacific ocean when I was there anyway.
Nope. First Lake WA, then another strip of land, then Puget Sound. The Pac. Ocean is about 200 miles away.
and a few miles to the east is the Cascade Mts.
Yeah you can see them from Everett but they're quite a few miles away.
Around ten miles.
the developmental strip is a relatively narrow one......with water to the West and mts to the East.
I've been there and SEEN there is a lot of developable land to the east of Everett.
You're talking a few sq miles....this is a metro area of 3 million+ people. Going south you have to go 30 miles or ten miles South of Tacoma to find virgin land of any quantity.
WTF are you arguing with me for? I live here. I know the area a hell of a lot better than you do.
In fact, I know Austin better than you do. ;-)
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I listed places where there's a vast amount of undeveloped land with 8-14 miles of MSFT's HQ's.
There isn't a vast amount of vacant land. Its mostly foothills of the Cascades.
I listed only places in river valleys.
Shut up.
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What makes Austin a "model city"?
relocateamerica.com
I was talking about its industry mix......nicely diverse.....state gov't, tech and some manufacturing............the envy of other cities.
Except for the state government, those things don't make it unique in TX.
But the state gov't does make it unique.....that was my point.
You said it was a "model city" and "Most cities in TX would do well to grow as intelligently as Austin has." So intelligent means being a state capitol, having good scenery and lots of young people, nightlife, and quirky characters.
It is the place in TX most like San Francisco. Climate is better, probably. Higher percentage of college age girls compared to gays - that makes it better too.
Nope. This is what I was talking about:
Economy
"Thousands of graduates each year from the engineering and computer science programs at The University of Texas at Austin provide a steady source of young, talented, and driven employees that help to fuel Austin's technology and defense industry sectors. The metro Austin area has much lower housing costs than Silicon Valley, but much higher housing costs than many parts of rural Texas. As a result of the relatively high concentration of high-tech companies in the region, Austin was strongly affected by the dot-com boom in the late 1990s and subsequent bust. The general consensus is that high-tech recovery is proceeding rapidly. Austin's biggest employers include the State of Texas, The University of Texas, the SETON Healthcare Network, Dell, IBM and Freescale Semiconductor (spun off from Motorola in 2004). Other high-tech companies in Austin include Apple Inc., Vignette, AMD, Applied Materials, Cirrus Logic, Hoover's, Inc., Intel, Motive Inc, National Instruments, Samsung, Silicon Laboratories, Sun Microsystems, and United Devices. The proliferation of technology companies has led to the region's nickname, "the Silicon Hills," (Austin was originally "Silicon Gulch", but San Jose, California already had that distinction) and has spurred rapid development that has greatly expanded the city to the north, south, east, and west. Not only is Austin home to many high-tech companies, it is also headquarters for Whole Foods and Gatti's Pizza, a pizza buffet chain.
In addition to global companies, Austin features a strong network of independent, locally-owned firms and organizations such as the Austin Independent Business Alliance. The success of these businesses reflects the high level of commitment by the citizens of Austin to preserving the unique spirit of the city, and has been tied to the "Keep Austin Weird" campaign. Small businesses in Austin enjoy a lively existence gained by direct competition with large national and global rivals."
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