Omaha and walkability

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Erik
Parks & Recreation
Posts: 1330
Joined: Wed Sep 08, 2004 12:55 am

Omaha and walkability

Post by Erik »

So a discussion I just had with someone from Austin got me thinking about our current progress as well as our future in regards to downtown livibility and walkability.

He said that Omaha is much more convenient and walkable than Austin. He was very impressed with the city. I was very surprised by that, especially given how people talk down everything that is going on here.

He won't even get to see the Capitol district, playland park in cb, the yard and other items being built around here. It seems as if something that is already impressive is going to become much greater.

Thoughts?
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iamjacobm
City Council
Posts: 10377
Joined: Sat Apr 10, 2010 6:52 am
Location: Chicago

Re: Omaha and walkability

Post by iamjacobm »

Interesting. I wonder if having a smaller DT makes it more walkable, or appear that way. Omaha doesn't have a massive core, but it is fairly compact.

I think Austin a lot of times gets put on this idea pedestal for new urbanism. They are getting a ton of high end residential towers, but their city fabric is still very much car dependent.

I know it is kind of cliche, but really Omaha and Austin have a lot of similarities in terms of infrastructure and growth patterns(obviously on different scales). Omaha actually has better freeways and more/better urban nodes outside of DT IMO.

Austin is kind of in an awkward phase, they are going so damn fast that I am not sure every facet of the market and especially their infrastructure has kept up with it.
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