THE State of Texas Thread (merged)

Ludi

THere is an old depot about two miles from my house; a railroad used to run through all the small towns out here. You can still see the old track bed, but the rights of way have all been sold.
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Ludi

alecifel

Ludi

BigTex

There are various reasons you might not want to live south of Dallas not relevant to your OP, but south of Dallas there is some very affordable property and pretty good schools too. There is a park and ride bus about 15 miles south of Dallas that will take you downtown. If you drove 30 minutes farther from the park and ride, you could be WAY out in the country if that's what you wanted.

Sprawl is not headed that direction, either, so that's a plus, I suppose.
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Smile

TommyJefferson

Thanks guys!

I think the trick with this plan is going to be political research and monitoring combined with land scouting.

I have rough criteria for the land I want:

- 10~20 acres
- Some type of habitable structure already on it
- WATER, I'd prefer a river but a large stock pond or a well that can run off PV would suffice
- less than 20 minutes to a Park-N-Ride

So the trick is to anticipate politically where new rail or bus stations will be built and buy land there before the station goes in which will cause land prices to go up.

I know west of Austin is rocky, hilly, and expensive. I know nothing about Leander. I think the political odds of public transport extending east out to Taylor/Elgin/Bastrop are low.

I do like the land better east of Austin. I really like the strip off 95 between Elgin and Bastrop. Proper trees! Smile

I know nothing about south of Dallas. Per suggestion I will examine the proposed Park-n-Ride plans for Dallas and do some motorcycle scouting around there.
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BigTex

Shannymara

West of Houston has some potential. We looked at Richmond area and around there. There's a park & ride type bus thing at I-10 near Hwy 6.

There is a large group of peak oil preppers in the Red Rock area, south of Bastrop.
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azreal60

This is something I'm considering putting in a different thread because it's in a different state, but this is a dilema I'm sort of facing in Wisconsin.

Madison Wisconsin has Ok bus service, but no light rail or subway's at all. I'd like to be able to work downtown but still live outside of the city. There are talks of a commuter rail going in, and it would be child's play to connect it to the rail system that is still in place going out west. If that happens, buying some land near enough to walk to one of the train stations that are still there would be ideal.

It plays out in my head, but the people protesting this are the same one's who killed the street car idea. They are worried rightly that it will raise their taxes.

I just hope projects like this happen before we start having real problems with our infrastructure building. Madison plays to be a center of Bio research and technology. I think I might like to become the director of security at one of these places, as that's where most of my job experience so far has gone.

Of course, no matter what I choose for a job, 10 to 1 it's going to be somewhere in the city.
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Azreal60

shakespear1 · Light Sweet Crude Joined: May 13, 2005 Posts: 1573

Well this seems to be the perfect place to put this comment in.

I just returned from a visit to Houston. I do a trip usually once a year and this time around I was shocked.

Houston has changed drastically in my eyes. The freeways, highways, strip malls, stores have accelerated in growth since my last trip. Driving on Westheimer from the Galleria to Highway 6, it seemed that I was passing one long stretching strip mall. Congestion on Westheimer much much greater than on my last trip and this was 2 in the afternoon.

Western subs are amazing. Driving toward Pecan Grove and Sugarland was amazing. The house sizes were beyound belief. Guess no one there is aware of any energy problems Sad

What the heck has happened here? Did half of New Orleans move to Houston?
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