Why Not El Reno/Mustang/Yukon ?

[stick47]

We're certainly one of the fastest growing areas in the Metro. A move up
the board beneath Edmond's sub-forum would make sense.

[ljbab728]

We're certainly one of the fastest growing areas in the Metro. A move up
the board beneath Edmond's sub-forum would make sense.

LOL, I don't think the listings are based on population or growth. Norman beats Edmond in that and are listed much lower. The OKC metro areas are listed alphabetically.

[stick47]

El Reno comes after Edmond via the alphabet.

[stick47]

On a similar note, if you lived in Mustang all the years I did and if you had Monday trash service (not sure if you did) and the Monday pickup was on a holiday why was your pickup always rescheduled to Wednesday? Shouldn't Tuesdays have been moved to Wed and Monday pickup been shuffled to Tuesday? Got to be a big enough concern that I rented a 2nd can for $7.50/mo and even had neighbors ask if they could put their overflow in if room was available.

[stile99]

No need to inconvenience even more people. One could just as easily ask why should Tuesdays be moved if the holiday wasn't on a Tuesday.

[ljbab728]

On a similar note, if you lived in Mustang all the years I did and if you had Monday trash service (not sure if you did) and the Monday pickup was on a holiday why was your pickup always rescheduled to Wednesday? Shouldn't Tuesdays have been moved to Wed and Monday pickup been shuffled to Tuesday? Got to be a big enough concern that I rented a 2nd can for $7.50/mo and even had neighbors ask if they could put their overflow in if room was available.

I lived in Mustang for about 30 years and never gave a thought to that. I guess it just wasn't a problem for me.

[ljbab728]

El Reno comes after Edmond via the alphabet.

Yes, it does. And that would be significant if El Reno had a separate thread. The combined thread for Yukon, Mustang, and El Reno has the names listed by population, hence being below Edmond.

[ChrisHayes]

I looked up El Reno's population, and was pleasantly surprised to see it's gone up by 2,000 people between 2010 and 2015. While El Reno does have it's issues, I'm surprised more people don't move there. It's far enough away from OKC to still have that small town feel, but not so far away for people who don't mind a commute and conveniences. I'd like to see El Reno undergo explosive growth like many towns around Dallas have experienced.

[Ross MacLochness]

I looked up El Reno's population, and was pleasantly surprised to see it's gone up by 2,000 people between 2010 and 2015. While El Reno does have it's issues, I'm surprised more people don't move there. It's far enough away from OKC to still have that small town feel, but not so far away for people who don't mind a commute and conveniences. I'd like to see El Reno undergo explosive growth like many towns around Dallas have experienced.

As long as it's smart growth unlike many Dallas burbs!

[ChrisHayes]

What's wrong with how many Dallas suburbs have grown?

[Plutonic Panda]

I looked up El Reno's population, and was pleasantly surprised to see it's gone up by 2,000 people between 2010 and 2015. While El Reno does have it's issues, I'm surprised more people don't move there. It's far enough away from OKC to still have that small town feel, but not so far away for people who don't mind a commute and conveniences. I'd like to see El Reno undergo explosive growth like many towns around Dallas have experienced.

i agree. I would also like to se this happen to Guthrie, Shawnee, Jones, Newcastle, and Purcell.

I believe the next big suburbs will be Yukon, Mustang and Moore that will mature out.

The new ones will be Piedmont, Newcastle, Guthrie, Purcell, Jones, Harrah, and El Reno is my prediction.

Future ones that might experience modest growth would be Shawnee, Choctaw, Tuttle, and Blanchard.

The most prominent suburbs Edmond and Norman still have a lot of room to grow. Midwest City, The Village, and Warr Acres might see some reviliazation. I don't see much hope for Spender and Del City and maybe Forest Park might become something unique. Will be interesting to watch them grow and mature.

[Ross MacLochness]

What's wrong with how many Dallas suburbs have grown?

Wide roads, huge highways, parking lots, road construction everywhere. While there are pockets of people oriented development, transportation between these areas and to and from shopping/amenities is auto oriented on a grand scale. To me it's an aesthetic and practical nightmare. It will only get worse as more and more people move in as the area requires constant road improvements and widenings. Auto development is ok to a point but becomes unmanageable as the population multiplies and the cities claim more land.

Last time I was in Frisco to shop, I visited two stores that were about an eighth of a mile apart but on opposite sides of a highway. In order to go from one to the other we had to turn onto a service road, drive a ways, get on the highway going the other way, exit, get on the service road back the other way until we finally reached the parking lot. I could have been a five minute walk but instead it was a ten to fifteen minute drive. It was impossible to walk bc of the highway infrastructure. There has got to be a better way to manage growth.

What if I was too poor to own a car or couldn't drive due to other circumstances? What happens when they run out of space to widen roads, build parking lots, retail, housing, etc?

El Reno/Mustang/Yukon are still small enough that if they were to grow as fast as Dallas burbs we could build in a way that saves space (thereby reducing costs of future infrastructure maintenance and expansion) and promotes multiple modes of transportation.

[Plutonic Panda]

I like that kind of development . Hence why they're called suburbs. They are suburban and not urban. Primed for cars, not walkabity. That is the point of a suburb. To have larger open spaces and open sky and not have everything pushed against the street. If you don't like fine, don't live there. Plenty of walkable options around the core of Dallas and it's only getting more walkable.

Dallas's freeways are not that wide and should be wider as OLC's should. What is impressive is the road network which is comprised of 6 lane roads all around even when traffic counts don't necessarily warrant it but it is a luxury and one I wish would come to the suburbs of OKC.

In Los Angeles, 6 lane roads are very inconsistent which I understand why. Go to Orange County and it's like Dallas on steroids. Great road and highway network.

[Ross MacLochness]

I like that kind of development . Hence why they're called suburbs. They are suburban and not urban. Primed for cars, not walkabity. That is the point of a suburb. To have larger open spaces and open sky and not have everything pushed against the street. If you don't like fine, don't live there. Plenty of walkable options around the core of Dallas and it's only getting more walkable.

Dallas's freeways are not that wide and should be wider as OLC's should. What is impressive is the road network which is comprised of 6 lane roads all around even when traffic counts don't necessarily warrant it but it is a luxury and one I wish would come to the suburbs of OKC.

In Los Angeles, 6 lane roads are very inconsistent which I understand why. Go to Orange County and it's like Dallas on steroids. Great road and highway network.

It's possible to have suburbs that are pleasant for people, are walkable, and still have homes that are not pushed to the street etc. I think there are more intelligent ways to do it than having everything be massively separated by highways, parking lots and wide roads. Think mesta park, heritage hills etc.

It's important too, to think about the long term economic sustainability of an area. Does the cost of maintaining infrastructure of roads, bridges, sewage, water, electricity, police, fire etc. come in under the the amount of revenue a city accrues? In most suburban cases the answer is no. In order for most suburban areas to maintain economic stability, more and more must be built which over time will dig the city a deep financial hole.

[Ross MacLochness]

The crux of what I'm trying to get across is that if these areas do take off in population, we should be careful with what templates are used when expanding these cities and do what we can to promote economic stability. We have a real opportunity to build well in this regard, or continue to throw money and resources down the drain in the name of "progress".

[Plutonic Panda]

Yeah Mesta Park is not the new suburb though. It is an urban neighborhood that is walkable though some improvements could be made. Mesta Park was not designed for cars. The new suburbs are because they are built in a different era.

It's cool to have somewhat walkable neighborhoods like Mesta Park in the core but expecting them to be in Mustang makes no sense. Mustang needs to be built like Frisco which I'm sure is pretty much what is going to happen and with large wide roads and highways. Inner suburbs(which calling them suburbs is a stretch) like Mesta Park neighborhood are fine the way they are developed given their location.

Of course the cost of sustaining the infrastructure won't come under city revenue. I don't even think most European cities or countries cover their costs. Infrastructure is not a for profit deal.

How long is it going to take the street car to pay itself off? By the time it happens how much money will have been poured into maintence and staffing for it? As with any new developments that pop up, you can't sit there and say it was just the streetcar that spurred new developments as I'm there will be parking and people that will use the street which also played a factor in a new development coming online along the streetcar route.

So if a 300 million dollar mixed use development is proposed along the street car route, that won't mean it happened because of the street car. The street car and walkability probably played a factor, but you can't attribute the cost of the building towards the streetcar costs entirely.

There has been 3x times as much development(5 billion dollars worth) along a 5 or so mile stretch of the North Dallas Tollway that is currently under construction. That doesn't include the things that were already built within the last 5 years or so. That's probably almost if not more money worth of projects in that little area of wide highways and roads than the entire city of OKC is seeing.

Investment like that pays off. Maintenance in the future will be required. With new advances in technology freeway construction will only get cheaper as will rail construction and it will last longer with less maintence.

But my argument here isn't against walkability and I think this movement and push towards rail and walkability is waaaaaay overblown on city development forums because hardly anyone I talk to is even aware of it. I think the future will be more of a balance than it now, but suburbs like OC, Bay Area, and North Dallas aren't going anywhere and their roads and freeways aren't either and they are beginning to make their way into OKC as are new urbanism and better walkable city cores.