"Keep Tucson Shitty" invites inevitable comparisons to Austin, and such comparisons have merit. Not too long ago, the two cities were comparable in size, culture, and potential.
The difference between Austin and Tucson is that Austin has made the right choices over the past 20 or 30 years. They have encouraged local business and maintained just the right balance of growth, change, and preservation of the "weird" Austin Vibe. Good transportation and development choices have allowed the city to double in size while preserving fantastic green space, and easy navigation by car, bike, or even on foot.
Meanwhile Tucson has made all the wrong decisions... big box stores, parking lots, sprawling cookie-cutter suburbs, and fighting transportation improvements at all cost. The proof is in the pudding... Austin has become a vibrant center of innovation, jobs and yes, music, culture, and fantastic local food. My beloved home town of Tucson? Well, I just call it "The Detroit of the South West". Some of the suburbs are nice in a soulless generic sort of way, but central Tucson with it's crumbling roads, rows and rows of vacant businesses, and memories of a once vibrant local culture, reminds me more and more of a 3rd world country.
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The difference between Austin and Tucson is that Austin has made the right choices over the past 20 or 30 years. They have encouraged local business and maintained just the right balance of growth, change, and preservation of the "weird" Austin Vibe. Good transportation and development choices have allowed the city to double in size while preserving fantastic green space, and easy navigation by car, bike, or even on foot.
Meanwhile Tucson has made all the wrong decisions... big box stores, parking lots, sprawling cookie-cutter suburbs, and fighting transportation improvements at all cost. The proof is in the pudding... Austin has become a vibrant center of innovation, jobs and yes, music, culture, and fantastic local food. My beloved home town of Tucson? Well, I just call it "The Detroit of the South West". Some of the suburbs are nice in a soulless generic sort of way, but central Tucson with it's crumbling roads, rows and rows of vacant businesses, and memories of a once vibrant local culture, reminds me more and more of a 3rd world country.