(Community Matters) Joined Terry Mitchell and David Mahn at their table along with Will Meredith on behalf of the entire Meredith family for today’s Envision Central Texas Community Stewardship Awards. Our Chestnut Commons development here was one of two finalist for the redevelopment award. The other finalist was Catellus & the City of Austin for the Robert Mueller Airport Redevelopment. Not surprisingly, the Robert Mueller Development project won – nice company to make it to the finalists with!
Greg Weaver accepting the Redevelopment Award
Taylor Andrews accepting the New Development Award for the 360 Condominiums, Andrews Urban & Novare Group
Rep. Mike Krusee accepting the Pioneer Award
Super community leader, Pete Winsted received the W. Neal Kocurek Legacy Award
Keynote speaker: John Fregonese
John gave the keynote, a presentation mostly on trends. Some interesting tidbits I recall: Austin’s average age is 34yo vs a national average of 38. The US population is growing faster than at any other time in history. There will be 100 million new Americans by 2040, 70 million more in 10 cities – Austin is one of these. In Portland, bicylcing rivals mass transit as a utlized source of transit. It costs little to nothing. [I’m reminded what Mayor Krom said yesterday: critics complain about the per capita user costs of mass transit but ignore the equal or higher costs of roads and auto transit]. People in Portland spend 15% of their income on transit (2nd lowest after NYC). People in Houston spend 23%. “A vision without action is a hallucination.”
Congratulations to all the award winners.
btw, PeopleFund was a finalist for the Pioneer Award for pioneering its land trust, PeopleTrust.
Community Matters 