The reasons behind restarting the process make sense: Austin is seeing some of the largest growth of any city in the United States. The population of Austin has changed significantly over the past 20 years. 656,562 people lived in the city in the year 2000. That number is expected to cross the 1 million mark in 2020.

In order to accommodate for this growth, the city has zoned for multifamily to be developed in specific parts of the city, mostly along transit corridors. In theory, this is effective because this means that individuals have near-direct access to buses and can rely less on cars to carry out their day: go to work, shop for groceries, attend events and go out in the evenings, etc.

In practice, it does not work that way.

The problem with this form of urbanism is this: