> But there was only one moment that really ruptured my suspension of disbelief while reading this whole gonzo book: a scene in which a character from “the autonomous city of Austin” remembers pushing his way onto that city’s subway. Obviously, one can accept that Austin would become a separatist people’s republic within a fractured Texas. But the idea of the “Austin Metro” operating there, even fifty years from now?
Context for non-Texans: Capital Metro is the name of Austin's public transit system, and the current plans for our passenger rail network include at least one large underground station ([0], [1]), so I think this comment is tongue-in-cheek. It's a relatively small component of a relatively small system compared to the iconic subways in other cities, but from a local perspective, a lot of people are having a bit of a "whoah I can't believe this is happening here" reaction, and I think that's what she is referencing.
There's also the fact that there's only about six inches of dirt here, dig any deeper than that and you hit solid limestone. That's why none of the houses here have basements.
there is no one reason why we dont have basements, but it is more likely to do with the fact that up north they have to dig deep (3-4 ft) for the frost line. If you are digging that deep anyway, you might as well go an additional 4-5 ft and build a basement.
Excavating limestone isnt that hard. Instead of one day to dig a basement in soil, it would take about 14 days to dig a typical basement in limestone (based on digging pools in limestone). It costs about 1500/day for the crew/equipment so an extra 21K for the excavation.
East austin has no limestone and basements are still rare.
That may be true in some areas of Austin, but in most cases, it's about cost and expectations. Austin straddles the border between dry, rocky west Texas and wetter, black soil east Texas, but houses have traditionally been built without basements no matter what kind of soil they were built on, in Austin and in other parts of Texas. These days, a lot of newer, more expensive houses are built with basements to maximize usable square footage.
> But the idea of the “Austin Metro” operating there, even fifty years from now?
Might be worth sharing that in 2020 Austin voters approved via ballot referendum (58% to 42%) what's likely to be the largest expansion of public transit this decade. It authorized $7.1 billion in initial bond funds and established a dedicated sales tax to establish ongoing funding for 4 light rail lines, 1 subway, a dedicated BRT system, and a complete transformation of their public transit system.
Even the state government of Texas gave its permission to tunnel under a portion of what is state-owned land for the subway for a 99-year annual lease of $1, which some Austin advocates originally feared would be leverage that the state legislature would try to use to hold up the project.
My theory about what turned the tide in favor of local support for transit is that business organizations were loud and clear about broadcasting the message, "We need this for Austin to be competitive." More than 42% of voters here have a distaste for density, public transit, and urban living in general, but a significant number of them were swayed to vote for the plan, and I think it was because of this pro-business message. These are folks who dislike cities but live in the suburbs and make their living from the urban economy, and they were willing to set aside their distaste and vote for transit. Like I said, it's just my personal theory, but I was impressed with how vocal the business community was before the vote.
Apocalypse stories don’t often make sense. The energy and fuel situations are usually bonkers. The hordes of people who turn into lunatics is silly. Cooperation is natural and good.
My favorite post apocalyptic cult is the one featured in A Quiet Place 2. This world features aliens that will kill anyone who makes a sound. The protagonists are captured by this cult of like 30 people with little intro to who the hell they are. They do this strongman creepy virtue signaling for a while and then tie up Jim’s replacement with some noisy chains on a dock. Surprise surprise, Not Jim makes a noise (not with the chains for some reason), and sure enough the entire cult is immediately wiped out.
…
How did these people canonically survive for so long doing these dumbass shenanigans?
Recently, after seeing people from Dallas haul their trailers to my small Texas town's grocery store so as to pillage our remaining toilet paper stock, my faith in the rational ability of my fellow Man has been somewhat reduced.
My take is that local cooperation is natural and good. But, the roving bands of marauders will absolutely be a thing in an apocalypse scenario.
We had TP when no one in our state had it locally, because people didn't lose their minds. Then people found out and drove here. The day I saw a literal armed guard for a pallet of toilet paper was the day I realized that in a true SHTF scenario, there is nothing you can do. If you live within 4 or 5 hours of a road, you will be inundated with refugees/robbers/marauders. It will happen, I am convinced.
As dark as this is, I believe the best thing you can do is plan a safe and painless exit for you and yours when things get really bad.
The first time people got into literal fist fights in supermarkets over toilet paper, my faith in the rational ability of most humans was shaken. The third time around, it was gone. By now my expectations of humans are, sadly, extremely limited.
AtR isn't so much a post-apocalypse in the usual total-collapse-of-civilization sense. It's post collapse of the US government really so technology, trade, and some infrastructure still exist. There's still a relatively strong remnant of the US around but they only hold sway in the north east and [0] some across Ohio extending as far as Missouri.
As for cooperation there's a lot of that going on throughout Texas but there's also groups with very different ideas about what a good nation would look like and some are willing to use force to bring their ideas into being. That ultimately feels quite realistic to me. Pockets of cooperation that have to defend themselves from uncooperative elements.
Nothing like half built buildings, a dry lake, army bases and desert all around, and mindless zombies roaming downtown to make for an apocalyptic setting.
Birmingham is surprisingly versatile as a filming location. The dystopian scenes in “Ready Player One” were shot there, but it can also double for up-market London housing as seen in the “Kingsman” movies.
Birmingham, city of the future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoHVO1eSMFc "Telly Savalas Looks At Birmingham", 5m, 1981. Note the use of shots of complicated motorway junctions to indicate modernity.
The fun bit about that is that most of the "state of the art" modern stuff like the railway station and shopping centres has been demolished and replaced since
Not sure Birmingham looks that post-apocalyptic despite its reputation, although the starchitecture of the Bull Ring centre that replaced the Bull Ring centre in the video has a definite aliens-have-invaded vibe to it... e.g https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article1992671...
Richness of history. As other comments say, it's a versatile slice of
an ex-industrial heartland. Some bits are Tudor (Shakespeare lived up
the road in Stratford), Then it was a powerhouse right through the
industrial revolution, well connected by canals and rail (technically
Birmingham would make a great New Green Capital when the sea reclaims
London). Then Hitler dropped several Hiroshima's worth of bombs on
Britain in a WW2 campaign we called "The Blitz". A lot of that fell on
Coventry and Birmingham causing millions of pounds of improvements :)
So it became a testing ground for new and innovative architecture,
some of which was the Brutalist concrete of the late 50s and 60s. That
looked great and "modern" at the time, and now looks a perfect
"dystopian" setting. Last time I visited that was being bulldozed, but
preservation orders actually protect some of the "ugliest" skyline,
because that's part of our culture now. So, if you're looking to make
a dark post-industrial apocalypse move, come check out Birmingham.
Birmingham Alabama is probably a better choice. Lots of burnt out structures that never got cleaned up, and the people apparently can't afford trash service there so they just leave it on the sidewalk until it eventually piles up over your head. Hotels are filthy too. Garbage and used needles inside the elevators -- and this was a nice hotel.
Slightly disappointed in this being fiction. There are a few different religions that focus on end times that have decided that Texas actually will be a safe haven for biblical apocalypse. Based on the post's title alone, I was hoping this might be a deep dive into these groups or something similar.
Being self-satisfied when telling others to leave you alone (get bent, get out, piss off, etc.) is quintessentially American. Texas is to America as America is to the world. It is a difference of magnitude, not direction, and Texas has this particular topic to conveniently funnel all that extra "screw you" energy into.
Don't tread on me/independence are broad American values.
"Screw Federal overreach" is a common American sentiment in many US states.
Texas Monthly echoed appreciation for a broadly acknowledged Texas-as-nation-state fantasy. This is different in direction than any other US state and feels troubling.
The same author also put out a really interesting longform podcast piece called "It Could Happen Here", detailing the in-process crumbling of America. It goes into some recent historical examples of countries dissolving/devolving, and outlines (shockingly plausible) ways similar events could occur in the US.
Readit News
Context for non-Texans: Capital Metro is the name of Austin's public transit system, and the current plans for our passenger rail network include at least one large underground station ([0], [1]), so I think this comment is tongue-in-cheek. It's a relatively small component of a relatively small system compared to the iconic subways in other cities, but from a local perspective, a lot of people are having a bit of a "whoah I can't believe this is happening here" reaction, and I think that's what she is referencing.
[0] https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/transporta... [1] https://www.fox7austin.com/news/capital-metro-subway-tunnel-...
It also has an advantage over soil that the remaining bits don’t need much extra support for the load above. This doc talks about it: https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/11/21/why-texas-doesn...
Excavating limestone isnt that hard. Instead of one day to dig a basement in soil, it would take about 14 days to dig a typical basement in limestone (based on digging pools in limestone). It costs about 1500/day for the crew/equipment so an extra 21K for the excavation.
East austin has no limestone and basements are still rare.
Deleted Comment
Might be worth sharing that in 2020 Austin voters approved via ballot referendum (58% to 42%) what's likely to be the largest expansion of public transit this decade. It authorized $7.1 billion in initial bond funds and established a dedicated sales tax to establish ongoing funding for 4 light rail lines, 1 subway, a dedicated BRT system, and a complete transformation of their public transit system.
https://projectconnect.com/
The initial phase itself is already deep into the design and bid stage, groundbreaking should happen in the next couple years.
https://projectconnect.com/docs/librariesprovider2/maps/pcon...
Even the state government of Texas gave its permission to tunnel under a portion of what is state-owned land for the subway for a 99-year annual lease of $1, which some Austin advocates originally feared would be leverage that the state legislature would try to use to hold up the project.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Metro
My favorite post apocalyptic cult is the one featured in A Quiet Place 2. This world features aliens that will kill anyone who makes a sound. The protagonists are captured by this cult of like 30 people with little intro to who the hell they are. They do this strongman creepy virtue signaling for a while and then tie up Jim’s replacement with some noisy chains on a dock. Surprise surprise, Not Jim makes a noise (not with the chains for some reason), and sure enough the entire cult is immediately wiped out.
…
How did these people canonically survive for so long doing these dumbass shenanigans?
Recently, after seeing people from Dallas haul their trailers to my small Texas town's grocery store so as to pillage our remaining toilet paper stock, my faith in the rational ability of my fellow Man has been somewhat reduced.
We had TP when no one in our state had it locally, because people didn't lose their minds. Then people found out and drove here. The day I saw a literal armed guard for a pallet of toilet paper was the day I realized that in a true SHTF scenario, there is nothing you can do. If you live within 4 or 5 hours of a road, you will be inundated with refugees/robbers/marauders. It will happen, I am convinced.
As dark as this is, I believe the best thing you can do is plan a safe and painless exit for you and yours when things get really bad.
That said, would it have been "Texan" to have turned them back at the city limits?
The hordes of lunatics already exist, and are just waiting for something to happen.
As for cooperation there's a lot of that going on throughout Texas but there's also groups with very different ideas about what a good nation would look like and some are willing to use force to bring their ideas into being. That ultimately feels quite realistic to me. Pockets of cooperation that have to defend themselves from uncooperative elements.
[0] partially fan made map with some comments by the author clearing up things that were only mentioned briefly in the book: https://www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/oevzgd/a...
in rwanda hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in ethnic violence https://www.un.org/africarenewal/web-features/i-was-tested-l...
in aleppo, blocks banded together, but there was starvation, robbery, murder, rape etc
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/21/three-years-af...
hurricane katrina superdome - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/06/hurricanekatri...
venezuela https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/17/world/america...
I agree, but perhaps hard fought. "The Survivors", the 1975 TV series from the U.K. tried to do apocalypse more cleverly.
Scanned the Wikipedia page for it and nothing popped out as notably clever:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivors_(1975_TV_series)
Jeff Megall: It's the final frontier, Nick.
Nick Naylor: But wouldn't they blow up in an all oxygen environment?
Jeff Megall: Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.'
People do cooperate.. just not in the ways you might want.
Nothing like half built buildings, a dry lake, army bases and desert all around, and mindless zombies roaming downtown to make for an apocalyptic setting.
And then i realized this was a work of fiction
1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_Junction,_Birmingham
Not sure Birmingham looks that post-apocalyptic despite its reputation, although the starchitecture of the Bull Ring centre that replaced the Bull Ring centre in the video has a definite aliens-have-invaded vibe to it... e.g https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article1992671...
This happens for many reasons: abandoned industrial areas, location that came out of fashion, people moving to cheaper places, etc.
The running joke was that because the "North East" was a fairly rough/work traditional working-class area, they didn't have to do much "set dressing".
Texas seems most self-satisfied when waxing secessionist.
Don't tread on me/independence are broad American values. "Screw Federal overreach" is a common American sentiment in many US states.
Texas Monthly echoed appreciation for a broadly acknowledged Texas-as-nation-state fantasy. This is different in direction than any other US state and feels troubling.
https://atrbook.com/download/
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-after-the-revolution-829...
https://www.stitcher.com/show/it-could-happen-here <- click the "Season 1" dropdown to filter down to just the longform stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Texas-Israeli_War:_1999
EDIT: This is what I get for commenting before reading the article. Of course, they call out the above book. Of course...
Seriously, as a not-so-serious video game it could be a ton of fun!