Seems like a *rat in a cage* scenario.
Since most of the people who work downtown sit in a cubicle all day, the solution might be for them to work from home, limiting the amount of cars that commute each day.
It seems simple enough to me: if one wants the conveniences of living in a city (24-hour grocery, dry cleaning, access to entertainment), one must be prepared to accept the limitations of city life (high-rise housing, noise level, occasional contact with undesirables). If one wants the benefits of country living (detached housing, quiet, solitide), one should be prepared to live with the limitations of country life (no shopping, services, or entertainment destinations).
In the case of Austin, it’s too late. People move there because they “love Austin”, but they refuse to live with the limitations and inconveniences that are part of Austin life. They want the charm, quirkiness, and natural beauty of Austin without giving up the fast-food lifestyle of Dallas or Houston. The result: suburbanization. The entire county north of 183 is being strip-mined, bulldozed, and plowed under already in order to build locust-hive suburbs. In the process of “loving Austin”, its residents are destroying everything that made it special; ten years from now, the Austin area will be just another version of Dallas/Fort Worth, with strip malls and subdivisions stretching from the city limits to Pflugerville and beyond. Twenty years from now it’ll be a decaying core surrounded by a ring of shabby suburban slums. Meanwhile, the nouveaux riche locust plague will be strip-mining and plowing under Lampasas. Forget the creeks, the wildflowers, the red-tailed hawks, the little farms and ranches — make way for an endless desert of Tyvek dwelling-boxes, six-car garages, and a SuperMegaHyper-Mart on every corner.
Unless, of course, gas goes up to $10 a gallon, or becomes rationed, or becomes “for national defense and emergency use only”.
Which it will, sooner or later.