Texans Discovering Downtown Living

Seems even Texans in conservative areas, according to USA Today, along with their counterparts in neighboring Arizona, are liking downtowns with light rail lines, as opposed to fading southwestern sprawl.

Why?

"As people pour in," says USA Today, "the state is starting to rein in its historical outward spread and venturing into un-Texan territory: high-density development, downtown living, mass transit and neighborhoods built not just for cars, but for walkers and all things urban."

Yet here in Wisconsin, Milwaukee can't get rail past its narrow-minded County Executive and his mouthpieces on certain AM radio stations, while state and local governments continue to throw billions into more freeways.

Who'd have thought that Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix would set the progressive bar so high, while one-note, concrete-happy southeastern Wisconsin falls even farther behind?