The Biggest Parking Lot

Its 5:30. I’m trapped on I-35, known at the “worlds’ largest parking lot”. I have been stuck in traffic for over 30 minutes and I have to be downtown in less than 10 minutes with 3 miles left until I can exit…FML!

Traffic is part of our lives for those that live in Austin. Heavy traffic stimulates anger and frustration from many impatient drivers with a busy schedule. Traffic congestion is very heavy during the time of rush hour, from 6- 9am and 4-7pm on weekdays, as people are driving to and from work. Even though traffic in Austin is not as bad as other major populated cities like New York City, sitting in traffic is still very annoying.

In modern society, time is money. People are constantly running around: getting to work, getting home, going to school, picking someone up, having a meeting somewhere, going to the movies, etc. Therefore, speeding has significantly increased because people are always in a rush to get to where they need to be.

Interstate 35 is the most annoying place to be when there is traffic. There is no room to breathe. Joe Taylor a traffic reporter for News 8 Austin describes that I-35 is "designed for a small town, and [Austin] has grown into a very large city." Since 2000, Austin's population growth has increased 15.4 percent in 2008.

As the city of Austin continues to grow, the roadways become smaller and tighter during rush hour as more people are driving on the road. According to Katherine Gregor, a journalist for The Chronicles, "the metric used to document congestion is a road's volume-to-capacity ratio, which compares the existing volume of traffic (flow rate) to a street's real capacity." A capacity of .8 or lower means that there is less traffic. However, downtown I-35 is said to have a capacity of over 1.0! I-35 is not the only roadway in Austin with high traffic congestion: Loop 360, Mopac, and Lamar.

Austin's traffic continues to get worse because of the lack of an alternative form of transportation. Capital Metro is one form of an alternative form of transportation that helps to ease traffic in the city; however, this form of transportation is not very popular to the public. In addition, businesses and shops in Austin are often very far apart and it is only convenient to drive, rather then riding a bike or walk.

So what is The Austin Department of Transportation doing in response to driver's frustration to the increase traffic?

The Austin Department of Transportation is constantly readjusting the route of city buses to make it more convenient to the public. The city has also built a Capital MetroRail that runs from downtown Austin to the norther part of Austin. According to Robert Spillar, director of The Austin Department of Transportation, they are trying to build "new sidewalk and bicycle improvements and advocating that people simply drive less, both regionally and in town."

How does traffic affect Austinites?

Some of the obvious reasons are that traffic causes people to be late to their activities and makes people anger. However, traffic also plays a role in car accident. Many people become reckless drivers when they are angry and frustrated in traffic: changing to the faster lane or using the shoulder to cut through traffic. Traffic accidents are heard almost everyday on the radio (KLBJ) and Joe Taylor also updates his Facebook about the incidents. In addition, businesses are also affected by the traffic. High traffic in an area can cause businesses to lose valuable customers because people tend to avoid the cluster of cars.

From the Corner to the Corner Office: Jay-Z's NYC

Jay-Z and Alicia's Key's song "Empire State of Mind" has become the new national anthem of New York City, displacing Sinatra's "New York, New York." As Jay-Z declares from the start, he is "the new Sinatra," paraphrasing his predecessor: "since I made it here, I can make it anywhere." Indeed, the song and video retell that classic myth of the American dream of the immigrant arriving in the city and, through hard work and determination, achieving financial success. In this version, though, Shawn Carter is the protagonist, as the rapper tells his own autobiographical, rags to riches story, growing up in the Marcy Projects to become CEO of Def-Jam Records.

At the beginning of the video, he raps about his origins in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn--"Yeah I'm out that Brooklyn...I'm out that BedStuy"--even referencing his former address of the Marcy Projects at "560 State Street." He makes several dutiful "keeping it real" claims to still be grounded and connected to that neighborhorhood: "I'll be hood forever" and"I brought my boys with me." But it is clear that Jay-Z is on the rise as his opening "Yeah I'm out of BedStuy" is quickly followed by "Now I'm down in Tribeca / Right next toDeniro." Much of the song consists of Jay-Z's boasting about the many new and exclusive places that his money and power can take him. Sitting courtside in Madison Square garden, he is close enough to trip a referee. "Empire State of Mind" is much more a celebration of these monumental sites and privileged points of view, than the democratic public spaces of New York City. [267]

Visually, Jay-Z's American dream narrative is told through his movement from the street corner to the corner office. Inthe earlier shots in the video, Jay is shot in street clothes singing on street corners throughout the city. From 2:35 to 3:20, though, when he raps the third and final verse of the song, we see him in the corner office looking out a large window over the city, the Empire State Building in the background. A second visual clue to Jay-Z success is the repeated aerial views of the city that also contrast the earlier corner perspectives. This is a powerful, totalizing view, one that can gather in the entire city in a single glance, or gas up the (private) jet and escape for a weekend.

As Michel de Certeau wrote of this top-down concept of the city from atop the World Trade Center, the corner-office perspective that Jay-Z cultivates in the video "makes the complexity of the city readable, and immobilizes its opaque mobility in a transparent text." For both De Certeau and Jay-Z, it is perspective that expresses, above all, power. It is literally, the viewpoint of corporate America, which hip hop moguls like Jay-Z have never been shy about celebrating (and perhaps rightly so). Just being there to take it in requires a certain level of access. But it also demonstrates a mastery of the city, a knowledge that one has successfully navigated the mysteries and dangers of the underworld. What such a view point denies is the validity of the million individual struggles of the democratic grid below, though Jay gives New York immigrants a brief nod in his second verse.

Alicia Key's repeated mythic chorus connects Jay-Z's story to the broader one of the American dream:

"Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,

There's nothing you can't do,

Now you're in New York!

These streets will make you feel brand new,

The lights will inspire you,

Let's hear it for New York, New york, New York."

In his second and third verses, though, Jay-Z qualifies this universal fantasy of urban opportunity. While he clearly things of his own experience in relation to the broader "melting pot" of the city, he first warns immigrants there are "8 million stories out their and they're naked / city it's a pity half of y'all won't make it." Then, he devotes the entirety to lurid stories of fallen women in the city. The bright lights that inspire in Key's chorus, for these women, are "blinding": "the city of sin is a pity on a whim / good girls gone bad, the city's filled with them." Like Crane in Maggie, Girls of the Streets, Jay-Z warns of the dangers of the city for a women who does not carefully navigate it's dangers.

(On the Blueprint 3 Tour, Jay-Z performed before a recreated New York City skyline on stage:)