Funny, since I developed Kiowa I’ve learned so much about city design and its relationship with sustainability. Kiowa is hardly sustainable by design.

I developed Kiowa as a suburb of Starr City, Texas. Kiowa originally mimicked Pflugerville in design. This map shows the area directly east of downtown Kiowa – about 7 miles south of downtown Starr City on US 83A. Notice the sprawling design of properties – large gaps in development, neighborhood streets tucked away funneling traffic to main routes. Luecke Road spans the page horizontally; US 83A and Epiphany Pkwy are primary north-south routes. SH 41 is, I sometimes think, an unnecessary freeway. It runs from US 83A to I 10 south, a way for Kiowa residents to get to Kerrville, Boerne, and San Antonio much more quickly. SH 41 is only a freeway for 3.4 miles.

Obviously, Dell, HEB, Point of Grace, etc are traces of my past.

I re-designed the intersection of Luecke, Epiphany, and US 83A four times.

This map shows West Brian, directly west of downtown. The map looks pretty freeway-centric; most urbanites agree. But due to Brian’s remarkable growth from 1940 to 2000, all are necessary for auto traffic traveling to the western fringes of the city. I 10 spans the page horizontally; I 610 is the inner (right) loop; I 465 is the outer (left) loop; US 23 forks form I 10 at Brian Center; AL 55 forks from I 10 just before that, traveling southwest. AL 565 forks from I 465 at Kennesaw Mills, a large shopping area.

The airport (the nation’s fourth busiest behind ATL, LAX, and ORD) is at the bottom; Southern Alabama University is left of center. Brian Center (NBA) and Brian Stadium (NFL) are old, old stadiums that are currently being remodeled.

The Becker Hills area has been completely re-developed since this map was drawn. Due to urban sprawl, shoppers were kept away from downtown – and most of the stores at Estrella Junction, the shopping center in the lower left, closed. The city re-evaluated its zoning ordinances for Becker Hills, and decided to zone 70 percent of the area for mixed-use, higher-density development. Due to its proximity to downtown (1.5 miles west on US 290 > Main Avenue), Becker Hills burst back to life.

The intersection at Collier Avenue and US 290 was converted to a SPUI intersection to handle higher traffic volume. Estrella Junction was completely razed, re-appearing with traditional city blocks and mixed use buildings. A commuter rail line – Starr City’s first – ran from the southwest corner of this map, under US 290 at Collier Creek, and following Becker Hills Drive under I 810 and beyond; Becker Hills Drive was expanded under US 290 to Collier Avenue.

The intersection at Collier Avenue and University Blvd was also completely re-developed. Target razed its store and used salvageable material to erect an “urban store” with housing on top. A field of trailer eateries spawned on the shore of Collier Creek, and Starr City Cultural Center built a new building at a nearby park. 40 percent of the property in Becker Hills was re-built from the ground up. It is now one of Starr City’s premier urban neighborhoods.

Includes the southeast corner of downtown Starr City – an area beginning to re-develop with urban flavor after years of lost business after it moved to Kiowa, its southern suburb.

Directly west of Progress Central. That’s the Yellowstone River flowing through the page, with Elephant Ridge just north of the river.

This map shows the area directly north of Cambridge Central. The city expanded northward first along Lake McClellan – just north of the canal built in 1921. Beautiful homes from the 1920s line the streets surrounding Cambridge University, a private college established shortly after the State of Florida opened Southeastern University a mile south.

Sun City and Maricopa were both farming towns, and were later transformed into master-planned golfing communities. Each retained a small central business district – both of which have developed since Cambridge’s growth in the 1970s. Ten-story buildings now line the streets of the two “suburbs,” helping preserve the towns’ flavor as distinct from Cambridge.

FL 7 (left) and I-95 (right) parellel the Schatte River. Each are major commuter arteries: 10-lane freeways with HOV lanes in the middle. I-210 spans the map horizontally – the northern section of the loop, which lies directly on the Cambridge-Nassau county line.

There are too many shopping malls here.

Okay. Creative idea time. I placed Brian in the real-life location of Mobile, Alabama. In my version, however, the Appalachian Mountains extend south of Birmingham and Montgomery to the convergence of Alabama and Mississippi at the Gulf of Mexico, where the mountains – tall bluffs at this point – dive into the ocean.

Appalachian’s End is a small coastal community – now a suburb of Wake Island – developed in 1910 as a small fishing and vacationing village. Gulf shrimp were abundant in the miles offshore, and the area offered mountain hiking and beach sports simultaneously.

Now the home of timeshares, condos, and RV parks, App’s End (as locals call it) resembles any other Gulf town (Port Aransas, Galveston, Biloxi) – except it’s shadowed by a mountain.

I-61 enters App’s End from the north, climbs the mountain pass, and descends into Mississippi on its west side. The coastline is noted for its stark difference on each side of the state line: Mississippi is flat until it reaches Alabama, where the terrain lifts almost immediately. App’s End is 50min-1hr southwest of downtown Brian.

This map shows the area directly west of downtown Starr City. Main Avenue (old US 290) traverses the map, which is centered around the confluence of I-210 (Starr City’s loop) and SH 2 (which runs south to Kiowa).

There’s nothing particularly special about this area. There’s some industry, some shopping at Main Avenue and I-210 – but it’s mostly 1960s and 1970s housing in between commercial streets. I would only live here because it’s a 10-minute bike ride from downtown…

This map shows the area directly south of Cambridge Central. Shire Island lies just right of center – lying in between the McKeehan and Schkade Rivers (apparently I couldn’t decide between Orange or Schkade). Lots of folks are boating here – there are a handful of marinas along the shores.

Cambria, Cambridge’s southern suburb, lies near the bottom. It’s a charming Floridian town, with a main street lined with shops and eateries. In recent years, Cambria has sprouted a number of office buildings – offering cheaper taxes than Cambridge.

I-95 crosses the McKeehan River off Shire Island to join its child, I-495, south of I-210. I-210 spans the map horizontally.

Orange fields are abundant to Cambria’s east, on the way to Cherokee Run and Palm Cove. Tropicana owns most of them.

The homes in this region were built between 1930 and 1985.

This map shows the area directly south of Brian Central. In the center is Crystal Bay; the blue at the bottom is the Gulf of Mexico. Tall bluffs surround the water bodies – indicated by the street grid.

Featured here are Brian Park (a play off Houston’s Hermann Park), Brian International Airport’s hotel complex, a Dell plant, and a host of attractions (Schlitterbahn, a festival pier, two huge shopping malls, a UGA golf course, etc.) indicative of a thriving population.

Emerald City and Marietta are two coastal suburbs, each about 15-20 minutes south of downtown Brian. Emerald City resembles New Orleans; both towns were French settlements from the late 1700s.

I-65 connects Emerald City to Brian. US 90 traverses the bottom half of the map horizontally, hence its name “Coastal Freeway.” I-465 – the “Outer Loop” – follows Crystal Bay’s north shore. There are some weird freeways hanging around Brian Park – the result of poor urban planning by freeway-centric city leaders in the post-Eisenhower decade.