Austin vs Buenos Aires

To start this blog I would like to introduce myself very briefly. I am Lorenzo from Buenos Aires, Argentina, I am 19 years old. I am studying Economics in the University of Buenos Aires and I recently won a 6 weeks scholarship in USA to study at the University of Texas at Austin with a group of 25 scholars from all over Argentina. The idea of this blog is to reflect my observations in Austin during the program Friends of Fulbright. Posts will be posted here on a weekly basis.

As soon as I arrived to USA I started noticing the differences between Buenos Aires and Austin, including the tiny details which became the most noticeable.

To start with the fauna, I rarely saw any pigeon in the streets. As the movies have shown, squirrels were dominating the streets. Also I observed some crows and blue jays in the treetops.

Pigeons in Buenos Aires

Crow

Squirrel

Most streets in Austin are ordered by numbers, while in Buenos Aires they are named out of politicians, important people and places all over the world. What is also notable in Austin is the absence of bumps or “baches”.

Streets in Austin, unlike Buenos Aires’, are not made out from tiles, they are from big blocks of concrete. This may pose an advantage when the time goes by and tiles begin to loosen up, as it happens in Argentina, and water filters between joints making a challenge to keep shoes clean in rainy days avoiding water spills.

To my amazement, I have not seen as much garbage in the streets as usually found in Buenos Aires. Sidewalks are neat, groomed and maintained. The grass is perfectly cut in a way it does not invade the concrete.

Contrary to my beliefs, Americans do not recycle as much as I thought. Although they have recycle bins, these are not so abundant and people do not always separate residues. Also most things in shops come with excessive packaging, but this is not much different from Argentina.

Both Austin and Buenos Aires have rivers that cross the city: Río de la Plata and the Colorado River. However, you cannot dive in the Río de la Plata, because of the pollution and the lack of shores in the city.

Colorado River

Río de la Plata

Car drivers in Austin seem to be more polite and patient, contrary to Buenos Aires’ ones who are always hurried and furious. Pedestrians do follow the rules and obey the traffic lights, something that may sound a dream in Argentina.

What I did also notice was the scarcity of motorcycles, which are very abundant in Latin America. In Austin everyone travels in car, this might be the reason why buses are almost always empty and clean. Something that I found really useful of buses is that you can put your bike in the front and take it once you get down the bus. It was interesting that students do not pay bus tickets.

Bus with bike in the front

Austin bikeway system looks really great. Lanes are wide and well signed. However, the public bicycle rental system really disappointed me. It is really expensive, even more than taking the bus. These does not incentives people to reduce car use. In Buenos Aires, there is a free rental system that incentives the use of bikes, which are becoming more popular as an alternative to buses and subways. So if you do not buy a bicycle it is not convenient to use the bikeway system in Austin.

Austin public bicycle rental system

Buenos Aires public bicylce rental system

A big difference between Austin and Buenos Aires is the distribution of universities. Although both cities have many universities, I will only refer to the UT and UBA. Contrary to the UBA, the UT is concentrated in a huge campus, all university related buildings are there and properly organized. In Buenos Aires, different buildings of the UBA are distributed across the city. This is really bad as it collapses every means of transport near each faculty, as most are located near the city center. Although there was a project many years ago to put them all together in Ciudad Universitaria (similar to the UT campus), this did not work out and buildings are still spread all over the city.

Both universities have iconic and really nice buildings. The tower in UT is one of the most popular landmarks in Austin. Law, Economics and Engineer buildings are also landmarks with great designs

UT Tower

UBA Building of Economics

UBA Building of Engineering

UBA Building of Medicine

I cannot finish this post without mentioning the similarities between the Texas State Capitol and the National Congress of Argentina. Although their functions are not the same, their designs are really similar. I really like these architectonical styles that reminds me the economic power and opulence that Argentina used to have back to the time it was built.

Texas State Capitol

National Congress of Argentina

To sum up, streets are cleaner in Austin and people seem to obey the laws more than in Buenos Aires. It would be nice if Argentinians could learn to behave or act in that way.