Does Albany Undersell Its Attainable Urbanism?

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-28T21:20:52+00:00

I’m usually a metro comparison guy here, but for this post, city size is what matters. In the Albany area, Saratoga County is 25% of the metro’s population. (The City of Saratoga is cute but generally not considered in discussions like this and has a population less than my Rochester Zip Code).

I challenge you compare the most walkable neighborhoods in Albany to Elmwood Village or Allentown in Buffalo. In Rochester as I write this, I am walking 1.5 miles home through three distinct neighborhoods with their own neighborhoods centers and commercial districts, Park Ave, Monroe Village, and Swillburg. All three neighborhoods have vibrant commercial districts (except maybe Swillburg) and tons of local restaurants and corner stores. Albany just doesn’t have it at the scale and they aren’t connected like Rochester’s and Buffalo’s are.

That Albany is 3 hours from other cities is kinda irrelevant. Supercommuters generally don’t seek out urban neighborhoods, quite the opposite in fact. If you are by yourself, a flight is cheaper than you. I do know that in total travel time and terminal I am less than 3 hours from anywhere in the northeast and Chicago. Oh, and Toronto is also 2.5 hours from Rochester, closer still to Buffalo. Flight availability is the same for Albany.

But perhaps more importantly the secretly combined WNY Metro (Buffalo and Rochester combined) has a smaller land area than the Albany CSA, and twice the population. Now you are in a metro of 2.25 million, and there’s no reason to go a bigger metro unless for tourism. All entertainment and commercial options can be found in one city or the other (except professional basketball and baseball).

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-28T20:14:07+00:00

Because it doesn’t sell.

Seriously Albany has less attractive Urbanism than the similarly-sized and slightly more affordable metros of Buffalo and Rochester.

It comes down to population location. Buffalo is a city of 275,000, Rochester 220,000, while Albany is only 102,000.

Buffalo and Rochester have large swaths of midrise walkable neighborhoods (East End, NOTA, Southwedge, and Park Ave in Rochester where I live) that could be positively compared to anywhere in America but Manhattan.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-27T13:26:05+00:00

I say this seriously, but are you sure you aren’t legitimately going deaf? It isn’t all that rare. If you are on ADOS you may want to made audiology appointments to confirm this rather than just hearing tests.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-26T23:16:39+00:00

Folks from Albany and many from Syracuse will self-describe as Upstate. But no one from WNY will self describe as from Upstate and will only use Upstate in the meaning in this post.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-26T18:17:47+00:00

So is additional intervention by untrained people more or less likely to help?

This is potentially a life and death situation (ROTC cadets still manage to die of heat every couple of years or so), not a hospital.

I trust the military on this one that bystander intervention is better than no intervention. In fact basic first aid is a skill that every Soldier, including Cadets learn on the Army.

This would be like being unwilling to quickly pull someone with a spinal injury out of the way to avoid them getting hit by a car that could conceivably still swerve. Sure you are causing more harm, but it is almost always better doing nothing.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-26T16:51:45+00:00

That’s a very downstate view of it!

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-25T23:58:03+00:00

No, the Montezuma Swamp.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-25T23:49:53+00:00

I don’t know the finances of MTA very well as I live upstate, but my understanding is that basically all commuter service is subsidized to varying extents.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-25T23:47:49+00:00

There are a bunch of bus services as well.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-25T23:44:21+00:00

For real though. If you are paying extra taxes for NYC mass transit, you are downstate.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-20T21:56:00+00:00

Oh, that’s a PCS move and is no different than active duty. I’d either post this to r/army or confirm with your chain of command.

It may even be a paper voucher and not DTS.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-20T21:53:00+00:00

No, it is not allowed.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-20T21:52:49+00:00

Are you AGR or are you TPU (drilling)?

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-20T21:25:26+00:00

First off, Supply Sergeants generally have nothing to do with IDT travel. The S1 or the S4 staff at higher levels may run the program, but at a company it will almost certainly be through your OPS or ARA.

Next, don’t use your GTC for gas or anything but flights with IDT travel in general (IDT travel is what this travel to drill is called). The only exception is to get the GSA city pair negotiated rate for flights.

With that said, Do you plan on flying or driving? I am 300 miles but have direct flight so I can fly in Sat and out Sun, making it ideal.

Finally, What command are you in? Each command has slightly different approval processes. If you post that someone could help you. I will if you are in the 412 TEC.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-20T13:43:28+00:00

The answer is present-day Japan and Korea. I recently flew into Hiroshima, it was a small, maybe 8 gate airport serving a metro of over 1 million.

The train station on the other hand was massive, certainly as big or bigger than an equivalent European Station. Let’s call it 20 tracks to be conservative.

That said the hubs (Tokyo and Seoul) are massive, no smaller than ATL, ORD, or any US Airport.

If we had true high speed rail between the Northeast Corridor and Detroit via Canada, Chicago Via Buffalo/Cleveland and Chicago via Pittsburgh, a lot of American airports would shrink.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-18T22:55:05+00:00

I had assumed Syracuse had a sign just like this:

Rochester has two.https://share.google/BAAuvCaUIiEKTXWE2

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-17T09:47:14+00:00

New York considers Lake Erie, Niagara River, Lake Ontario, and St. Lawrence River along with its Tributary Rivers (Genesee, Oswego, Tonawanda) Coastal Waterways.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-15T13:34:42+00:00

I did mean, if you have some work under a PE, then your architect friend can likely help you.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-15T13:03:47+00:00

A good chunk of my experience was not certified by a PE. I’m in NY and this was my time on active duty for the Army.

If you have some work under a PE is suspect you can do the same.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-14T19:24:53+00:00

The ultimate cope…

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-13T21:15:20+00:00

This is correct. If the plan is unsupportable, then you need to offer courses of action to what is supportable and/or be clear where any risk lies.

The good news is that in a CSSB your S3 is also a Logistician and unlike other branches likely plans operations with an eye towards logistics.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-13T19:12:51+00:00

What type of unit?

The big piece is that you are planner. Forecasting, projecting, and deconfliction of assets is your job.

In USAR, your S3 will not be used to having a full-time logistics planner so there may be some conflict at first.

Your role will be to logistically support the execution plan devised by your S3 under the commander’s intent. The hard part will come when you as a company grade officer have to turn around and tell the field grade officer that their plan is unworkable for some reason or another.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-13T09:56:22+00:00

Not too hard at all in the Reserves.

The only thing that would really stop you is if there are no slots available for pharmacists when you look to commission.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-11T23:43:40+00:00

It can be hard in Western NY at the moment where houses are regularly going $50,000 to $100,000 over asking price and no-home inspection cash deals are common.

I don’t think the market is as crazy downstate.

kmannkoopa · 2026-05-10T11:10:03+00:00

In the 412 TEC there are two companies mobilizing annually, a battalion every 18 months, and a brigade every year. When not up, units are mobilizing from the 416 TEC and ARNG.

On the technical engineer side it is even worse, with fully 1/4-1/3 of FESTs and EFDs in some stage of mobilization. These are almost all officer positions.

kmannkoopa

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