Texas Planners Face a 100-Year Infrastructure Decision: Distributed Offices, Fiber Networks, and the End of Commutes
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In a thought-provoking episode of The Building Texas Show, host Justin McKenzie and strategist Michael Shear challenge the conventional downtown high-rise model, proposing a radical shift toward distributed offices, regional fiber networks, and edge computing to address Texas's explosive growth. The conversation, recorded in Central Texas, centers on Shear's vision called Project ION, which suggests replacing a single 60-floor downtown tower with ten six-floor office buildings in suburbs and exurbs like Cedar Park and Luling.
Shear, leader of Strategic Office Networks, argues that the infrastructure decisions made in the next 12 to 24 months will define commuting, housing, and resilience for the next 100 years. He points to the 2026 book Overbuilt: The High Cost and Low Rewards of US Highways, noting that 22% of land in 316 U.S. metro areas is paved, and echoes the Texas Transportation Institute's warning that regions cannot build their way out of growth.
"We've essentially entombed ourselves in a 20th century model, and now we're looking at how do we break through that into another dimension," Shear tells McKenzie.
The discussion goes beyond remote work, connecting workforce strategy to public safety and economic resilience. Shear describes meetings with fire and police chiefs about deployment readiness during evacuations and references Nobel-recognized economic research by Joel Mokyr on how hardened institutions stall innovation. He highlights Central Texas assets—state government, major R&D universities, military complexes, and semiconductor fabs—as both a competitive advantage and a high-value target.
Shear also flags generational economics: where a 30-year career once matched a 30-year mortgage, today's three-to-five-year job tenures put homebuying at risk unless networked hubs let workers change employers without changing communities. He previews emerging technologies like XR, spatial acoustics, and haptic tools becoming mainstream within three to five years, citing a recent Christmas-parade live portal linking a Texas town to Ireland.
On a practical note, Shear confirms that Google Fiber crews were laying new lines outside his home during the week of taping, underscoring the real-world momentum behind fiber infrastructure.
The episode challenges listeners to rethink how Texas grows, emphasizing secure networks for hospitals, universities, chip manufacturers, and emergency dispatch—not just generic broadband.