Simbha

This may warrant its own topic... UH has taken the next major step in developing its new stadium: http://blog.chron.co...rd-its-stadium/ UH has raised about half of the projected $120 million construction cost. 40,000-seat capacity seems small. I see the ability for expansion being planned into the development, but even 60,000 seats seems small for a University poising itself for significant growth in reputation, student population and alumni/community engagement.

Apparently, there's a proposal to turn one of Hollywood, CA's areas into a high-rise district: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501363_162-57354674/hollywood-high-rise-plan-has-some-up-in-arms/

Yeah, unfortunately that's the inevitable outcome of basing (a large part of) the regional industry on chemical production and refining. Nothing really to be done about this, except possibly support federal- and state-level legislation requiring caps on the release of airborne chemical by-products. But, even that would likely affect all counties nationwide, so it would still probably result in Harris County being at the top of such a list.

One of the most disappointing outcomes in Downtown, period.

Agreed. However, this - or something like it - will almost certainly happen. Why? Because the city is growing in population and economic importance. Whether the development is in keeping with sound urban planning principles through a well-thought strategy, is another matter.

I received this email yesterday - I have no idea how I'm even on the list but... Apparently Randall Davis is building a new property behind the Carraba's on Kirby, starting in April 2012. It looks to be about six stories (five residential and probably one lobby/garage). The details, per the email, are below. I've also attached a rendering, which was sent with the email. I have no interest in violating their intellectual property by posting this here, but since the email was sent as an advertisement, I imagine they wouldn't mind the publicity. Here's the body of the email. It came from an email advertisement, so a warning up front that it's marketing-speak. Randall Davis here, wanting to capture a little of your time to discuss a new vision inspired by a recent trip to NYC. Visiting a friend in Soho, I was mesmerized by a design and style of living not found in Houston. I'm putting the finishing touches on a new development on W Main; right behind Carraba's new restaurant on Kirby. Living here, you can walk to Whole Foods or West Avenue, or order food from Johnny Carrabba's three new restaurants. It will house ONLY 10, 3 bedroom - 3 1/2 bath residences, each with 3,000 square feet including a large terrace. I believe there are Houstonians who want mid-rise living in a small exclusive building with low maintenance fees. I estimate maintenance fees will be $450 monthly ($.15 per sq ft). How? This is a finely designed home for ONLY 10 residents. An elevator splits the building and opens directly into your residence (2 units per floor), no hallways, excellent privacy and access by code or reader. Parking is underneath the mid-rise tower. There is no concierge or guard, but this type of living requires none in my opinion. The property named Chateau 10 will have an urban European design; this is not a glass box high rise. Living room views are pointed west at the Galleria area. Ceiling heights are 10 feet, 11 feet on the top penthouse floor. I'm working toward the following amenities but admittedly they are a work in progress. I want feedback from my first 3-4 buyers: here is the starting point amenity list: Top of the line appliance package Wood Floors – Choice of style and stain Marble, Granite – Kitchen, Baths – Custom Selections Floor Tile Kitchens – Custom Selections Cabinets – Choices of styles and color Carpet in secondary bedrooms – Selections Kitchen Sink – Choose farm house or other Interior Doors – Choose style and finish Fireplace (electric) optional with mantel selections Fireplace (gas) optional for penthouses only with mantel selections Crown Molding – Living area and master bedroom with 8" base boards Custom Closet Allowance for master bedrooms Apple Airport Express and everything else Apple Flat Screen TV in master bath and home speaker system Built-in makeup mirror Island pendant selections All homes come paint-ready with a coat of white primer I plan to start construction in April 2012, with one year delivery time. Early pricing target ranges from the high $700,000 to just under $1,000,000. If you are sincerely interested in acquiring a residence, call me at 713.526.3222 to set up a private appointment with me in my office. I am excited about this new prototype residential opportunity. I would like to show you images, floor plans and discuss your level of interest in being one of the exclusive few who will reside in this finely tuned mid-rise. Looking forward to seeing you for your private presentation.

I was just about to add these points - almost verbatim. The distance from Hermann Park to DT Houston is about the same as from DT Manhattan to Central Park. And, while urban development around Hermann Park isn't of the same magnitude as that of the area surrounding Central Park, it is continuing to become more developed. Houston's simply a younger city than NYC - and with different cultural mores. It's not better or worse; it just is. I really don't see why we have to emulate NYC (or other cities) in these ways.

I'm a huge fan of this project! Just one small thing: I'd really like to see them extend - and connect it to - Sesquicentennial Park. Regarding the reference to Central Park: I think this is just the reporter's way of building the vision of the park into the mind of the reader. It's one of the (if not the) most recognizable parks in the world - even if you haven't been there. Having said that, Houston isn't built like NYC - we don't have the same history, cultural values or topography - so we should not strive to be like it in most respects. Houston should simply strive to be the best it can be, in my opinion. Central Park is a vast greenspace that was (principally) designed to be the center of the city at a time when pedestrian or horse-based transport was the norm. That is no longer the case. In Houston, we have a variety of excellent greenspaces that are distributed throughout the area - two of which, of course, are Hermann and Memorial parks. I agree that Houston could use more - and better - parks. Then again, if I could, I would live in the middle of a beautiful urban park. (I almost do now - being about six blocks from Hermann Park.) However, when compared with other cities, Houston doesn't perform amazingly in the parks department, but it's adequate: Using data from the Trust for Public Land here, Houston ranks at #4 of the largest 10 cities (not metros) with regard to park acreage per capita (~22 acres per 1,000 residents) and #6 with regard to percentage of total city area devoted to park space (13%). Per capita acreage ranges from 36.2 (San Diego) to 4.2 (Chicago) while the latter figure ranges from 23% (San Diego, again) to 8% (Chicago and LA).

The diagram/data came from CTBUH, so I don't blame the writers of the article, but I believe they missed Wenzhou WTC. They also put Sky Tower at 292m, but I believe its actual height is 312m. Here are some other interesting facts: - 2007 was the year in which the height-to-floor ratio was the highest (when the sample includes the current 100 tallest buildings). Since 1982, the average height-to-floor ratio is about 4.8m per floor; in 2007, it was a staggering 6.4m per floor. This can partly be attributed to the antenna on the NY Times Tower. However, even if the calculation was made solely on the basis of height to rooftop, 2007 still comes in at 5.6m per floor. The primary reason for this large deviation from typical values is because the Aspire Tower in Doha stands at 300m and only 36 floors! - A majority of the world's tallest buildings completed in 2010 and 2011 have been mixed-use. Of the 31 buildings completed in the past two years which appear on the current list of 100 tallest buildings, 16 have been mixed-use. An additional 11 have been residential. (Four were office-only and none were hotels.) The only other time this has happened over a biennium is in 2002/2003, when two of the three now-100 tallest buildings constructed in those years were mixed-use. And now, for no reason but just because I have always been in awe of the Burj Khalifa's immense height: The difference in the heights of the tallest building in the world (Burj Khalifa) and the current-second tallest in the world (Taipei 101)... is bigger than the total height of the JPMorgan Chase tower in Houston.

Umm... Houston has two: JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. One can always argue the definition of a supertall, but the CTBUH defines the term to mean any building with a height of at least 300m. There are only 58 buildings in the entire world that meet this criterion. Two are in Houston. Oh, and ... Of all the cities in the world, only seven - Dubai, Hong Kong, Chicago, New York City, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Busan - have more '100 tallest' buildings than we do. (Three others - Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Guangzhou - have the same number as we do... 3.) If a city is judged by the height of its tallest buildings, I'd say Houston's doing pretty well. For the record, I don't think cities should be judged on the height of their tallest buildings.

I agree that we need to do more to promote the city within the airport(s). But, I believe this will have the effect of directing people who will already be staying in the city towards specific venues/events. Would that be enough to improve the city's reputation?

Interesting hypothetical: What would happen if Houston (or any other city) would legalize - let's not say murder, but at least - (regulated) retaliation?

Regardless of the discussion of whether Houston is an 'international gateway', 'second-tier international gateway' etc... What more can be done to build Houston's reputation - internationally and domestically - as a tourist destination or, at least, what can be done to create an appeal for those that do visit for other reasons (e.g., medical or business) to stay and have a positive vacation experience?

Just saw this today... The news is about two weeks old, apparently... http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/river_oaks/news/architects-file-copyright-suit-against-ashby-high-rise-developers-seek/article_52a93540-b7b6-533d-8af2-273a693d1ff2.html

I won't quote everything you've said, just for space sake. But, I'll first apologize for not posting the link properly. Here it is: http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/international-series/pax2010.txt This dataset represents boardings on international flights with the US airport as the origin. It is NOT a dataset about incoming flights, but is probably highly correlated with the latter - certainly, in terms of number of flights, if not number of passengers. It's the best fine dataset on passengers I could find, however, so I'll use it. Now, your critique about the accuracy of the above measures is a fair one. I focused on the Top 30 international destinations because I felt this data was closer to addressing the relationships between international airports. I still stand by that analysis, but you're correct that it doesn't address the larger picture in the best way. So, I've conducted another analysis with the full above-linked dataset and the US's top 20 international airports. Disclosure: The only data which I left out was for several small (in terms of these US passengers) for which I didn't spend the time looking for their IATA codes. In total, these airports represent less than 0.1% of total US international passengers - and no single route which was ignored accounted for more than 3,600 passengers in any month. To conduct the following analyses, I first grouped all airports by country, and then by 'region'. The regions used were as follows: - Australasia consists of Australia, New Zealand and surrounding islands including those in the Pacific - Caribbean includes those islands of the Caribbean and surrounding Atlantic waters, as far south as - but not including - Trinidad/Tobago - East Asia includes those Asian main continent countries along the eastern edge of the continent as well as east Asian islands (including Japan) - Europe includes any and all countries on the European (sub-)continent, including all of Russia (yes, also St. Petersburg) and Turkey. I've included St. Petersburg and other eastern Russian airports in Europe for convenience. I don't feel this significantly affects the analysis. - Indian Subcontinent includes all countries as part of the subcontinent, including its namesake, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other surrounding areas - Latin America includes those countries that are part of the Americas, including Mexico - Middle East is somewhat ambiguous, but generally includes those countries which I think most would agree are part of this region - excluding Egypt - North Africa includes the Saharan region of the continent, including Egypt - North America includes just Canada (since Mexico is included in Latin America) - South Africa includes all Sub-Saharan areas of the continent With foreign airports so grouped, I then counted: (i) the total number of passengers on flights from each US airport to each region and (ii) the total number of 'monthly routes' from each US airport to each region. I'm happy to send the raw and composite dataset to anyone who requests it. I then conducted the following analysis to determine the 'concentration' of each US airport's connections with the regions. As a measure of concentration, I used the method employed by economists in computing 'industry concentration' - the Herfindahl-Hirschmann Index. To compute this index for passenger counts, I first took the ratio of the number of passengers for a single US airport to a single region to the total number of passengers for the US airport. I then squared this 'share' (after first multiplying by 100) and summed the squares across all regions for the US airport. This gives me a value of between 0 and 10,000 with a higher number indicating a higher concentration of routes across the regions. Here are the resulting indices, along with other data (as noted): Airport Code - # of Int'l Passengers - Concentration Index - Region of Highest Concentration - % of Passengers Flying to Region of Highest Concentration ATL - 9125638 - 2516 - Europe - 35% BOS - 3648394 - 5423 - Europe - 71% CLT - 2690855 - 2978 - Caribbean - 41% DFW - 5050427 - 3712 - LAmerica - 55% DTW - 2884937 - 2931 - Europe - 42% EWR - 11378344 - 3221 - Europe - 53% FLL - 3328230 - 3519 - Caribbean - 45% HNL - 3608548 - 6444 - EAsia - 79% IAD - 6170438 - 3594 - Europe - 57% IAH - 8324703 - 4329 - LAmerica - 62% JFK - 22783671 - 2863 - Europe - 48% LAS - 2114799 - 4341 - NAmerica - 59% LAX - 15519124 - 2033 - EAsia - 27% MCO - 3078006 - 2970 - Europe - 43% MIA - 16734897 - 3732 - LAmerica - 50% MSP - 2284062 - 3065 - NAmerica - 42% ORD - 10444998 - 2885 - Europe - 45% PHL - 3800394 - 3928 - Europe - 58% SEA - 2671760 - 3102 - NAmerica - 36% SFO - 8479209 - 2670 - EAsia - 41% IAH has the fourth highest concentration of these airports, with an index of 4,329. Only Honolulu (6,444), Boston/Logan (5,423) and Las Vegas (4,341) have higher indices. 62% of IAH outgoing passengers fly to Latin America. IAH also has the 8th-highest number of international passengers (8,324,703). I conducted an analysis using the same methodology but with route data instead. Here's what I got: ATL - 1166 - 2474 - LAmerica - 33% BOS - 632 - 2964 - Europe - 43% CLT - 414 - 2755 - Caribbean - 38% DFW - 580 - 4037 - LAmerica - 60% DTW - 401 - 2391 - NAmerica - 36% EWR - 1323 - 2668 - Europe - 43% FLL - 693 - 3768 - Caribbean - 50% HNL - 329 - 3870 - EAsia - 46% IAD - 792 - 2291 - Europe - 38% IAH - 1144 - 5044 - LAmerica - 69% JFK - 2114 - 2284 - Europe - 37% LAS - 375 - 3669 - NAmerica - 51% LAX - 1335 - 2345 - LAmerica - 39% MCO - 525 - 2604 - LAmerica - 30% MIA - 1746 - 3659 - LAmerica - 46% MSP - 439 - 4197 - NAmerica - 61% ORD - 1255 - 2297 - Europe - 29% PHL - 576 - 2896 - Europe - 40% SEA - 306 - 2921 - NAmerica - 38% SFO - 688 - 2210 - EAsia - 31% In this case, IAH comes up on top in terms of its concentration (5,044), with 69% of total routes to Latin America. I'm not going to get into the argument that's been had above. What I will say is that IAH is clearly an important gateway between the US and Latin America. Whether it can be labeled as an "international gateway" or not is semantics, in my opinion. As far as both international passengers (#8) and international routes (#7), it is an important player and - more importantly for this discussion, I think - I believe the city can do more to provide a better tourist experience for the international visitors it does get, regardless of their region of origin.

Always interesting to consider these sorts of things as hypotheticals. But, I think I'll keep my license plates on the car. Primarily, because it's too much work to remove them.

Regardless, you answered the question that was posed - which is all anyone can ask. And, welcome to HAIF!

I've run an analysis which, I hope, will (at least somewhat) address the question of international IAH traffic... I took the data from the USDOT found here and used it to compute the number of routes between the following two types of airports; direct sources are Wikipedia (provided) but the ultimate source for these are legitimate (ACI and Bureau of Transportation Statistics at USDOT). Group A: Top-20 US airports based on international passenger traffic in 2009 (Source) Group B: Top-30 global airport based on international passenger traffic in 2010 (Source) For the latter, I then removed the two US-based airports that appear on the list (JFK and MIA). I then counted the number of routes between a Group A airport and all Group B airports. I get the following (numbers appearing after the dash indicate number of routes): 1. John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) -- 21 2. Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) -- 20 2. Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) -- 20 4. Logan International Airport (BOS) -- 19 4. Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) -- 19 6. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) -- 18 6. O'Hare International Airport (ORD) -- 18 8. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) -- 15 8. Miami International Airport (MIA) -- 15 8. Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) -- 15 8. San Francisco International Airport (SFO) -- 15 12. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) -- 11 13. Charlotte/Douglas International Airport (CLT) -- 9 13. George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) -- 9 13. McCarran International Airport (LAS) -- 9 13. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) -- 9 17. Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) -- 8 18. Orlando International Airport (MCO) -- 7 19. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) -- 5 19. Honolulu International Airport (HNL) -- 5 Based on this, it does appear that Niche's claim that IAH is a second-tier international gateway does seem valid. HOWEVER... Now, I will also point out one apparent flaw in using this methodology... Many foreign airports serve regions that are composed of many densely populated small countries. Thus, many of these airports may be in Group B solely because of flights between their own country and neighboring countries (and not the US). Given that this is the case in Europe (and the comparable affluence of its citizens), it's not surprising that 16 of the 28 busiest international airports are on that continent (18, if you include Turkey). Now, given that these airports have geographic proximity also to northeastern US cities, it is then not surprising that all five of the airports in this region appear in the top 10 of the above list - and that an additional five airports on the East Coast show up on the list at all. How much of this is driven by the specifics of the methodology I've used - versus how much is reflective actual traffic between these airports - I really don't know.

Normally, I don't share these things - especially on a public forum - but I think this might interest quite a few people... The daily deals site Groupon is offering a deal for an annual pass to the Contemporary Arts Museum - Houston today. The individual membership, which normally costs $75, is being offered for $35. The latter is (perhaps coincidentally) the normal price for artists/students/seniors. Just thought I'd put that out there, in case anyone's interested.

I love how Houston is a 'northern city' here. It's all a matter of perspective.

In light of the direction that this conversation has turned (towards international passengers flying to or through airports), I looked at some numbers. I'll spare you the details, instead simply stating that I ran international tourist estimates against both metro populations (to account for city size) and aggregate international passenger data. Based on this overall data, I calculated an 'expected international tourism' for each city. I then compared the actual international tourism from each city to this estimate and computed the ratio. A ratio of larger than 100% indicates that the city does better in its tourism figure than expected and vice versa. Here's what I found for the tourism cities I had cited earlier (with the exceptions of San Jose and San Diego): Cities that do better than expected: Seattle (637%), Boston (270%), San Francisco (237%), Washington (122%), NYC (118%), and Miami (101%) Cities that do worse than expected: Houston (40%), Atlanta (42%), Chicago (50%), and Los Angeles (76%) I ran the figures for a larger dataset, but these are all the ones that I had cited earlier. One can argue with the methodology all one wants; I don't claim any veracity - other than moderate statistical validity - of the analysis. But, I will note that most of the cities traditionally thought of as international destinations are generally the ones that do show up in the 'better than expected' list. Cities such as Seattle and Boston may reflect strong tourism from Canada. I would not be surprised if the bulk of the Seattle (international) tourism figures are from Vancouver (e.g.). The same could be true of Boston, which may receive a large number of tourists from eastern Canada. However, such interpretations are purely speculation on my part, as I don't have the finer data to support such statements. Based on this analysis, it does seem that Houston is not capitalizing on its international passenger traffic (and/or population) as it could be. (The same could be said to be true of Chicago/Atlanta/LA.) This is likely reflective of Houston being a pass-through international airport, rather than a destination itself. I guess a major theme of this thread then is... Can - and how should - Houston capitalize on the international traffic it does see?

I'd like someone with design/engineering knowledge to explain to me WHY this pedestrian/cycling bridge is so massive. The similar-functioning new bridge over Buffalo Bayou doesn't have this one's height or general size. Is this simply for aesthetics, or is there a needed engineering reason behind this? Not that I mind the design - I actually think the renditions are quite beautiful - but I'm just wondering if the reason is aesthetic or required physically...

Is there data available that distinguishes between international travelers who... (i) travel to a specific airport to get to that airport's city as a destination and (ii) travel through a specific airport to get to another city?

She's working on aligning the large structures to the grid now. It's difficult to do so because Sketchup imports the Google Earth ground layers as low-res images; thus, it takes some time. She'll probably be done with it later today. She's actually got work-work to do, you know!

Yeah. Thanks. I'm going to try to go today - if not, tomorrow. I'm actually going to take the rail up there from the museum district to get the full experience. I'm not sure if I'm just wrong about this, but it seems odd that a tourist information center is not open on Sundays or in the evenings (at least on the weekends). Hmm...