genghiskahn

Do you have any basis for this information? Is there a press release or anything?

To resurrect this thread from the dead, I heard a rumor from a pretty reputable source that a WalMart was going in just north of the MarqE. (As a side note, maybe Magic will change the spelling of "MarqE" to the correct "marquee". Alas, I can only dream.)

Okay, so I used a little hyperbole , the point still stands that the ease of travelling up I-45 to the Woodlands attracted desirable development that would have grown up along 1960. Actual distances are the same as always but many people don't measure their commutes in miles as much as they measure them in minutes. I give the Woodlands developers tons of credit here, they've been able to grow with the freeway system and tie in things like the Woodlands Parkway exit for ease. My point wasn't to bash the Woodlands at all but to point out a few of the reasons for the rapid decline of the Westfield area.

I wouldn't call it an irreversible trend, just not one that will reverse for a good while. There are some great subdivisions all along 1960 that will eventually improve as more and more businesses are based out of Greenspoint and the Woodlands. I'm from the area as well. I think it's fairly easy to diagnose the origins of the rapid decline of Westfield High School, once one of the premier high schools in the state, and the entire area. Everyone expected development to continue north at the same pace it had been moving. Then, the Woodlands was founded and pushed a lot of the high dollar investment up north of the county line, leaving a lot of the 1960 corridor without development. After the expansion of I-45 in the mid '90s (along with the construction of the Hardy Toll Road), there was no more reason to consider the 1960 area for a home rather than the Woodlands. It's quicker now to get to the Woodlands Mall from downtown than it is to get to 1960 and Kuykendahl. Places where there would have been subdivisions, middle class homes, etc. ended up with apartment complexes. Apartments tend to bring more transient residents and those who cannot afford to own homes which lead to declining schools. (This is not a knock against people who live in apartments. Many of them work incredibly hard just to make ends meet. Unfortunately, this means that they have less time to supervise their children and the children suffer because of it. It is a vicious cycle.) One of the main factors that lead to stable neighborhoods and better schools is home ownership. As the 1960 area rate of home ownership declined (mostly due to the huge numbers of apartments constructed in the early to mid '90s), so did everything else.

"The Summit of Love" scares me a bit. I don't know what I'd rather have in its place, but the city has made a huge gamble in leasing the facility to the church. JoelOsteen.com has done something incredible in being able to market his baptized Tony Robbins formula for the past 6 years, but I'm nervous to see if he can hold on for the next 30. I wouldn't compare Joel.com to Baker, Swaggart, Tilton, etc. in terms of his personal life. Though the churches are cut from the same theological cloth, Joel.com doesn't plead for money, etc. like those guys. The danger is that in any organization built around a charismatic leader, one slip and the whole thing tumbles to the ground. I am surpised in reading the discussions on this forum about megachurches how no one has commented on the car-cultureness of the modern "mega-church". Wouldn't it have more of an impact on the community if people went to church close to where they live? It's nothing new with Lakewood. It's been happening for generations in Houston with the big Baptist churches. What if instead of leasing and renovating the Compaq Center, Lakewood built smaller 1500-person buildings around the city and even "beamed" Joel.com into each community? (The cynic in me wants to say that it's because leasing the Summit is higher profile and seen as "moving on up" when compared to their current neighborhood. Funny, because one of the reasons that I respected Joel.com's father is that he stuck around in the slums of NE Houston instead of moving to a "better" neighborhood.) Genghis Kahn