The Future of the American City

[editor]

As much as I find much amusement in the off-topic banter here, please let's keep it on topic.

 

(Seriously, I actually laughed out loud at the UPS Store comment.)

[august948]

As far as I can tell, the real topic here is that Slick keeps posting someone else's blog posts, verbatim and at length, since he's discovered that he can't really argue his world view based on facts.  Then, when called on it, attempts to impress us with his imaginary world.  Can I request that we create a fantasy role-playing section for him to post to?

[Slick Vik]

As far as I can tell, the real topic here is that Slick keeps posting someone else's blog posts, verbatim and at length, since he's discovered that he can't really argue his world view based on facts.  Then, when called on it, attempts to impress us with his imaginary world.  Can I request that we create a fantasy role-playing section for him to post to?

 

This isn't about me, I would appreciate if you stop taking personal shots at me out of frustration. Nothing I've said on here is a lie. But this isn't about me.

 

I wish Houston would model itself after even some of the things Vancouver has done, it would definitely improve its quality of life as a result.

[august948]

I wish Houston would model itself after even some of the things Vancouver has done, it would definitely improve its quality of life as a result.

 

From "10 Things I Hate About Vancouver" by a native of the area...  http://btr.michaelkwan.com/2008/02/10/10-things-i-hate-about-vancouver/

 

I won't post the whole thing verbatim, but here's a couple of relevant items on the list...

 

 

4. Housing is expensive

Unless you’re pulling down six figures, it’s nearly impossible for a single person to own any sort of property in Vancouver. It’s a little out of control when a modest 600 square foot apartment goes for $300,000. And that’s not even downtown. Needless to say, the boom hasn’t burst (yet).

 

8. Cheap things to do

This is probably the result of living in this city my whole life, but I’m running out of fun things to do, mostly at night, that won’t cost me a pretty penny. The costs of fine dining and watching movies can add up pretty quickly, but I’m at a loss as to what else I can be doing. Pool? Bowling? Go-karting? Been there, done that.

 

9. Horrible highway system

Years ago, someone decided that they didn’t want a highway running through the middle of the city. As a result, we are now suffering from a very bad system of surface roads that result in nothing but congestion, frustration, and road rage. Even compared to somewhere like Seattle, Vancouver’s traffic is pretty bad.

[august948]

I can introduce you if you want, there are never enough sparring partners.

 

You're right, of course, quality sparring partners are hard to find.  I'm Heavyweight class myself.  I'll have to leave the Lightweight class to you and your "buddies".

[livincinco]

One of the really neat things about cities is that they don't have to all be the same. Each city can be unique and can appeal to different types of people. There is no one size fits all.

People of means have choices. They have the ability to live in cities that best suit their lifestyle and ambitions...or they can stay in a city that is clearly not matching their lifestyle and ambitions and spent large amounts of time complaining about that cities' failings on the Internet.

[Slick Vik]

You're right, of course, quality sparring partners are hard to find. I'm Heavyweight class myself. I'll have to leave the Lightweight class to you and your "buddies".

I'm actually a middleweight but I know some heavyweights also

[Slick Vik]

One of the really neat things about cities is that they don't have to all be the same. Each city can be unique and can appeal to different types of people. There is no one size fits all.

People of means have choices. They have the ability to live in cities that best suit their lifestyle and ambitions...or they can stay in a city that is clearly not matching their lifestyle and ambitions and spent large amounts of time complaining about that cities' failings on the Internet.

This is true

[musicman]

I'm actually a middleweight but I know some heavyweights also

you know the mayor?

[Slick Vik]

From "10 Things I Hate About Vancouver" by a native of the area... http://btr.michaelkwan.com/2008/02/10/10-things-i-hate-about-vancouver/

I won't post the whole thing verbatim, but here's a couple of relevant items on the list...

I agree with 4 but not 8 and 9. There is so much nature in Vancouver that's free it's amazing. Grouse mountain, beaches, trails, bike lanes and trails, all free. As far as tearing down highways that helped preserved the city of Vancouver and particularly downtown. This is the basic difference between Vancouver and Seattle.

[editor]

I agree with 4 but not 8 and 9. There is so much nature in Vancouver that's free it's amazing. Grouse mountain, beaches, trails, bike lanes and trails, all free. As far as tearing down highways that helped preserved the city of Vancouver and particularly downtown. This is the basic difference between Vancouver and Seattle.

 

I know that you're a big fan of Vancouver, and feel the need to express it at every opportunity like a teen-age girl who's only ever been to one other place in the world, but as someone who's spent MUCH more time in Vancouver than you, it's not all that great.

 

Vancouver traffic is horrendous.  Far worse than Seattle.  Not as bad as Houston, but that's largely because Vancouver only has a quarter of the population of Houston.  Mass transit is problematic in Vancouver.  If it wasn't for the new lines very recently built for the Winter Olympics, the subway system would be a joke.  Some think it still is, since for the most part the trains only go where the tourists would want to, not the locals.  Bus service is very spotty and can't be easily extended because so many of them are electric.  In Houston if you want to make a new bus route, your drive the bus down the new route.  In Vancouver, you have to spend months running new overhead electrical lines for the pantographs.  In Vancouver there are a lot of places you simply cannot go via transit, or worse -- you can only get there on certain days.  More than once I've had to wait an hour or more for a bus.  That simply doesn't happen in cities that are serious about transit.

 

Vancouver is a nice town.  It's clean.  It's mostly orderly.  It's pretty as long as you're not looking up through a massive tangle of electric lines for the buses.  But it's also a very small town.  It has the same population as Louisville, Kentucky. It's epically boring nine months of the year.  The food is terrible, even in high-end restaurants.  

 

Implying that Houston should follow Vancouver's lead is silly.  That's like saying New York should be more like Brussels.  The two are entirely different.  Simply the size of Houston's problems dwarf anything Vancouver could cope with.  

That's not to say that there aren't lessons to be learned from Vancouver.  Other cities and urban planners have learned from Vancouver's mistakes.  One of the biggest lessons they've learned is that putting a bunch of residential towers in one district doesn't create a neighborhood.  That's the biggest problem IMO with downtown Vancouver.  It's sterile.  The people scurry to work and then scurry back to their condos.  (Real local real estate agents don't call them "condominiums" there -- that's the American word.  I forget the Vancouverism for it.)  The city has virtually no life outside of the a few tourist streets.   "The Vancouver Mistake" isn't an unheard of term in urban planning circles.  It's why some cities require any building over a certain number of floors (usually around 4) to have retail on the ground floor.  So they don't end up with boring, sterile, broken cities like your precious Vancouver.

Now please find a different drum to beat.  The one you're using now is hollow.

[livincinco]

Attached echoes editor's point.

http://demographia.blogspot.com/2009/05/vancouver-containing-opportunity-not.html

[livincinco]

I'm not going to pollute the other threads, but developers appear to have missed the rush back to the city memo because there's an awful lot of talk about office development in The Woodlands and Memorial City on various threads today.

[editor]

I'm not going to pollute the other threads, but developers appear to have missed the rush back to the city memo because there's an awful lot of talk about office development in The Woodlands and Memorial City on various threads today.

 

It's market dependent.  In some cities, big companies that moved out to the suburbs are rushing back into downtown, and bringing their employees with them. 

 

But, as is often the case, Houston does its own thing. (not in a bad way)

 

Houston never had the suburban office flight in the 50's and 60's, so there isn't the same sense of "downtown" to rush back to.  The city grew differently with multiple business centers.

 

So, I think you are seeing a Houston version of this phenomenon.  Companies are giving up their flat, meandering office parks in favor of being in concentrated centers of business -- just like in other cities.  Except in Houston there is more than one center worthy of consideration.

[livincinco]

It's market dependent.  In some cities, big companies that moved out to the suburbs are rushing back into downtown, and bringing their employees with them. 

 

But, as is often the case, Houston does its own thing. (not in a bad way)

 

Houston never had the suburban office flight in the 50's and 60's, so there isn't the same sense of "downtown" to rush back to.  The city grew differently with multiple business centers.

 

So, I think you are seeing a Houston version of this phenomenon.  Companies are giving up their flat, meandering office parks in favor of being in concentrated centers of business -- just like in other cities.  Except in Houston there is more than one center worthy of consideration.

 

I agree, but would add that I think that this is consistent across most cities that have developed after the invention of the automobile except where government regulation has skewed the market.  There seems to be an expectation on the part of many people that the new cities will eventually conform to the patterns of the old cities and I don't necessarily agree that is going to happen. 

 

The other aspect that never seems to enter into these discussions is geography which I think is a huge factor regarding the development of cities.  The three densest cities in the US are New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles and all have geographic barriers that enforce that density.  Most newer cities were built inland and don't have those kind of constraints.

[Slick Vik]

I'm not going to pollute the other threads, but developers appear to have missed the rush back to the city memo because there's an awful lot of talk about office development in The Woodlands and Memorial City on various threads today.

 

What are your thoughts on the actual article itself? Besides IBH2 nobody has really even said anything about it. It's a very well written piece.

[IHB2]

What are your thoughts on the actual article itself? Besides IBH2 nobody has really even said anything about it. It's a very well written piece.

 

Let me just repeat, grapefruit Pelligrino is so clearly the missing ingredient in Houston's yearning for walkable world classness that the author of the essay should immediately be inducted into the Houston Tomorrow Institute's Tragically Hip Hall of Fame - there to join Peter Brown and Christof Spieler as walkable/mixed use/TOD/rail prophets without honor in their own town.

 

In this case, I believe the Crossleys could dispense with the customary 5 year waiting period that Frank Wilson's induction made necessary...

[livincinco]

What are your thoughts on the actual article itself? Besides IBH2 nobody has really even said anything about it. It's a very well written piece.

 

I think that it's an example of choosing case studies that will illustrate the point that you are trying to make rather than actually trying to do objective research on national trends.  It's really a stretch to use Detroit in any study of urbanization/suburbanization because it was such an outlier.  Detroit was the most extreme example of a city center falling into decline.  Reurbanization there is interesting, but not something that I would use to identify a trend if I was trying to be objective.  The same is true of using the Inland Empire in Los Angeles.  That also was an outlier in terms of suburban development that was heavily driven by the real estate bubble in California.

 

I don't doubt that there's some trend to re-urbanization and I think that it's a good thing.  I just don't think that it's going to cause suburbs to go away and is even going to slow their growth in any significant way because of how heavily skewed the population is.  Even if the population of Houston inside the loop doubled, it would still hold only 1m of the over 6m in the region not even considering growth.

 

BTW, I do find the assertion that cities are the "petri dishes of innovation" to be pretty funny, because I have two words for anyone that truly believes that - Silicon Valley.  The greatest innovations of the last 50 years occurred in the suburbs.

[IronTiger]

OK, thoughts on the article? From a quick read, I'll tell you this much: it wasn't written by an American, which puts credibility in a questionable light. There are an awful lot of ambiguous "facts" being treated objectively, but I'm not going to detail them because you'll ignore what I write and put up some nonsense from other forums that "proves" your point. But I'll throw you a bone:

 

In 2011, for the first time in more than 90 years, America's largest cities registered higher population growth than their combined suburbs, according to William Frey, a leading demographer. The signs are this will continue.

Hey, guess what? Houston is one of them. See, unlike northern cities, which are hemmed in by natural boundaries, cities in the South can extend outward. Just because it's technically "Houston" doesn't mean "urban core".

 

[livincinco]

 Just because it's technically "Houston" doesn't mean "urban core".

 

Exactly.  I think that most people would define the urban core of Houston to be a small percentage of the overall area of the city and/or population.

[IronTiger]

I mean, look at Kingwood. It's not technically a "suburb" in the eyes of raw census data. Even though it's extremely suburban in nature (as it's an actual suburb that Houston absorbed in '96, natch) and a good ways from urban cores (car needed), Slick would classify them as hip, cool urbanites as they actually live in a large city. Comparatively, West University Place is full of vain, trashy suburbanites who suck the lifeblood out of cities.