Jeebus

I imagine there used to be more than 4,600 residents at one time in those 172 years though... right? It's not like the population has been steadily rising for 172 years.

Possibly not. As you go backwards in time and replace high-rise residencies with low-rise and even single family dwellings, the number would probably still decrease.

the downtown might actually be in the 6,000s now because that was the population in 2006. So i take it there's no recent estimates yet.

Only if there has been new residential open up since then. Has that been the case?

Hey, if you think about, the joke's on her.

That's not Pizza Hut Park.

No, but it's a good conception of what is wanted: a low-slung, smaller capacity stadium.

I would go as far to say if it were put to a vote most would be suprised it would pass.

Even though I don't live inside the city, and thus couldn't vote, I would still love to see what the citizens of Houston would vote.

It's my understanding that what the Dynamo want is really just a large high school-sized outdoor stadium...something along the lines of the new h.s. stadium out near Cy Fair College (but in a more expensive downtown location).

I don't see how it would be worth it for the people who own the Dome to renovate it for soccer, since all the big soccer events will be at Reliant.

They want something like this: Pizza Hut Park

at least the Dynamo can win championships.

What's it matter if no one knows about it?

You know the old saying: "If a tree falls in the forest.."

I hate to tell Garber and the MLS, but they aren't on the same level as the NFL, NBA, and MLB. I like the MLS, but there is no way that they can hold a city "hostage" and expect us to bend over for them. They are just not a big enough deal here for a threat of relocation to be a bargaining chip.

They're getting free land, they need to step up and build their own stadium.

My thoughts exactly. Compare the size of the parade thrown when the Rockets last won the championship over ten years ago compared to the Dynamo's most recent championship victory. Look how excited the city got over the Astros just making it to their championship series - without even winning it. I don't remember lines wrapped around the Academy's all over the city to get a their piece of sports history when the Dynamo made it to any of their championships - much less people skipping work to go celebrate the Dynamo's championship victory.

MLS is just not on the same tier as MLB, NFL, or NBA.

13 had a brief blurb concerning the stadium. they stated that the mayor was irritated after receiving a letter from the soccer league. seems the league is having problems with the pace of the stadium negotiations. (stalled is the word used). the letter also said that if something doesn't happen, they will shop around in other cities.

buh-bye

The zoo in Omaha Nebraska is far better than the Houston zoo, in a much smaller market. Almost all of the funding for major updates/rennovations was from private sources. The city shouldn't be to blame, the zoo should be able to raise its own funding.

As long as the city whores the zoo out for it's P.R. tourism machine, then yes, they are to blame.

My daughter doesn't think our zoo is crappy. She loves it. That's good enough for me.

Zoo memberships here are a great deal if you have a family.

I agree. My daughter loves it and we have a family membership as well.

Has anyone else ever wondered why Houston has a very sub-par zoo despite being in the 4th largest city and admission fees that have climbed steeply in the past decade? I didn't realize how crappy our zoo is until I visited the Brownsville zoo a year ago... smaller city, smaller budget, lower admission fees with beautiful wide-open animal exhibits that mimic natural environments. They also had a much more interesting selection of animals, I especially liked their troop of gorillas (we haven't had a gorilla in 10 years or something).

It's kind of hard to recreate what Brownsville has when you're landlocked.

I have no clue why we have no Gorillas.

I am never a big fan of stand alone office towers adjacent to freeways. I'd hate to officed in a building like this one.

Lunch and lunchtime errands are always the biggest issue with these type buildings. You're so isolated that you either have to bring a lunch, buy something from the typical cafe on the first floor, or burn 2 hours driving to a "near-by" restaurant.

Great fish-eye. Is this a lens or photoshop?

I drove by there last night and thought it would make for some great pictures or even stock video footage for a later project.

Good eye!

Well, you get what you pay for, right?

You sure about that?

Well, now that you've called me out, no.

I wonder if Roger will be allowing 11 year old kids to take his picture.

Yeah right.. After the ribbon cutting you'll never see him in there again. He'll probably only go back there to use it to host private functions.

Ultimately however, it will go belly-up a la Planet Hollywood and become some other token chain restaurant, probably in a buy/bail-out from Landry's no less.

Good, so you guys can stop being so scary of WILLOWBROOK MALL.

It can't be that scary - no local rapper has yet to mention hanging out there in any of their songs.

One thing that caught my eye in the picture that I took:

The "no left when when light is flashing" caught me a bit by surprise, I guess they plan on going going southbound on that (northbound) street if they have to. getting in and out of that station is going to be interesting. It'll be interesting to see what procedures they work up.

The news did a report about the current fire station turning the wrong way on Travis (southbound) as well about 2 years ago. The signal is probably to warn motorists about to make a left turn that fire trucks are pulling out of the station and on to the street, headed northbound.

It's got 8 double bays. So you could fit 8 heavy apparatus, 16 light apparatus, or a combination of both. The current fire station 8 has 2 fire trucks, 2 ambulances, and 1 chief.

I've never seen that. Maybe I don't go at the right time, or I don't go to the right part of Bellaire Chinatown though. I've seen people parking their cars and walking to the mall entrances, but I've never seen anyone walking on the sidewalks between shopping centers though.

Try Ranchester at Bellaire. This is where I see the most foot traffic. I see a lot of Asian bus traffic in this area too.

I would say Post Midtown Square is more similar to pre-WW2 development in other cities than Rice Village or even Montrose, although its incredibly small. And parts of Downtown (Main Street Square / Preston Station ares) as well.

I can agree with that. The thing is that Rice Village and Montrose are the only two organic areas that have seemed to thrive and survive.

I would love to see Midtown create a synthetic urban environment that would do the same. I guess I'm just a doubting-Thomas.

Surface lots and drive-thrus are suburban to me.

There are hardly and drive-thrus on Bellaire (in the Asian area). Most Asian businesses don't have them. As for the parking lots, the Asian business owners are just dealing with what comes with their lease. Besides, without those parking lots, how did you plan on getting to those shops? Compared to Westheimer or any other commercial street in Houston and you'll find some of the most vibrant pedestrian traffic.

Besides just walking for the enlightenment, why would you want to walk up and down Chinatown anyway? It's probably 70% restaurants. It's not going to be like any other shopping district where you can shop from store to store. Most of the commercial goods you would think to find on Bellaire are actually on Harwin, in the warehouse district.

Argue all you want about what you consider "urban" and what you consider "suburban", but there's a huge difference in Houston's Bellaire Chinatown and the Chinatowns we were referring to (San Francisco, Toronto, etc.).

And there always will be. That's why the Asians left the downtown area - because there was no where to live. Asians are very unlikely to move back just for a few small strip centers that have slowly been transformed into hip overpriced eateries with bland recipes for non-Asian food eaters.

The Asians in those communities you mentioned built their neighborhoods out of necessity. Don't you think they would have done just as they have in Houston had the opportunity been there? I can't think of one business owner that would want a crapped, 100 year old dingy brick sublet with no parking or back alley space over a nice spacious lot like offered here in Houston - and for quadruple the value they pay half the price. There's a reason why the Vietnamese are leaving Westminster and coming to Alief. They're no dummies, they're all about the American Dream of making money too.

The fact that a few asians walk and/or ride bikes doesn't exactly make Bellaire urban, at least not according to the way most of us define urban vs. suburban.

Yeah, Midtown has strip centers, so maybe it's not as "urban" as San Fran, but you've got to admit, it's more uban than Bellaire.

Maybe in construction - but definitely not in foot traffic. Bellaire Chinatown serves a crowd who is still more pedestrian friendly. Sure most Asians have cars, but you will still see more Asians walking up and down the feeder streets from their apartments & houses to Bellaire. You still see more people at the Bellaire bus stops who have travelled only a few miles from the Beechnut/Bissonnet/Kirkwood/Dairy Ashford area to go shopping.

I don't see that in Midtown, and I'm in both areas at least 3 times a week. Bellaire is trying to be suburban and its mostly vehicle-less populace are naturally going against it. Midtown is doing the opposite - trying to be urban, but it's it's populace is still trying to figure out where to park their cars.

I have no real interest in seeing San Francisco-style urbanity in Houston. It's fine for San Francisco but I don't think it fits in Houston at all.

The closest thing to San Francisco's urban setting (or any other US city's pre-WW2 development) is our Montrose or Rice Village area. Other than that, we're not going to see a natural urban area develop ORGANICALLY for another 50 to 100 years.

Don't get me wrong, I would love more pedestrian friendly areas in Houston - but I at least want them to make sense. For as urban as Midtown is supposed to be. I still never see any foot-traffic - except the homeless.

Bellaire is suburban.

Not to the thousands that live in the apartment complexes on Bellaire, Ranchester, and Town Park. I see Asians walking and biking all the time all along Bellaire.

Have you seen the ratings for shows like Survivor and American Idol?

I would rather someone be entertained by a scripted reality show than a stage set sit-com, complete with canned laugh-track to que what is supposed to be funny and when to laugh.

Man, you skip over a thread for two days in this town...

I wouldn't call the majority of America idiots. When people think of Texas now, they think negativley because of Bush. I wish Texas would drop the whole Republician act and go back to being a Democrat state. Take a look at this that I found:

What do you think of this? Face the truth, the rest os the US hates Texas now.

http://www.cafepress.com/tvtee.40216088

It shows the rest of the US joining togeather in blue, but stuborn Republican Texas it alone in red.

Are you kidding me? Let me guess, you're a journalism major and are hoping to land a job at the "Chron" one day?

Yeah, everyone knows all those backwards Georgia Socialists like Martin Luther King and Andrew Young were shoving equal rights and freedom for all Americans down God Fearin', and pure from all wrong Republicans' throats! Funny how King is now a hero in their eyes 40 years later.

Racism and socialism are two different monsters - don't confuse the two. Dr. King was about "hand-ups" and not "hand-outs". Any decent person, regardless of political affiliation would respect that.

I hate how the airport in Houston is named after Bush two (don't give a damn which one, but the second one has given both a bad name).

You meant "too", right?

If people are going judge a place by it's airport, then more power to them, but thankfully they won't come here to try and dumbdown the rest of us.

I'd like to think if we (Houston) were judged by nothing else than our airport (IAH), that we would be viewed favorably.

Just stumbled onto this conversation. I live in Orchard Lakes, which has a Sugar Land address, but is located within Houston's ETJ (if you need proof, check out our green street signs and "City of Houston" manhole covers). Same goes for Chelsea Harbor and all the other neighborhoods north of U.S. 90A (on the east side of FM 1464). Those on the west side, including Old Orchard and Aliana, are in Richmond. The only way any of these neighborhoods will be annexed by Sugar Land would be through some sort of ETJ swap. I wouldn't complain if that happened, but I'm not holding my breath.

Wow... after some digging, you are absolutely right. I misread this map when I had posted this originally.

I guess it was just wishful thinking. Looking at the map though, nothing on the Westside of FM1464 is in Richmond's ETJ - It's 100% Houston.

I drove by it again today and I was struck by how far it's set back from the street. What is the point of having a huge parking lot in front of the fire station?

The parking lot is behind the station, with the front facing Louisiana so that when the fire trucks pull out, they will be pulling out in to one-way traffic into downtown. It looks like it will be a "pull-through" station, which is very popular in the south and west where space is readily available. All the newer fire stations here in Houston, as with most other cities, are of this design.

It's actually better for traffic as the fire trucks don't have to take up all the traffic lanes in front of the station, then back into the station. Instead, they can make the block and pull in from behind. Having a large parking area behind the station allows for daily maintenance and cleaning of the fire trucks, helicopters to land, stage other fire trucks during emergency operations, and to perform various training activities at the station.

My only complaint has been with the Jiffy Lube design. I'm fine with it taking up a whole block, as being downtown, it's most likely to never have the space to perform the above said tasks otherwise.

There is alot of re-vitalization going on but not on a scale like here in Houston.

Well, it is only about 1/20th the size of Houston.