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woolie

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Everything posted by woolie

  1. woolie
    I have a better topic coming up in a few minutes.
  2. woolie
    Eh, it was an attempt at satire. It sounded funnier in my mind than written down. I'm gonna zero out the topic. Hmm. Now I know that you can't edit topic titles.
  3. woolie
    http://abclocal.go.c...ocal&id=8623262
  4. woolie
    Memorial CityCenter is lick and stick urbanism, an imitation product like EIFS stucco. I'm going to shout for a second, so brace yourselves. Pedestrian scale urbanism takes more than a couple mall parking lots turned into a papier-mâché streetscape. It takes real density and a street grid. It also takes fractured land ownership and competition. That is why I think these developments feel so plastic and forced. FAKE, FAKE, FAKE. I've been more than a bit anti-suburban on this forum lately, and a recent visit to Memorial CityCenter is the reason. I walked the development for a while, then came home and confirmed my observations with Google Earth. Also, the population centroid tells us alot about favored bedroom communities, but the East side of Houston is rarely mentioned on this forum. Drive down 225 or I10, all the way to 146. Pasadena, Deer Park, La Porte, Baytown, Galena Park. Out in Katy, I guess you can live unaware that Houston is in fact a town of heavy industry. The land along the ship channel is critically important to the city's economy. So, yes, I consider the center of Houston to be roughly downtown.
  5. woolie
    I think Atlanta will be crippled by the much more decentralized and sprawling nature of the city. For a sun-belt city that boomed in the 60s, Houston is actually remarkably well centered on downtown and almost all major amenities are inside the loop or adjacent. The wheel-spoke freeway system reflects this, and it's a very good start for increasing density and building out rail transit.
  6. woolie
    None, at least not in the US. But you could relax the term "profitable" to mean "maximum ridership return on investment." We'll get 10 story blocks soon enough. 4 stories became 6, and 6 will become 8 or 10. Density drives taller buildings.
  7. woolie
    The simple answer is that the filibuster crippled any mandate a party might have. Even if your party has 60 senate seats, it gives a total veto power to every single one of those 60 senators, who can water down or extract promises for whatever petty and selfish purpose they desire. That is the sign of a fundamentally broken institution. But that's a different thread. /OT.
  8. woolie
    Anyway, Niche did mention Galveston, so I'll transition to being back on topic. Galveston is fantastic. I visit frequently, and just walk for hours. It is a beautiful 19th century town, and a working model of true pedestrian scale development in a climate like ours. I wish it was more economically integrated into Houston. Allow me to propose high speed intercity rail. The irony being of course that my grandparents had this in the 1920s, for a quick and pleasant trip from downtown Houston to the Strand.
  9. woolie
    I'm learning not to be concerned with citykid's ramblings, but anyway, Niche was effectively proposing "congestion pricing," and I don't know how I'd call it a "Republican" idea, seeing as the major implementation is London, and coming soon to New York. And Off-Topic, which Niche is cynical about differences between political parties, I have to strongly disagree. I have intense opinions about various issues (women, gay rights, abortion, free speech, separation of church and state, torture, pre-emptive war, etc...) that make the opposing party's platform so toxic to me that I would cut off my hand before I let it scroll the e-Slate wheel to that position. Sure, on many fiscal issues both parties primarily serve big business with only rhetorical differences, there is so much that policy touches beyond that.
  10. woolie
    I was making a reply on my phone -- harder to proofread myself. Meant to say something like "industrial district" or "oil field." Not "utility district" which is a specific legal entity. And there are plenty of valid environmental concerns, enough that I'd look somewhere else before settling down in an active drilling operation. Especially in an exurban development; this whole thing just sounds fishy to me and is making my corruption sense tingle.
  11. woolie
    Gonna have to call bullshit on that one. I don't know how many people will want to live in a utility district in the middle of nowhere, with active drill operations out your bedroom window. They're building a couple hundred units, which will probably head straight to foreclosure. You shouldn't be so naive to believe what developers say. If that's the best TOD you can post for Dallas, I'm sure as hell not missing much here in Houston http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/04/in-addition-to-apartments-cypr.html
  12. woolie
    Vancouver, San Diego, SF, etc. also have massive amounts of natural beauty and amenities that probably make a smidgen of a difference in COL. Houston is for all intent and purposes a flat, featureless floodplain.
  13. woolie
    In another discussion, I was wondering about the demographics of Cinco Ranch. Allow wikipedia to summarize. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_Ranch,_Texas#Demographics (CDP is census designated place)
  14. woolie
    This is a pretty easy question to answer. Houston already had lots of skyscrapers. It doesn't have lots of 4-6 story apartment blocks. Travel to other cities, and outside the US. Houston is building density, and the rail system is right on schedule.
  15. woolie
    I'm going to drop out of this conversation, because it's just going to become "your neighborhood is shit." Although I love these conversations, this thread isn't the right venue. I'll just make my point more explicit before I leave, and that is that the idea of a pure free market for real estate is a fiction. The value of a property is deeply entwined in the level of public investment made in an area. It's the real history of any city. The reason any of this dirt has value is infrastructure, and the communities around it built for decades on the back of yet more infrastructure. It's my opinion that high density uses should be clustered together to maximize infrastructure investment.
  16. woolie
    No, there's no shame involved. It's just a choice I'll never understand. I don't like sitting in traffic, and I don't care how many fake gables my house has. I get bored in totally homogenized places.
  17. woolie
    Yes, you've just explained how the government builds freeways. It levies a tax, gets additional funding from other agencies and other taxes, then elected officials get together and direct an agency to put together a plan, then after environmental studies and public comment periods, it's built or enlarged or whatever. Total 100% free market. I believe you.
  18. woolie
    Hahaha, I'll write a reply after I finish laughing. Yes, the free market that built this 64 lane freeway. The invisible hand of the market set all the rebar and poured all the concrete. I wonder what the net tax flow from the loop to Katy is.
  19. woolie
    Yes, but that's Dallas. Isn't their system much more commuter rail-oriented anyway?
  20. woolie
    I still want this house. It's still listed as 'pending continue to show.' I am probably going to send off an email to my realtor to see what's up....
  21. woolie
    20 more blocks of this would be great.
  22. woolie
    The whole thing should be federally funded. This is exactly the kind of counter-cyclical infrastructure stimulus people talk about. Construction costs are much lower during a recession and it puts people to work. I guess it's probably too late now.
  23. woolie
    Cool, they added a pedestrian lane. Maybe new mixed-use developments in midtown can have a second "mezzanine" level of freeway-facing retail. That shoulder would be great for al fresco dining.
  24. woolie
    Probably a bar called "The Derringer." You got my hopes up by putting "variance" in the title. There's huge pressure to redevelop all four corners of the Montrose / Westheimer intersection.
  25. woolie
    I did ride my bike, although I didnt make to the city event. I probably have one of the most ideal bike commutes possible. It's a about 3 miles from midtown to the TMC. Caroline and La Branch are excellent (designated) bike paths, and I only share the road with a small amount of slow, local traffic. Then I hit Herman Park, which is always delightful to ride through. It's perfectly comfortable up to about 85 degrees, maybe a little more if overcast. I have a very "white collar" job, but fortunately I can wear whatever I please. If it is particularly hot, I can wear biking appropriate clothes and change when I get there. My old building had a shower, which was great.
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