woolie

You mean "Big Dick Dowling."

Dallas has buildings?

It's a beautiful building. I intend to go see the inside this weekend.

The freeway is a single point of failure. Putting streets a mile apart was probably not a good idea.

Good. Less people to bother me.

Yes, it should be obliterated. Every inch of this taint should be jackhammered out or cut off with an acetylene torch.

Nice building, but these belong inside the loop. I guess someone forgot to close the gate and all the horses got out?

I'd love to move to a downtown condo, except for the outrageous $/sf cost and maintenance fees compared to a townhouse a mile away. I'd probably have to downsize by about 50%. Also, I'd have to sell my current house and unlikely that is going to happen in this shitty market. But yeah. At least, for others, it would make great residential rentals

I was actually in DT today to speak with an attorney... While the TMC is fine (about 20 mins on bike), wouldn't mind working DT sometime. My wife recently changed jobs and was hoping for one DT, but ended up even further out than she was before (was near 610, now beltway 8.)

I ride my bike to work occasionally. I'll try and participate on Friday, though I'll just leave from my house since I'm already in midtown

Construction to begin later this month. http://www.bisnow.com/real-estate-hou/2012/04/11/cranes-rise-across-houston/

They should use the approach Milhaus is going to use for their new midtown development. Build out the first floor to hold commercial tenants, but use it for the complexes leasing offices, gym, etc. for now.

I'm not sure I've ever encountered any of these thugs. There are plenty of people muttering to themselves and guarding their plastic bags, but I've never felt threatened. Only assault has been the smell of urine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Calhoun#Slavery

This is a reasonable development. Would prefer it to be larger, but at least it preserves the street facade, and doesn't use the entire block.

I'm just imagining 30 years out. Habits and tastes change. Los Angeles in 1980 is pretty different than Los Angeles 2012. It's well established that you can't just keep expanding freeways; you get less for your money with each round. Houston isn't geographically constrained, but every mile further out adds minutes to the amenities, job centers, etc. And these things are the products of the concentration of human capital, the reason and essence of a city in the first place. Eventually you'll get far enough out and disconnected enough from Houston that you might as well save money and time and live in a much smaller city. So eventually car transportation hits a wall (or even just a very steep hill.) Effectively this will cause prices to go up as a rationing mechanism (real estate prices, time spent in traffic, congestion pricing, toll roads, etc.) This will accelerate a cycle (already well underway) of changing land use patterns, and you get to a point where it's self reinforcing (people naturally want to protect their investments!) Use the clone stamp on these new 6 story apartment blocks a couple hundred more times and you start to get some real density. It's not like it hasn't been done in other car centric cities before. The climate isn't as awful as people make it out to be; people will walk when the infrastructure exists, it's a pleasant experience, and socially accepted among their peers. NIMBYs are a just a transition state. The heat of a reaction. But not the final product. The incentives ($) causing the changes they complain about are powerful enough to win in the end (See: Ashby.)

Hmm, I keep hearing rumors that the Greyhound terminal is moving to out of Midtown and into this area of the Woodlands.

A note for future reference: Shepherd to Main St. is 2.1 miles along Westheimer. Beyond Shepherd seems to have a wider ROW, a little past Kirby there is even an esplanade, and Elgin is 4 lanes plus turning lane. Isn't the county supposed to vote on spending $2B on freeways today?

Attitudes and cultural habits are shifting. And even Texas cities are going to become much denser in the urban cores over the next 30 years. Alot of young people today find the idea of a big suburban house with >1 cars per person as antiquated as a horse and buggy. These things are huge commitments that eat up valuable personal income and are anchors that chain a person to a specific place in an economy that increasingly requires mobility. Post-War America was the product of a very specific geopolitical and economic situation and brought into fashion alot of ideas that contradicted thousands of years worth of knowledge about human settlements. But much of this was created and marketed as a product and a lifestyle, without any regard to sustainability or long term quality of life over the lifespan of a city (hundreds or thousands of years -- think about how new Houston in that context). So, I don't think the current trend towards urbanity is anything new, but rather the predictable passing of a fad and reversion to the mean of what was carefully sorted out over hundreds of generations. Anyway, Houston and Dallas are already both in the top 5 statistical metro areas for population at 6m and 6.5m people. Austin and SA add another 2m a piece and completes a natural triangle. HSR from downtown to downtown isn't just viable, it's a prudent and proven solution. And these investments are cooperative; the more urban transit and intermodal connections exist, the higher the return on infrastructure investment. We've spent many decades now and trillions of dollars to build out our automobile infrastructure, expecting endless exponential improvements in automobile technology. But instead it's become incremental improvements -- a little better gas mileage, a little safer in a crash, etc. Perhaps we've reached a point of diminishing returns and re-open some settled questions.

If the Richmond line vastly overflowed the design capabilities when Houston is at 12 million people, you could add a parallel line down Westheimer, from UH all the way out to Westchase. Some areas of Westheimer would have to be reconstructed or lose lanes or parking, but that's the cost of progress when the population has doubled. As long as we're playing fantasy rail, I'd also like to see the Green (?) line continue down Washington, then turns south and goes down Shepherd/Greenbriar to the Rice Village, then cuts down Holcombe (or similar) to the TMC intermodal station.

Wow, I had no idea there were going to be elevated sections. Impressive! Now... about the blue line.........

Yes, it's a scar that forever separates downtown from midtown. First, divert all 45 through traffic around 610 and away from downtown. That would kill the main reason it exists -- it only has one or two exits. The remaining traffic would go around the North side of downtown using 59 and 10. Double deck freeways are a recipe for awfulness.

...

Oh boy. Here we go. I heard through the grapevine that they are moving the Greyhound terminal to The Woodlands, across from the new Anadarko Tower as part of the settlement to keep from being annexed. Newly released convicts will be dropped off next to the station, with a helpful map highlighting the most generous areas -- schools, retail parking lots, and high property value subdivisions.

I have been to the Sundance at least five times now. It is easily the best theater in town. The seats are large and comfortable, with a separation between pairs of seats. Validated parking. Also, no screaming children. This theater is the way movies are meant to be seen. In fact, I'm going again this week. I also frequently went to the Angelika for many years, but the upgrades Sundance made are significant.