woolie

Ugh. HOAs make me sick. At least government is theoretically accountable for its actions and ostensibly functions in a democratic manner. HOAs always make me think of the neighborhood gestapo.

Hi guys, I would have loved to make it to these meetings, but just too busy...

I got the lease!!!!!!! Move in May 1. It's great!!!

I've never felt afraid in DT Houston at night.

I was exposed to all of those things and more.. plays, opera, all the museums, the libraries, the parks, art movies, the architecture of Houston and Galveston, etc. And I still lived an hour away but had a family who really cared about their kids having proper cultural experiences when they were young. If they hadn't, and I didn't live close enough, I would have just been "sorry, out of luck."

I was being serious when I suggested Montrose/Heights/Bellaire. Houston has some really fantastic in-town neighborhoods of single family homes. Many people who break out of the suburban mindset and move into the city don't regret it at all. Your kids will be exposed to a much richer environment that afford them many more opportunities than some cul de sac in the middle of nowhere.

I believe the nuclear option is on the table. A MIRV could probably hit all Houston malls in one shot. My objection to the mall is purely architectural.

If you need any UNIX guru magic you can PM/email me. It's a small way I can contribute to the site.

We put in a lease application for 1315 Eagle. http://search.har.com/engine/dispSearch.cf...mp;backButton=Y I'm really excited. It does fit every single criterion I listed above. It's huge. NO carpet. OK kitchen. High ceilings. Crown moldings. Classic style. 2 good sized bedrooms. Formal dining room, very large living room. The bathroom is awesome: clawfoot tub. Ideal location, even if it's not as "nice" an area as Montrose, it is 3 blocks from the LRT stop so I can get to work quickly and easily. It is 3 blocks from the 59 onramp so my GF can get to work quickly and easily. It's across the street from Fiesta so I can purchase fresh produce every day, and Fiesta tends to have great produce, and that particular one has been remodeled. We used to shop at it when we lived in the area previously. The only concessions I've made are: it has window units instead of central air. Of course I'd like Central but it's not a huge deal. I've lived 23 out of my 24 years with window units and area heaters. Parking is on-street... no big deal. It is close to an elevated section of 59, but compared to our old place -- which was ON 288 and N MacGregor == Ambulance Alley... the noise level was within reasonable levels, and certainly MUCH less than our old place. The only thing I'm worried about is that this is our first leased apartment, and my GF hasn't been at her job very long... we don't have any "bad" credit, though, so... sigh. Makes me a little nervous.

I'm glad to see such level headedness prevail in this thread. When I saw the thread title, I just knew it was going to head straight into an orgy of nationalism. Nationalism invariably leads to terrible, terrible things.. it should be fought at all costs. I thought it'd be sparked by some offhand commend about 'illegals' or 'arabs', like some other theads in this section. But thankfully nothing of the sort happened. And, yeah, about supermarkets... the supermarket resembles the 'market' in the same way a cancerous tumor resembles its original tissue. Food in many other countries is fresher, less pesticides, tends to be tastier because varieties are chosen for taste instead of industrial-scale production, locally grown, etc., etc. Of course I'm not going to say American food is less safe than say, a market in Senegal, but compared to say, Japan, France, Spain, places that people take their food very seriously...

Get a bungalow in Montrose, the Heights, or Bellaire, send your kids to HISD magnet schools... but that's just me, and is nothing close to your stated interests. But try it, you might like it!

Good question; who owns most of those galleries? However, I can imagine those particular blocks have had astronomical price pressure for a long time now, and yet no townhouseblocks.

I think I may have found the *perfect* place in midtown, across from the Fiesta. From the pics, I'm in love already, just wondering what the 'catch' is. I have an appointment to view it at 2pm, we'll see how it turns out.

There are plenty of places worth living outside of Houston, TX. I expect to explore the opportunity in the future. Sure I grew up in the Houston area. I grew up in the United States. But I also grew up on Earth. What level do I owe my allegiance to?

These are all characteristics of the ideology of Liberalism.. the US was the first experiment in this doctrine, but people should realize it's not the only example. Most of what we call the 'Western World' follows more or less the same philosophy and all the criteria mentioned here apply to varying degrees. So, yes, I'm proud of the triumph of Liberalism. But as I said earlier, I don't have any nationalistic attachment to the United States. Don't forget the US has its fair share of skeletons in the closet... any number of official actions in our history are outright betrayals of our political ideology... so to me, most of the Western Democracies are more or less equal in terms of appeal. I'd have no objection to moving out of the US tomorrow morning if my work took me someplace exciting and new.

I'm not sure I can answer that question; there's going to be some lag, but I don't know enough to put a value on it. If your question is really, "Can a rapid construction programme to build nuclear/wind/solar energy save us, or will the CO2 emissions from construction amount to the same net effect in the short term?" the answer is definitely yes/no, respectively. It is perfectly possible to have a first-world, Western way of life with 1/3rd to 1/4th the emissions per capita of the US. How do I know? The US is about 20 tons person/year... France, Switzerland, are about 6 tons person/year... and this is without any actual attention paid to CO2 emissions. The bulk of this is due to high % of nuclear power or hydro power, increased transit use, and more efficient autos. I think you could bump down to 3-4 tons or less with serious CO2 reduction efforts. Any short term emissions from replacing our fleet of coal/gas plants would pay healthy dividends.

Even with total life cycle analysis, nuclear is still by far results in the least CO2 emissions per kWh. from IAEA http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf100.html The best internal combustion engines have efficiency somewhere in the range of 30%, 70% of the energy is lost to waste heat and entropy. Electric drivetrains have efficiency in the 85-90% range... so it's not even close. Sooo... Let's take a car with 35 MPG 1 BTU = 1055 joules 1 joule = 2.77

I don't have issue with the concept of satellite cities -- the entire East and West coasts are just collections of satellite cities -- but I think the implementations in Sugarland, Kingwood, Pearland, etc., don't really fit the definition despite the efforts to shoehorn 'town centers' into them. Sugarland in particular, from what I've experienced of it, is just a jumble of independent 'master planned communities' of tract homes on cul de sacs. When I think of city -- regardless of the density, small towns are a valid city form -- I think mixed use of land, a grid-like street system with redundancy, less segregation of incomes (and by extension, race/religion) than exists in master planned communities, tree lined streets with working sidewalks, a retail and commercial center not dominated by a single landlord with homogenized, safe, franchised national tenants, etc. etc. Oh, and the absence of Walmart. I grew up in a small town, Angleton, which really drives home the difference between the small town 'satellite city' and the master planned suburb. We lived two blocks from downtown in a walkable community (my dad walked to his office and the courthouse), and even some retail was still operational in the downtown (grocers, video store, restaurants, etc). Oh, and the library was 1 block away. Angleton has a regular street grid, no cul de sacs. It has a standard amount of tract homes, but they were built integrated into the rest of the community, and not as isolated megablocks with a single entry/exit and a gate. I went to a high school that was 40/30/30 anglo/black/hispanic, as well as income diversity. Most of the streets were mature and lined with trees. Most streets had usable sidewalks and enough shade to make walking a reasonable idea. The experience of living in that kind of town, which probably also has considerably higher (although still low) density than Sugarland... it doesn't compare. The Woodlands and Clear Lake are somewhat better and at least pay lip service to the idea of functioning as independent entities with some provision for walking/biking. They are closer to the small town/satellite ideal.

It varies by region because of the differing mix of electricity sources. Coal emits approx. 2lbs/kWh, gas about 1.3 lbs/kWh, nuclear and hydro obviously 0. Nuclear/hydro typically consist of about 20% and 10% respectively, but again, varies by region. You allude to "Total Life Cycle Carbon Emissions Analysis" but this is something of a red herring and very contentious issue in the energy community. It is because the energy used to construct new plants doesn't necessarily have to come from CO2 emitting sources, even if it customarily has. It's an argument used to present nuclear plants as CO2 emitting in a Catch 22 situation: construction of nuclear plants supposedly emits CO2 because there aren't enough nuclear plants.. anyway, it's best to just focus on Operational Emissions of CO2. The US average is somewhere around 1.5 lbs/kWh. I'm not sure the % nuclear power Houston gets, Reliant doesn't have those figures on their website. This is a 1999 report; changes since then are primarily increase in Coal/Gas, with nuclear/hydro stagnant: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/p.../co2report.html http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pecss_diagram.pdf Electrified transport is much more efficient than gas transport, even when you take into account transmission losses, storage losses, etc. Large turbines are simply much, much more efficient than piston gas engines.

Yes, I work in the TMC at BCM. Can you send me a pic or two?

The majority of the world soldiers on despite such inhospitable conditions....

Most of those townhomes are not particularly large; depending on the price range they're targeting, they seem to be in the 1500-1800sf range. Many of the entry level ones are 1200sf. There are larger ones in the 2000-3000sf range, but those are 300k+. Of course as land values ITL continue to increase, we'll be seeing fewer and fewer 2000+ homes, even at higher prices. I like the bungalow, but blocked townhouses are 3-4x as dense as even this relatively dense form.

Houston as it existed pre-freeway and with a population of a couple hundred thousand is remarkably close to what I'd consider a good, sustainable urban form for this region. I like alot of much higher density as well, the kind that has never existed in Houston and unlikely ever will, but I think that Houston in the 20's is a good model for how it can exist again in the future. Bungalows on relatively small lots, an extensive street car system, an adequate downtown, interurban rail, etc. I think this is a much more sustainable model, even if it consists mostly of detached single family homes on lots. I don't think the far suburban, freeway centric model will be sustainable when rapid increases in gasoline prices inevitably arrive. And that's just in terms of transportation and energy requirements... I also think it fails on other grounds as well, but those are more matter of taste I suppose. I think some of the Canadian cities (Toronto) provide a good model of the compromise that can exist between traditional, high density urban forms and Houston-style single family neighborhoods.