woolie

In my zip code. Single family and townhouses, between 200-500k, built in 1995 or newer.

A: 67

OP: 8

PS: 13

P: 15

Total: 103

Restricting to the approximate official boundaries of my neighborhood. (Doesn't allow as fine grained A/OP/PS/P as above.)

A: 26

OP: 3

PS: 16

Total: 45

Land area for 77004 = 6.1 square miles

Land area for midtown = about 1.4 square miles

For your property, way out on the edge of the Earth...

77381 and 77382:

A: 74 + 93 = 167

OP: 19 + 25 = 44

PS: 27 + 34 = 61

P: 27 + 44 = 71

Total: 147 + 196 = 343

Land area for 77381 = 14.2 square miles

Land area for 77382 = 5.9 square miles

By chance, is your favorite band in the whole world Rush?

Not at all. I've been listening to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger albums all day.

Actually, you're right. I have never once been to Katy. So I'll just block it out of my mind, along with all the people dying in awful places all over the world.

Yes, but he has to account for the psychiatric bills associated with the mind-destroying, alienating experience of living in The Woodlands, versus the built-for-real-humans experience of The Heights. Can you put a price on sanity? I also didn't know that people in The Woodlands had 0 mile, 0 minute commutes.

Main St. used to have a really vibrant weekend night scene. I don't go to "clubs," but I did go all the time as a (hobbyist) photographer -- sidewalks at capacity with crowds. I've been a few times recently, and nothing like how it used to be. It did give me a bit of a sad. Probably for the best -- hopefully higher rents forced out the clubs, as they're large and unproductive spaces for most hours of the week. I'd rather see a restaurant or grocery than another bar. DT finally getting a foothold on better quality retail has surprised me over the past couple years.

Haha, well, I may be exaggerating just a little bit about my expectations for Kirby. But it's plain as day to anyone that it's one of the main areas of redevelopment in the city.

Anyway, I am going to take some time off from HAIF. It keeps getting in the way of some real work I need to finish. I'll be back soon.

Sounds like asking prices aren't high enough.

I'm sure your young and single

and I understand the burbs are far more boring to you, but maybe, just maybe as you get older, have a family, and have to worry about your finances a lot more, you may reconsider your point.

Hmm? I'm a married, and a homeowner. My finances are just fine. No kids, because we don't like kids.

I think this kind of development is sad anywhere -- in the far suburbs, in the loop, in Chicago, on Mars. It's about one kind of experience and one kind of development that ignores all local context and culture. It's boring because it's homogenous.

Your a clown... One thing I'll give you though, you've got thick skin. As ridiculed as you are on this forum you just keep coming back with dummer and dummer statements and it doesnt seem to phase you.

You're. Dumber. Now, for the accusations of ignorance, my hatred of the far suburbs springs from personal experience.

I wonder if I created a gallery of major "shopping center" developments in Houston, rotated the images, removed all the labels, etc. How many people could match them up with the correct locations? What if I used Google Street View plopped down in a parking lot. Could you even tell what part of the city you were in. Or even what city in the USA.

Calling it "Main Street" is somewhat deceptive, it invokes the wrong kind of imagery. This should be "Katy Freeway Frontage Road and Detention Pond Parking Lot Development with National Retail Tenants Totally Devoid of Any Character Whatsoever."

Has anyone in this thread ever been inside a planetarium?

Also, I don't drink alcohol, which limits the appeal of the concept

After we're all dead, or close to it.

Well, I'm still pretty young. But I'd be surprised if Kirby has many single-story retail left within 10-15 years.

Yeah, will be great. Probably all of Kirby from University to Westheimer will be like this someday.

Yeah, different crowds. When I see a film in the theater, it's because I'm excited about the content. I also really enjoy indie and foreign film. For theaters, I prefer something in an urban setting, without screaming kids and shameless marketing. So, I've been going to Angelika/Sundance for about 10 years as my "first pick theater".. it was already a great theater, and the Sundance renovations have made it into an exceptional theater. Edwards 24 is OK, but Sundance is an entirely different experience.

I've done "dinner and movie" concept before.. had a gift card to Studio Movie Grill. It wasn't something I enjoyed -- truly awful food and a bad atmosphere to watch a movie (although the movie, Hannah, was actually pretty good.. great soundtrack.) Anyway, it's hard to run a good restaurant and it's hard to run a good movie theater. It's too much to expect one establishment to excel at both simultaneously. I haven't been to Alamo, but I'm skeptical it can do much better.

I'm still excited about the development, though, even if I'll probably keep going to Sundance. These things draw good sized crowds. I always thought it was a shame that Edwards 24 had a great urban theater setup, draws huge crowds, but failed by not being part of a larger pedestrian area... alot of wasted potential.

Fitting design.

Glad I live in ahistorical bliss.

My figures were from the Wikipedia article for each zoo. I'm not saying our current zoo is too small. But could it benefit from being larger? Would a larger zoo provide more benefit than a golf course?

I imagine the major draws at zoos are the large mammals -- lions, tigers, zebras, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, hippos, pandas, and so on. These mostly plains animals need large enclosures, even if in total they are only a few % of the total species displayed. Even recently, the zoo opened a large new exhibit for primates.

Houston Zoo

55 acres

San Diego Zoo

100 acres

Fort Worth Zoo

64 acres

Columbus Zoo

580 acres

Bronx Zoo

265 acres

Audubon Zoo and Aquarium, New Orleans

58 acres

Philadelphia Zoo

42 acres

Phoenix Zoo

125 acres

Smithsonian National Zoological Park

163 acres

Baltimore Aquarium

6 acres

Houston hasn't run out of land. It's expanding West at 3/10ths the speed of light, according to some on this forum. But publicly own park land in the center of the city's amenities. Well, that's a pretty scarce resource.

Screen Shot 2012-05-24 at 3.53.05 PM by wools, on Flickr

Yeah, from the renderings, this is clearly going on the red lot above; the green lot will still be available for future high rises. Great news! And the new renderings look much better. Still not great, world-changing, visionary architecture.. but perfectly OK.

Also, amusing -- I guess they don't own that parking lot and no one would sell. It's in the renderings.

Somewhat

Often

Exceptionally / Excessively

Clearly

Regardless

If you walk on the golf course, I can absolutely guarantee that within a minute or two, someone will come along in a golf cart and escort you off the premises. I don't see how that helps anyone find an empty space to sit and be alone. Unless of course you make the investment in clubs, drive to the course, get a slot, and commit several hours to an organized group activity. Which isn't really the same thing as quiet open space, either.

...and fyi, Discovery Green is a nice new urban park downtown. It's just a regular park, and like most other parks, it has a name. Which happens to be Discovery Green. Since it's on a small site, it's carefully designed to accomodate many uses (programs) in a limited space. Unfortunately, for reasons that no one can understand, the city did not feel it was necessary to put a golf course on this 12 acre site.

There are already two other municipal golf courses inside the loop -- Memorial Park and Gus Wortham. Both of these are in more appropriate locations for a low-density/intensity recreational activity.

Hermann Park is in the very core of the city, adjacent to the very dense TMC, a major university, the tourist destination Museum District, and served by fixed route transit. I have been on the train hundreds of times and have never once seen a person carrying a set of golf clubs, despite the fact that the three stations servicing Hermann Park are heavily used. Yet, we've allocated 125 acres of prime urban park to this use. When the Hermann Park Golf Course was first laid out in 1922, it was a legitimately suburban area.