TheNiche

Nah, I'm going to stick with my frozen pizza and malt liquor diet.

Thank you for pointing that out. I didn't realize.

Yeah, I know about those near Fiesta. That's an exceptional case, involving former State Representative Hubert Vo. There was a lot of press over that a while back. Other buildings in that area are, as I described, Ike casualties needing fresh capital; hopefully they've found some since when I last toured them. The units that are operational, however, are in decent shape. As for duplexes and four-plexes, etc., that's a whole other bag of worms. Small scale and absentee landlords are a delicate flower. It's hard to comment on the appropriate course of action because the circumstances of these properties vary so completely.

Psst...it's to the left of Pasadena and Galena Park.

I know of a site on Bissonnet. All the sewer infrastructure you'd ever need is in place and it's close to parks and healthcare.

I can think of a handful of such complexes, but most of them were operating until Hurricane Ike and the financial crisis conspired in the very same moment to damage numerous complexes while simultaneously restricting access to capital to make the necessary repairs. But Mayor Parker's comments did not seem to be addressing these instances but rather cases where presently-occupied multifamily housing is blamed for dragging down a neighborhood...and actually, looking at them again, I don't think it was a flub on her part. It does kind of seem like the issue she's covertly addressing is that the desperately poor people in low-rent complexes are getting all up in the man's business....so to speak. Maybe she is just a Republican in lesbian's clothing, after all.

Consider all the different kinds of media there are. Published media would include newspapers, books and textbooks, magazines, scientific and academic journals, newsletters, music, software, video games, and websites. Broadcast media would include radio, television, and certain forms of web-based media. And then you have the film industry. Consider that newspapers and periodicals are undergoing a lengthy process of obsolescence and that what's left of them will be mostly web-based affiliations of bloggers, stacked upon a foundation of institutional AP/Reuters stories. Consider that music, television, radio, and film are undergoing simultaneous demassification in a way that is currently disruptive to their traditional business model. Mass media are an endangered species. If there's an opportunity to be sought after by a city or its leadership, it isn't likely to be big or sexy. It probably won't make our skyline or our city globally recognized as a media mecca. It'll be the sort of project that pulls together numerous niche media (mostly web-based) so that there is a successful geographically-specific collaborative community that exists virtually and physically. That's what success looks like to me in the 21st century: a resurgence of localism/regionalism. As for what's left of the mass media, there will probably always be a need for large news agencies that cover global and national politics, but they'll be fewer in number and concentrated in very large and wealthy urban areas, and in cities the are political capitals. These areas (particularly the northeast corridor) also happen to have multiple airline hubs in close proximity (although Atlanta and LA are also in decent shape by that metric). If there is any untapped mass media niche for Houston, it's probably going to be Latin America. We have geographic proximity, a large Hispanic population, probably the best air service to Latin America out of any US city, and yet we still retain the relatively stable and relatively less corrupted American legal system under which businesses based on intellectual property tend to thrive. Even still, Houston isn't the place where news or cultural happenings relevant to Latin America are originating; so there may be an opportunity, but it isn't one that I'd bet on. Your best bet is to ride the digitally demassified wave of unsexy localism.

Wow, nice links. There's a lot of fascinating reading, there. And perhaps not surprisingly, most of the destinations on my international travel wish list have very little light pollution. Mongolia, much of central Asia, and Australia in particular seem to pop out at me (although subsaharan Africa doesn't count, as usual).

There was a storm back in about 2004-ish that flooded out the trenched freeways and a lot of feeder roads and major thoroughfares during rush hour. Everything jammed up all over town, TranStar showed dozens of disabled vehicles, and trenched freeways were simply closed off. Emergency vehicles stuck to major thoroughfares and side streets because many of them were still passable, and with sirens on signals and stop signs don't matter...and the fewer vehicles that were in front of them could more effectively move out of the way than could thousands of motorists packed onto a grade-separated roadway. The next morning, most everything was back to normal. Obviously there is a need for ensuring that trenched roadways are graded to allow for adequate rates of runoff and obviously it's important to have sumps to keep the water from ponding on the roadway trenched roadways in typical downpours...but when it becomes apparent that a flood event is happening, it's nice that all we have to do is close the freeway and turn off the sumps. I'm not saying that we shouldn't count major thoroughfares and side streets as water detention capacity, but that's flood control of the last resort; immediately after those fill up, you have flooded neighborhoods.

Bear in mind, most of these employees are not headquarters employees. They also own 49 power plants, and a lot of these guys are on-site.

I'm not clear that the sperm ever fertilized the egg that it could possibly be aborted, much less that it ever lived that it might die.

You're comparing two things in the context of a big city, 1) a preference for viewing the night sky for recreational purposes, and 2) an individual's personal mandate that equine transportation be used as the sole mode of transportation, whether for recreational or commuter purposes, to any place that that individual would want to go. Some practical problems assert themselves on the equine analogy. For instance, the individual may not desire to go very many places or too far afield in a big city to begin with. Also, it presupposes that a small rural town would be more equine-friendly than would be a big city and that the individual would have anywhere in the small rural town that they would want to go. Compare the problematic equine analogy to the baseline scenario where an individual merely has a preference to be able to view stars in the night sky and acknowledges that there are multiple ways to fulfill that entirely aesthetic but also entirely achievable goal. Do you not see how these comparisons are weak?

I think that that was Attica's PC way of saying that my primary purpose on HAIF is to act as a logician/troll hell-bent on undermining preconceived notions of coolness and/or righteousness. And yeah, that's pretty close. Every now and then I'll tell you what I actually think. But most of the time, I'm just jacking with people who invoke bad logic to support their positions (using a logical system that is itself necessarily incomplete or inconsistent), or as in this case, trying to draw someone's opinion out into the open where I can attack it. It doesn't really matter who is right. At the end of the day, I am the spaghetti monster. The only thing that matters is that I am inexplicably delighted.

That's a false bifurcation, akin to GWB's claims that "You're either with us or against us." No. There's a third way. I don't care. Weak analogy.

It strikes me that freeways ought to be trenched in the most flood-prone places. Think of it as a multi-use detention pond. It's better to have a freeway flooded out for a day than it is to have a neighborhood flood for an hour. How does cut-and-cover reduce air pollution from cars? Tunnels have to be very well ventilated; otherwise passengers going through them asphyxiate. That can be a problem even in short low-capacity tunnels that don't congest (ex. the old tunnel between La Porte and Baytown). Also, invoking Boston's "Big Dig" as a justification for anything is generally not a good idea.

I thought that it was the Sports Authority that was still paying down the debt from constructing the Astrodome, using proceeds from hotel taxes.

As impressive as much of the data that he's brought to bear is, his presentation of comparative costs focused on cost per rider...not cost per ridden mile. And that acts to skew the data in light rail's favor, even though the average trip is going to be much shorter than commuter rail. For instance, perhaps it is OK if the cost per rider on commuter rail is ten times higher than the cost for light rail if the average commuter rail trip is ten times longer. ...or perhaps neither is sufficiently cost effective, and we really should concentrate on unsexy alternatives like freeways, major thoroughfares, buses, and HOV/HOT/P&R. I also take issue with him complaining that the Katy Freeway destroyed a transit corridor for two reasons: 1) he'd already acknowledged that HOV/HOT is fixed-guideway transit, and 2) TXDoT tried to accommodate METRO if they wanted commuter rail in the corridor but METRO failed to meet the project deadlines or otherwise to communicate their intent to develop that corridor. In general though, I do appreciate his point. It's not about technology; it's about effectiveness.

The HCHSA.

The City of Houston does not own the Astrodome. Also, according to my analysis based upon cost estimates from a Chronicle article, the net present value of demolition is less than that of mothballing the facility indefinitely. Unless the site is to be redeveloped, it doesn't make any sense For the Sports Authority to demolish the facility.

Nope. We couldn't say that. I didn't use any formal or informal logical fallacies in my arguments with C2H, whereas you did use an informal fallacy in your argument against me. I happen to believe otherwise.

You may reference my observations on this matter in this thread.

I'd like to point out that at around the same time as you posted this statement, you also stealthily modified someone's colorful yet inherently harmless expressions in the 'Big Head on Main Street' thread. You made the world a little bit more beige...and tried to cover it up until called out on it, whereas moderators are supposed to indicate when they've edited content (i.e. "Edited for inappropriate language"). I myself am not suggesting that the questionable content necessarily ought to be restored, but in light of your statements here and your actions in the other thread, the evidence would suggest that you're a hypocrite who can't seem to follow the rules. *facepalm*

He also evidently didn't pick up on the approximately thirty one metric tonnes of concentrated sarcasm.

Oh no, there's been an ad hominem attack upon us. Surely we will perish.

I'm pretty sure that the a was originally in brackets or parentheses, or otherwise indicated the double meaning. This was probably a stealth edit by an overzealous moderator trying to "make the world more beige."