skyphen

houston already has this. go to woodridge and 45south. there's an elderly man who takes the bus down from eastwood with his violin and over-the-shoulder amp and plays in the intersection.

Is there more than just a man?

I wrote in and suggested other names, but I think HMU works. Other cities like NYC, SF, and Denver have a Metropolitan College or City University. I think these names accurately reflect the institutions' mission statements and their respective student bodies.

Oh wait, I thought I read here they changed it to Houston Metropolitan U, but then reading again it doesn't seem like it?

The comment about the showerheads for Jones Plaza was right on point! That's exactly what it reminds me of.

sigh, I suspect you're right. But when it comes to urban 'vibrancy' don't we really mean 'more people' ? 100 people in a square eating sausage on a stick and watching clowns make animal balloon looks busier, and therefore better (especially in brochure photographs) than 10 people buying locally grown micro greens and cutely packaged cheese.

I cannot give up on my downscale, downtown food cart dream.

I like this vision, and the beggar musicians, Jackson Square, all of it. That's exactly what we need. Houston has so many great artists and talented people. The city is really squandering an opportunity, missing the boat on not exposing them to a wider audience, although it has gotten better at doing so over the past few years. Disco Green has been a big step in the right direction as far as that goes.

Is there a plan to make downtown upscale? I hope not. Downtown should be for the people, all people. "Downtown" should not be "Uptown."

But $18,000,000,000? That's huge. Aren't there ridership projections? I would doubt that the DFW to San Antonio would be cost-justified. The phrase "it would be nice" comes up a lot about this train, but is it really worth it? I could think of a lot more "it would be nice"s which cost a lot less but would still benefit Texas.

Really? San Antonio is one of the most visited and most beloved weekend getaway Texas cities. I think it would be well traveled.

I'm very excited about this project. With the distances between cities in Texas, it's long overdue.

Very nice!

Yeah, I think they own the house Inprint is in, right across the street.

Just to be sure I'm following, so essentially the greenspace that will be reclaimed is the median, correct?

I think his point is that most people's first impressions come from the freeways when visiting Houston. It's not as if we have any real mass transit, so the view outsiders get is always going to be our tacky and dilapidated freeway scenery. Many visitors (especially those on business or convention trips) will fly into IAH or Hobby and drive directly to their hotel and then their meeting locations. Many of them either aren't aware or won't have the time to investigate the nicer parts of Houston, which are almost always a good distance from the freeways and the cornucopia of trashy consumerism that uglify them.

I personally don't find Las Vegas to be the least bit attractive. The only advantage Phoenix has is the newness and lack of mold and mildew sullying everything due to their dry climate. In Houston, we tend to build on the cheap, and these cheap buildings tend to look pretty bad after just a few years of dealing with the often humid climate.

I think the trees will definitely help soften the view from the freeways, but you could also argue that business owners could take more pride in the appearance of their facilities. People tend to want to frequent the bigger, cleaner and nicer gas station or furniture store than the dilapidated one, so perhaps the natural progression of demand and development will do away with the uglier ones over time. The one thing I'd really like to see is an ordinance to control the commercial signs. As others have pointed out, this visual blight smothers the view from the freeways more than any of the buildings.

(north freeway pic from texasfreeways.com)

Your point about the lack of mass transit jumped out at me and made me think... Yes, it's the view from the freeways that gives Houston the ugly label, but I've got a theory. As others have pointed out, many other cities have this same type of blight. It may be more excessive in Houston, but why is it that other people don't mention these blighted areas so much when they visit these other cities? I think it's that Houston doesn't have a single common destination that visitors gravitate to. Think about it. In Austin, tourists go to Sixth Street. In San Antonio, it's the Riverwalk and Alamo. In New Orleans, it's the French Quarter. Maybe Dallas's West End or Deep Ellum areas. I don't know if they are still in use? Regardless, I think the experiences people have in these entertainment districts helps to mitigate the blight or ugliness the city may have by taking the focus away from it. People remember their time in the touristy areas, how they looked, how they were treated, what a fun time they had. They don't remember the ugly drive on the way in or out. Houston doesn't have an entertainment district. All we have is us! When folks come to visit us, we can direct them to a few places, or drive them around ourselves to places we know, but it's not the same thing. And in all that driving on the freeways they're just seeing more blight. Sure, there's Kemah and the Museum District, but look at how far-flung these places are from each other. So maybe the answer is that Houston needs to become more tourist-friendly by highlighting (and improving) an existing area, or areas, and promoting it/them as the "entertainment district," or create one from scratch. Having a common tourist destination would help people forget about "the miles and miles of ugly."

Well, will you looky there? This thread has made Houstonist.

http://houstonist.com/2009/01/06/miles_and_miles_of_ugly.php

From last Friday; people ice skating and playing in the water, only in Houston.

Very nice pics!

On second thought, thanks for reminding me of why I live ITL! You pretty much prove my point with your mindless ranting. You obviously have an axe to grind.

lets be honest how could someone possibly win a "debate" with someone that is so skilled they toss out the race card in the debate.....we all know the bleating of those that cry racism is the end all winning argument of any debate.....well done you should be proud of what you have "accomplished" and all it has "helped" woo these many years......we should get you a statue next to tawana sharpton and reverend funbaby jackson

you are right all parents should just ignore the quality of schools they send their kids to or the overall performance of the schools because this whole "grading" thing has lead this country down the gutter and proper English and math skills are so over rated in society anyway

I mean really who can argue for caring about a kids education.....look how much better off those people and areas that care nothing about it are......they get free government lunches, welfare, section 8, reduced utilities, WIC, AFDC, and some are even so lucky they get to go to a place where they are told what to do for 23 hours out of 24 in a day while they get free food and TV......I can see YOU HAVE A DREAM!

I'm not debating you specifically because you didn't even read my posts. You read what you wanted into them and continue to put words into my mouth that I did not say.

As for the racism, I believe it was you who wrote "chiwen axe for foo" or something to that effect. Yeah, not racist at all, you.

Give me a break.

well has it ever occurred to you that not all parents or kids desire to go to a magnet school....because some people GASP just have regular kids that have no idea what they want to be in life when they are 14-15 years old or they have no desire to be ONLY that and just want to go to a normal local NEAR BY high school with an overall quality education....and possibly....I am about to say it....play on sports teams as well

and possibly some parents don't desire to be a part of thinly veiled acceptance of poor performance by sending their kids to a magnet school that is designed to cover up for the overall poor performance of the school it is attached to or to be a part of overt racism that seems to think that some students can't, won't, or shouldn't be held to the same standards of education solely because of the color of their skin

you claim racism like so many others...but when one looks at the stats a HUGE number of inner city schools are HORRIBLE.....and filled with crime, gangs, teen pregnancy, high dropout rates, and drugs...it is not exclusive to them, but who in the hell would CHOOSE that just to sooth the feelings of a few dolts on this forum.....you seem to be the one caught up on the race of those poor performing parents and their poor performing chilwren.....maybe you are the racist.....if schools with huge numbers of gangs, non English speaking students, violence, drugs, and pregnant students were performing at least EQUAL to or above grade level and had the same or lower drop out rates then possibly your race baiting MIGHT hold water because then one could wonder why parents choose to avoid better performing schools (other than the gangs, drugs and safety of course )......but you the racist seems to feel that kids performing at a much lower level (and again all the other social issues) is acceptable as long as one can use skin color as an excuse....who is REALLY the racist....and a few magnet schools tossed about here and there is just pandering that only fools and closet race baiters and racial excuse makers (the real racist) find acceptable

the ship channel can't be located inside the loop, or nasa, or petrochemical plants, or every large office building....nor can the people that serve all those things....which means only a total and complete FOOL would think that inside the loop is the ONLY place to live

Great debating skills you have there.

I hope you feel better after directing your second rant to me. Maybe it's time for a nappy-nap?

you know what a lot of people in Texas hate....is when someone from the north or California comes here and tells us how they all do it back home...and then talks about how good it all was there....and then bashes the suburbs.....and then when you ask them what it was like living in south Chicago or East LA they look at you like you are crazy and proceed to tell you what lilly white white flight area they lived in...it really makes you want to ask them if things were SO GREAT THERE then why the hell did they move here and why the hell don't they go back wherever they came from if it was all so great....and why did they not live in south Chicago, East LA, East St. Louis, or Gary Indiana when they lived in what ever "great" place they moved here from.....maybe if all these yankee idiots did not move to Texas we would not have so much sprawl!

and yes is is SO SNOBBY to desire that your child goes to school in an area that is SAFE and where the kids and parents value education instead of only getting into race based diversity crap while their "chilwren axe a foo" and read 3 or four grades below their level, can't speak proper English, or perform basic math, and have chilwren when they are still chilwren.....God forbid we look down on what is dragging society into the gutter.....next you would think some suburban snob might have the audacity to look down on drunken bums and prostitutes roaming school grounds and gang fights and shootings at schools!

Yes, I know some people in Texas hate that. Who did that, and what does it have to do with my post?

It is so snobby to ASSUME only schools in the suburbs are great, and only parents there care about their kids' education. Houston has some great magnets and neighborhood schools. I get really sick of the HISD-bashing and blanket generalizations based on thinly-veiled racism that the schools aren't as good, because it just isn't true. Not all the schools in the suburbs are great either.

Well, I'll tell you what I hate most about suburbs in Texas. How much driving it takes and the sight off the freeways between here and there. In Chicago and other cities up north where they actually have zoning and planning, the suburbs aren't so drastically different and offer such a drastically different way of life like they do here. Too much distance and too much ugliness between wherever "here" is and wherever "there" is. I minimize that by staying in my little ITL bubble. Also, the streets out there are confusing... there seems to be more of a grid here. So it is not suburbs I hate, per se, it's the way they are designed and how far they are from everything of interest to me here in Texas.

I also hate some of the superior suburban attitudes that associate anything the city with bad, dirty, dangerous, and poor... the people, the schools... The snobbery goes both ways.

I think its a smart idea they didnt place too much access on the street. This way they can better manage the seedy types and what not.

Actually, if anything, having it enclosed and hidden like it is would have the opposite effect. If the stores were open and facing the street, they would be more visible to cars and pedestrians passing by, and to cops, if anything shady were going on. I would hate to be a young girl working late in one of those stores the way they have it now. Having it enclosed does very little to add to the street-level vibrancy of the area, which I'm more concerned about than "seedy types."

Does anything scream "I LIVE IN THE SUBURBS" more than the use of "seedy types?"

Niche is right on this one. The idea of getting rid of these signs is DOA because of the First Amendment

I don't understand this argument. Did other cities that don't have this issue violate the first amendment in getting rid of the signs? That doesn't seem likely.

What Denver did right was build the retail at street level on a pedestrian only street (with the exception of a free bus that drives up and down the corridor). The stores in the Houston Pavilions seem kind of tucked away like in a typical mall, so you're not encouraged to go there unless you actually intend to shop. While on one hand I'm glad to see any retail in DT, I do think they really made a mistake in not opening it up a bit and providing a place for more than just shopping. I still think Houston needs more pedestrian-friendly places that feel public and urban rather than more private commercial places you feel trapped inside of.

I couldn't quite put my finger on what was bothering me about this development, but that's it exactly. The lack of street level access. I will patronize and support it anyway, but that was certainly a missed opportunity. It sort of reminds me of the MarqE on I-10 and Silber.

I'm not even talking about billboards, I think a ban on those could pass. Those are pure advertising. But companies who put signs up to indicate their location? Never gonna happen. Fast food joints need that, and those are big companies that will fight the hell out of anything like that trying to get passed.

Maybe one solution is to use highway signs like you see once you leave the city, like on the way to Conroe, that announce the exit number with the list of restaurants and gas stations coming up? It could just be a matter of having uniform signs like these that are tasteful and not so noticeable and gaudy, instead of business having all different shapes, sizes, fonts, designs like now. Or just have no signs at all. How do other cities solve this problem?

The Corkscrew on Washington was open yesterday when I drove by.

Pretty amazing and scary watching this online. They're saying that 40% of the people in Galveston have stayed on. What are they thinking?

The mayor really shouldn't waited so long to issue a mandatory evacuation. Maybe that made some island residents feel Ike's not going to be that big of a deal?

I'm getting kinda antsy and nervous, questioning this decision to "hunker down." People west of downtown in the Heights/Montrose area near bayous shouldn't be too concerned about flooding and storm surge, right? Right?

Great suggestions.

I'd add more public space, an urban park along the lines of Discovery Green. Someplace that would contribute to and nurture the identity of the area because it's getting lost. A place for people in the neighborhood and beyond to congregate. There'd be regularly scheduled festivals, live music, book fairs, farmers markets, neighborhood block parties, and other events. I'd wipe out that whole block at Montrose and Westheimer anchored by Half Price Books and plop it down right there. Maybe that block beside it with the Hollywood Video, too, or the Disco Kroger. It could move across the street where Walgreens is. There's a CVS right up the street anyway. I'd maybe call it Montrose Square Park. It would bring Montrose back to life and add some much-need vibrancy to this city. This is what is missing from Montrose and other Houston city neighborhoods. This is what Austin and other cities are doing right and Houston is doing wrong.

Oh yeah some people get them confused. And even more people think the school is part of UH system, you know...with UH Clear Lake, UH Sugar Land, UH Victoria...

I say change the name. How about Houston City University?

It is a part of the UH system.

They could call it University of Houston at Allen's Landing, or University of Houston at Buffalo Bayou.

This was presented on this forum a while ago and I think it's a few years out, however Lovett has been doing a lot of work on a few buildings that front Washington Avenue.

Is that a bookstore I see? That would be great. A bookstore is sorely needed around here.