Gary

This is a great point. Houston was largely built after WWII which constitutes an auto friendly city. I'm sure most here know about Ike's highway system across the country during this time, which obviously had a huge impact on how the newer cities were designed. Also, I grow weary of constantly hearing about how other cities build there infrastructure. Could Houston have done a better job? Of course. Could we take some lessons on how to plan in the future? Obviously. That being said, the Houston area's issues with non restricted growth is what makes this city unique. As far as becoming more Urban, were getting there. That being said, let's not try to change the things that made this city what it is. That's not to say we can't continue in learning from others, however I'll bet there are alot of cities who wish they had what Houston has, a bright future.

Personally I think Adams encompasses both. As far as Jeff Fisher is concerned I agree that Bud won't let him go, he's not quite that stupid. I've watched Fisher since he was with Buddy Ryan and he is a fantastic coach, especially defensively. Further, he creates an atmosphere where his players want to play for him and that's a huge deal in the long run. I think Johnson is a damn good coach but I think Fisher fits the city of Houston better.

"Will it spread west torward Greenway Plaza". This is a great point. I've always wondered why this area seemed, well a little dead. It seems to me that it would be ripe for residential developement considering it's close proximity to pretty much everything. I believe I did read (on haif) that there was a large residential project in the area. I think it was in an existing commercial building.

Yeah I wen't by the building site a couple of weeks ago and it looked completely abandoned. This makes no scense if they were still moving forward.

Citykid, although Houston may not be booming it has put quite a few residential towers in the last 5 or 6 years. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but I've counted about 10 towers over this time. My point is that were not teetering on the edge of the planet about to fall off.

I was Downtown Sunday afternoon and the sign and trailer (Shamrock) were still there.

As Red said there are Astros games, Rockets games, and conventions galore. Speaking of conventions, I'm sure it won't hurt matters much when the Pavillions go up and those staying at the Hilton can walk right over to the area. Also as far as DT being dead, I challenge semipro to spend a Saturday night on Main Street. Last time I was there, there must have been 15,000 people over the evening. And news flash.... There were no Astro or Rocket's games. DT Houston Dead, Houston slow in developing? I think not.

Two Greenway Plaza At 2 Greenway Plz. https://www.greenwayplaza.com/two-greenway-plaza/ https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/2-Greenway-Plz-Houston-TX/18726857/

I love shots of Uptown, I wish there were more available. Question: Where did you get these Uptown pics and is there a way to get a little bit larger file than the small ones posted?

I just got back from playing in ATL at the Eartlink Live arena, and spent close to a week touring the city. I did most of my touring on the MARTA rail which was conveniant, but was old and dirty. I was not impressed at all except for the fact that it wasn't stopping at traffic signals like METRO does. METRO while obviously newer is much cleaner in design and the stations are far superior in cleanliness. My hotel was in Midtown with a great view. I was able to walk to a few places but the city wasn't very walkable. On top of that all of the eateries would close by 7:00pm, it was a real pisser. I spent a day in Buckhead walking around and taking some pics of the buildings and i have got to say that this area is the most overrated uptown ever. It was a glorified business park, and I'm not exagerating. I was very dissapointed. It was almost impossible to find anything to eat or even drink,and the atmosphere was very blah. I spent one evening walking in Midtown which was completely uneventful as the place shut down by 7:00pm, (see above). I will say that ATL's Midtown is very cool at night with all of it's buildings being iluminated, something Houston should take note of in my opinion, but all in all it was very boring. Edit: Maybe I should read the top post more carefully, this wasn't about the eat out capitol. Derrrrr! Downtown was also fairly boring, it had a few clubs (peachtree) but was nothing to write home about. Now the arena we played in (Eartlink Live in Midtown) was pretty cool but did not hold a candle to the Verizon in Houston, it was also smaller. Houstons is better layed out, cleaner and is in a much cooler part of town. Again it was very difficult to get food in ATL, they don't have a restaurant on every corner like Houston. The restaurants we did go to (mainly on Peachtree) suffered in the food catagory. The cuisine was nominal and was very "Chile's" like. We couldn't find Tai, vietnamese or the like, so we settled for burgers or quesadilas most of the time. The cities culture was very segregated and small town like. Any place we went was either white or black, there was almost no mixing of races at all. Don't get me wrong I'm not asking a city to mix if they choose not to but it made ATL smaller in my eyes. It deffinately did not have the cultural diversity of Houston, not even close. ATL is a decent city but imo it is highly, and I say again highly overrated. There was trash on a lot of the streets, the nightlife was subpar and the design of the city is way to spread out. In fact as I mentioned before regarding Buckhead, the majority of the business districts came across as glorified business parks. I'm a little pasionate about this now because of how excited I was to finally have the time to tour the city I always heard so much about. I had been to ATL at different times before, but did not have the time to tour. In other words I was very dissapointed in my trip there. Maybe it's because ATL is pumped so much in the media that I gained a false impression of what the city was really like. One positive is that the show sold out and the crowd was very good. So City Kid, I assure you that Houston has nothing to fear from Atlanta in just about every catagory except it's landscape. Houston feels and acts like a BIG city, ATL feels and acts like an up and coming city that is trying to prove it's with the big dogs. Trust me it's not. In fact Dallas blows out ATL imo. Oh, I forgot what the thread was about, eat out capitol of the south. I agree that Houston is not a southern city but even if it was, there is no chance in hell that ATL touches it in this catagory. The cuisines here are on a diffrent planet that that of ATL's, and from what I've seen that's a non debateable statement.

Is 3400 Montrose the 10 or so story building next to Krogers? If so it used to be a jazz bar called Cody's back in the late 80's. I had some friends who played there (New Toys/Paul English) and we went to see them when we were playing in Houston. This was one of the coolest bars I've ever been in as the back drop of the stage was downtown. It was really spectacular. I remember that it also had two balconies outside, one was very large and held about 45 or 50 people while the other was quite small but quaint. Both had great views of Downtown. I also remember that you would ride an elevator from the ground to the top, and the elevators opened right into the club. It was kind of shocking. anyway if that's the place it was one cool club.

It's funny you mentioned Federated, I didn't know they were in Houston. I used to live off of Sunset and Lebrea (LA) and there was a huge Vegas like Federated there. They had this crazy blond haired guy who did all the commercials.

I have in laws and friends throughout the Austin area and most of them hate what's happening to the city. They say traffic is horrible and the culture is slowly changing to a big city feel. I have no feelings either way as I love Austin, however last time I was up the traffic was pretty bad.

Yeah it already going up. Went by while at Uptown Park Friday.

I went by the Orion again on Sunday and the construction fence was open. There was no major equipment there but there were two excavated areas at different levels. There were a cfew trucks inside but knowone was to be found. The only thing that worried me a little was the last two times I've gone by the entrance drive to the sales office has been blocked by debree.

I went to the building site last Friday and they had the construction fencing up and excavation had begun. The only thing that worries me a little was there were no trucks and no workers present.

To be fair I have to agree with citykid on this one. That Mervins does look a little out of place.

That's a good point but why can't we have both?

Sorry to copy the entire post above but this was my thinking when I started the thread, Velvetj just elaborated better than I did. Maybe I'm wrong but I agree that Houston doesn't seem to be setting the bar high enough anymore. The architecture that I used to be in awe of is no longer being constructed and cities like Atlanta are putting up great buildings. In fact I visited ATL last year and was very impressed with the architecture. There new developments blew ours out of the water. I hate to reiterate but it seems that the city doesn't care about what goes up, where it goes up, or even if it does go up.

Yeah that's a good point. I visit a friend from time to time in Louisville and we have to drive 20 minutes just to get beer (dry county), let alone getting a bag of chips at the local store. I've always said that since moving here I've never been to a more conveniant city than Houston.

Just ate at Goode Co on I-10 and it was fantastic. The chopped beef had 0 fat in it and the sauce had a slightly spicy, yet sweet flavor to it. I'll be back.

These are all good points and a learning experience for me, still it seems as if theres not that one guy or organization that comes across as LOVING HOUSTON. I understand business and the fact that it's mainly about a profit but again, where are the world class projects this city used to foster?

I just finished reading the latest posts on the apparant fate of the Shamrock and it got me to thinking. Where are the business people with great vision in this town? Why aren't those like Jim Macinvale investing in huge projects? Why do they seem to invest only enough to get by? The little I do know about Houstons history shows extreme vision on the part of men like Hoffeinz etc. These were men that loved this city and wanted to see it leep over other cities with one fell swoop. Houston has so much potential and I just can't understand why no local has taken the reigns to push it to the next level.

I just put some wood floors in and looked at the bamboo, it was fantastic. It's harder than oak and much more dense, although with this comes very expensive cost per square foot. The bamboo I looked at was about an inch thick and simply beautiful. It had different stains and the finish was a pristine gloss. I wished I could have afforded it but I ended up with oak.

Good post.