memebag

As to what to do with funding, I'm sure there are projects much closer to the city center that could provide benefit to many more people. Yes, as Niche said lots of people live out there and will use it, but do many many more not live inside the beltway and loop who could benefit from other projects?

Probably not. Look at population density curves and maps for Houston; we're remarkably flat and evenly distributed.

The "i" does give it a certain Apple-esque or high-tech sound.

Eh. It sounds late 90s and a little pathetic to me.

I see that some inner loop HAIFers want sprawl killed, but had it not been for sprawl, we wouldn't have the neighborhoods that some of these anti-sprawlers live in and admire like the Heights (the first suburb and master planned community in Houston), and Riverside Terrace (the first area community built with the automobile in mind) among others.

Without sprawl, a bunch of inner loopers wouldn't be able to afford their current digs. Sprawl drains the population density, which reduces the cost of living in the center of town. Just imagine what it would cost to live inside the loop if everyone had to live there for some reason.

Another benefit of building roads to enable sprawl is the reverse commute. Businesses like to sprawl, too, and that gives a lot of people the opportunity to live close to cultural and entertainment hubs and work on the edge without sitting in traffic.

All hail sprawl!

Is that Los Lobos?

No, that's Orson Welles, in cognito.

Jesus, when did they get so old? Oh, wait.....

Yeah, it was probably about the same time we got so old.

What's being torn down to build this?

Wait. did TheNiche just say he likes hairy women?

BJ Services (482)

4,802.4

Uh ... hu-hu-hu-huh.

What bothers me is that in the long run, Houston will likely have to fight harder and harder just to keep up with the likes of Dallas and Atlanta.

Do we win something if we beat them?

easier to make money if you're a developer

... because so many people want to sprawl!

Oh, I see. So people who don't share your lifestyle preferences should be deprived of infrastructure, the funds then reallocated to projects nearer where you live so that people more like yourself can benefit instead.

Yeah, that makes total and complete sense.

Yeah, but at least he's being honest about it.

Yes. There are more places to live further in, why would you assume that every time someone moves, it is further away from the center of the city? Building things like GP farther out can only encourage people to move farther out. Thus, this encourages sprawl, whether you are for or against sprawl doesn't matter.

I'm not saying everyone moves farther out, just that lots of people want to move farther out. If they didn't we wouldn't have sprawl. Roads can enable sprawl, but people have proven they will sprawl without them.

Roads don't make sprawl. People do.

EDIT: just keep saying "sprawl" to yourself over and over. It gets hard, that is a strange, funny word.

I must be saying it wrong. Nothing got hard.

Doesn't this make a huge assumption that people who will move on that stretch of GP would have otherwise moved further out on one of the spokes? It's equally likely they would have moved further in, so I'm not buying that this reduces sprawl.

It is? I thought cities sprawled because, overall, people prefer sprawl. That's the bit ignored by so many urban planners. A whole bunch of people really like big cheap houses with big yards and long drives.

Sprawl will continue as long as the economy can support it. This stimulus money should be sprawl-neutral.

The example had nothing to do with inflation; it was an explanation of my earlier correction of your erroneous use of accounting principles.

In my example, they paid off their credit card at the end of the month, thereby not incurring any interest expenses. In the event of high rates of inflation, they came out ahead in the example only because they expeditiously converted depreciating assets in the form of Dollars to an asset with increasing nominal market value and a stable real market value relative to all other goods. This is related to the concept of shoeleather costs, one of the drawbacks of high inflation.

I'm still unable to figure out what this has to do with my first post.

Look at a credit card transaction where someone buys a $10 hammer. At the register, they take on $10 of debt to their credit card company, and they also receive ownership of a hammer. The debt is a liability, the hammer is an asset. When someone uses debt to make a purchase, they get both. If they pay off their credit card bill in full at the end of the month, then they reduce another category of assets, in the form of cash, and also reduce their liabilities.

These are pretty basic accounting rules.

But what does it have to do with inflation? If the inflation rate passes their credit card interest rate, they come out ahead by not paying for that hammer.

Can you get by on a big toaster oven until the big refurb? I could and did until I got married.

I would challenge your assumption. Most of us have more assets than debts; we use liabilities in the form of debt to purchase assets, dollar for dollar. Surely there are exceptions, and they are a problem, but they are not the norm.

We do what?

Nevertheless, I agree with your conclusion.

Well then, nevermind.

If you have more debts than assets (and most of us do), then inflation is your friend. It means you get to pay those suckers who loaned you money with money that's worth less than when you borrowed it. Yippee!

Does anyone know how the appraisals are calculated? I'm very curious about our whole block going up.

Meme: I don't think I've ever seen CNN where the focus wasn't on global warming or the war in Iraq or celebrities.

I have, and I've also seen Fox report on those same issues. Fox also has more editorial commentary, and that's mostly from a rightist perspective. (BTW, that's measurable. You can count and compare the hours devoted to news and editorials, and you can dissect the content of the editorials to see which way they lean.)

Of course, that was pre-Obama, so it might have changed since then, but I highly doubt it.

What I want to say is, calling CNN "fair and balanced" is kind of like calling McDonald's one of the healthiest choices in fast food. Yes, it could work in some comparisons, but...

I understand what you're saying, I just don't see why you're saying it. I haven't seen a leftist bias on CNN.

Hmmm...that's a barefaced lie. CNN is definitely leaning on the left.

A lie? How can an opinion be a lie?

If you've got objective evidence that CNN is leaning left, please provide it. I hear this claim a lot, but it always seems to be the opinion of people who identify with the right.

There are ways to accomplish the same thing in the the browser, but I forget all the keystrokes at times.

Ctrl-Home is pretty constant across Windows apps for moving to the top of a document.

Because people still drive cars, and that road is horrible to drive on... it too narrow, and not only is the street full of potholes, but the sidewalk is bumpy too.

I drive a car, but I don't drive on Westheimer. Keeping it small and bumpy discourages car traffic, which seems like a good solution to me.

Eventually, something must be done to adress both issues. I'm saying to turn it into a 1960, hell you could even keep it at 4 lanes with no turning lane. But the current lanes need to be wider, and the side walks need to be wider. This stretch is too busy to be kept at its current suburban layout.

No, we don't have to address both issues. We could decide to make it a pedestrian zone. Park someplace else and walk. There's no law that says people have to be able to drive everywhere on wide, smooth streets.

You can have both. And as mentioned before, the residents must find it annoying to have their streets stuffed with cars.

If you widen Westheimer, you have to tear down a lot of businesses. If you tear down those businesses, there's no point in widening Westheimer, since there are faster ways to get through that area.

Can't wait to see what's in store for the HMNS.

And I'm eager to see the new HMNS exhibit about Genghis ...

KAHN!

Well, yeah, I know what they want to do...but why!?

I found this site that talks about keeping bars away from schoolyards.