luciaphile

Real/Not Real/Zombies - aaargh! The unnecessary hostility, all in the service of some very bad ideas. The Niche's perfectly valid preference for working class people has lent his libertarianism a strand of unfortunate - and unnecessary - populism, that he himself doesn't always seem to know what to do with: perhaps a small sign of the shortcomings of libertarianism as a philosophy. Livincinco's entirely correct impatience with that populism (beware of those -isms you know by their trail of dead) is laced with contempt for the idea that one should make no value judgments about the fruits of capitalism. Livincinco, where did you get that idea? Why not? Surely the market is not so fragile as that! It's ridiculous: "Someone paid for that" "Oh, of course, then I'll shut my eyes and pretend I have no thought about it!" The guilt you were weaned on in school, and/or the resentment you have probably come to feel about it, muddy your posts and obscure the obvious, given that you both haunt an architecture/urban planning forum: you have a common and not-insignificant desire - that Houston be a worthy place to spend your adult lives and the best it can be given its many challenges. Overhanging it all is Robert Venturi laughing at us, for being easily bamboozled, for taking seriously "Leaving Las Vegas" - everything in America is a cartoonish reinvention of something from somewhere else; so, inferiority complex firmly in place, we forfeited the idea of aesthetics entirely. If you are uncertain on this point, I am not: letting Venturi overrule Aristotle was a spectacularly bad idea. That the word authenticity you throw around (in currrent parlance unmistakably a stand-in for The Good) has become THE shibboleth of our time is an indicator. Why should cities like Houston be forever doomed to a sort of childlike "real place/not a real place?" limbo, where people with taste are discouraged from engaging with the city and leaving their mark on it? How the hell would that interfere with a booming oil-and-gas industry? I don't particularly care about Houston, but I care about the American West and I am so tired of this idea that we are not resident here, we are just temporarily trashing it, see, we've completely altered the way people relate to their surroundings - and anyone who cares about, and regrets, our built landscape is eccentric or un-American or doesn't know their Adam Smith. I feel certain, sight unseen, that City Centre is ridiculous - the spelling is not auspicious - but if that is unfair, I'll substitute my town's iteration, the Domain. It's stupid not because it's fake (what else was it likely to be?), nor even because the fakery is unconvincing, but simply because it was badly done and absurdly placed. No ideology required, no zombies invoked.

72 hours in Houston: "Let's check out the Discovery Green!" Blood relations were puzzled but complied. What a very nice space. It definitely softens up the convention center and is a good spot for the "Monument au fantome" (thanks, Google). The nearby hotel guests must be pleased to have somewhere to walk. Is there a peculiar public/private funding mechanism? - because it doesn't seem to be managed by the city. The grounds were nearly immaculate. Lots of children were splashing; I didn't splash because Mother was taking me to a place called "Tiny Boxwoods" for lunch but I understand the allure of splashing, having splashed just in the past month in Rapid City, SD, Trinidad, CO, and Waco. (You'll find, on a road trip, that other people don't mind pulling over to let you splash because it gives them a chance to fiddle with their iPhones.) That said, DG seems distinctly like a tourism or chamber of commerce initiative. It's a fine use of a city block, but it would never have occurred to me to even speak of it in the same breath as Hermann or Memorial Park or, regarding Waco, Cameron Park, which is hands down the best urban park in the state.

I noticed this for sale tonight - apologies if already posted: http://www.movoto.com/real-estate/homes-for-sale/TX/Houston/10050-Bayou-Glen-Rd-403_2308894.htm

So your refrigerator got way more efficient and incidentally no longer has to be unlatched, but your big-screen TV eats up that gain, and all your electronic gaming collectively uses as much power annually as the city of San Diego. Your car's fuel efficiency has improved, but overall you are filling it up a lot more than you did in the eighties, because then you looked cute driving around in a Nissan Maxima, but now for some reason you need to drive a small bus. Your little thirties-era Sears kit house was much draftier than what others are unkindly calling your "McMansion," but since you made no real effort to cool it, just opened the windows, turned on the fan, and drank lots of tea, or fell asleep from the torpor, it didn't really cost much, energy-wise. And in winter, Meema shut the doors to all but the living room and lit the "stove," whose roaring heat and gassy fumes were sort of like the atmosphere of Venus, but effective. But hey - you're recycling your giant plastic jug of detergent, your big plastic jug of OJ, and your 64-oz container of sour cream from Costco, and several dozen Dasani bottles a week! They're becoming plastic park benches and, uh, other stuff, probably. And you've cut way back on red meat. You're eating mahi-mahi flown in from Hawaii instead. You're so damn green.

I imagine there is a continuum of golf-course maintenance from Hermann Park to Pebble Beach. Mowing, yes, and trimming trees, but it's unlikely they keep it manicured. Haven't played the golf course since the 80's. Zoo and train when last enjoyed 2 or three years ago seemed fun. Thought the little Japanese-inspired garden was a nice addition. Really dig reflecting pools. Hope the stuffed grizzly bear is still striking awe inside the natural history museum. I also love the huge amethyst - or was it a geode? I'm forgetting - that was just inside the parking garage entrance. Would never have seen it because I'm far too cheap to pay for parking, but Lexus-driving mother loves to pay for parking. Y'all should check it out!

I'm not sure who's misunderstanding whom, but my whole point really boiled down to, if you desire more Discovery Green-type spaces, make it count and put them somewhere that would benefit from remediation, not on top of already existing open space that, in Houston terms, is already quite pretty and as the poster above pointed out, furnishes a contrast to the more "programmed" areas of the park. Indeed, to the whole area. Why waste the good work of an earlier generation? Another Tiger Woods may come along and golf will be popular again (insofar as outdoor recreation ever will be). If not, you've got ready-made walking or biking paths Also, if the whole park is given over to uses that require a great deal of upkeep/management...if it is anything like where I live, you'll regret it. The novelty wears off and things deteriorate. The parks department can only handle so much. There seems to be a law of conservation of city amenities. (See abovementioned Reflecting Pool, and everyone's surprise when they drained it to discover there was an actual reflecting pool there.) Hedge your bets and leave some of the park as trees and grass.

Splash pads v. golf: this is a false dilemma. You must see that the real problem is that Houston makes no investment in parkland. it's baffling to me that your city officeholders don't even have to pay lip service to the idea. It's a total non-issue to the the small number of people who vote and could make it a priority if they wished.

So you have an urban golf course that is under-utilized, but plays some role in improving air quality and mitigating heat island. It is not well-maintained, so probably doesn't cost that much to run. (I would say this is one reason it is not well-used, but I'm sure the truth is in our culture all outdoor pastimes are on the wane.) You could improve the fun per acre, make it more of an interactive greensward a la the unfortunately named Discovery Green which would increase impervious cover and be expensive, would in fact require a non-profit to step in to provide the amenities as I gather from Googling is the case with DG. Or you could turn some of the golf course into something a little more democratic like soccer fields. Get ready to lose the trees then, and I'm not at all convinced you'll see round-the-clock games from your train. Or no more golf, walking paths instead. Or you could privatize it - Schlitterbahn? I'm dreaming big. Maybe these are worthy ideas, but why on Earth would you ever start by altering something that is not ugly as is, and does no harm, in fact can easily be shown to be somewhat beneficial, in a city like Houston with so much blight? Wouldn't the $$ be better spent increasing your parkland per capita? it's not that hard - you pass some bonds to fund open space. Why are the people of Houston so undemanding? All the things you want to do, do them somewhere it will have the ancillary effect of making the city more liveable. I imagine most of you could throw a rock at such an area.

I'm with Fringe, but to be candid when I lived in Houston I was always looking for places to go where there weren't any people (don't forget that kids need somewhere to go when they don't feel like going to school!), so I have a completely different scale of values than the one the rest of you are employing. But when you're talking about a city of 5 million people, is it really so quixotic to assign a value to either solitude or empty space? If I were on board that train, the sight of imaginary golfers in a bit of green space would do me good. And hey, the value of one round of golf on that 90-year-old course, to one old man (let's make him ninety as well), may be greater than the value of 4 hours spent by a family of four at the Discovery Green, doing and discovering whatever it is you do there...

Quite the utilitarian, aren't you? So possibly 70,000 golfers a year. It won't help much but perhaps you should count "people-hours" (HRU: Human Recreational Unit? - as I type I realize it surely already exists) instead since each golfer will be on the course 4 hours. Whereas who could stand to be at the Discovery Green with their kids for 4 hours? (Understand that I don't have the slightest idea what the Discovery Green is, but the name makes my eyes glaze over.) (You kindly reply and explain. I write back, "Oh, sounds fun." Not really.) Now during my infrequent visits I have seen how they cleaned up the reflection pool in Hermann Park (or bailed it out - who knew it had rectilinear concrete edges?) and thought that looked very nice. But no one can stand in it and recreate. So it's not an amenity in your brute reckoning?

I glance at this website from time to time out of, well, I suppose nostalgia is the word (though it doesn't seem quite right!) for my Houston childhood. Are you suggesting that Houston needs less open space?!!!