2112

and the zip code guy that never has anything interesting to say, just does post counts of random messages.

Why does this sound funny to me?

Interesting related info: I was shocked after being in Philly last Fall (my first visit) for several days, and experienced outright anomosity for speaking Spanish in a public place - on a cell phone - outside, mind you. I was trying to order some food at a street sandwitch place, and was bluntly told to "speak American", even though I was not talking to the dude taking my order. This happend twice, in somewhat different forms, but twice. I was talking on the cell phone to my mother-in-law while waiting in line to order, when it was about to be my turn to order, and that is when the "comment" was made from the person taking the order, before I even said anything to the guy. This really isnt racism per-se, but it has innuendoes of it. Anyways, my point really is not to agree or dissagree with it, because as an American, I can speak whatever damn language I please: English, Spanish, Binary, C++, whatever. And the friendly sandwicth-order-taker can say anything he likes too, as he prooved that day. My point is that this kind of stuff is not a Houston thing. It is not a Texas thing. It it can happen in Philly, and New York, Chicago, LA...anywere. I guess I have a problem with the title of this thread, mabye. Considering how long I have lived in Texas and Houston, statistically, this kind of thing rarely happens here, at least to me. Anyways, that's my rant and I'm sticking to it.

[suddenly, 2112 gets on his Donkey, and rides away into the sunset]

[sound of galluping Donkey]

Remember one of the posts on "The Port of Dallas" thread, where a Dallas writer tries to say that when the (ahem) "Port of Dallas" is built, it will be:

"..as if the boats pull up to Houston, but the longshormen will be in Dallas"

That statement should paint a clear picture of the extent of how an imaginary image is more important to Dallas than reality. Why, in the name of Sam Houston, is it so important to "pretent" that there is a "Port" complete with "longhsoremen" in a city that is 250 miles away from a body of water? Is there an image Dallas is trying to paint about iteself that drives such a bizzare statement? It's a freak'n wierd!

Guys. Remember who we are dealing with. I have tried again and again, on this and other forums, to explain a concept I thought a 5th grader would understand. That is, that there is a city called Fort worth, and there is a city called Dallas. They are different cities. If you are in one, then by induction you are not in the other. Yet, there is this bizzare thing that people from Dallas do, which is to "pretend" that Fort Worth and Dallas are the same city. Everytime I would hear this, I was always tempted to hit my head, because it would hurt when I tried to apply logic here. So Dallas "claims" Fort Worth, much to the annoyance of our fellow Fort Worthians mind you, when Dallas wants to pretty themselves up and pretend they are more than they are. Yet, if you read the posts over in thier own forum, magically, they treat Fort Worth like a totally different city. You find posts that compare the two cities, and make very clear distinctions in thier conversation. So in short, Dallas will claim Fort Worth to the outside world simply to perform this magical "proping up" of thier stature to outsiders, yet treat F.W as an outsider within thier own community. But hey, maybe it's some kinda' new math or something. Heck, I dont know.

No, but I have read up on why Texas has so few home grown banks versus say, North Carolina. Texas for decades had very restrictive banking regulations. For instance, Texas banks could not offer branch banking, and could not branch into other states. This kept Texas banks from growing. The S&L scandal in the 80s also wiped out 9 of the 10 largest Texas banks. Only Frost Bank survived without folding or being swallowed by other banks.

The result is that while other banks grew nationwide, Texas banks could only grow larger by merging with the big out of state banks, and this only happened after the legislature brought Texas banking laws into the 20th Century in the 1990s. As such, virtually no Texas banks are ranked in the top 75 largest banks in the US. No Texas city is a banking capital, because Texas is not a banking capital.

North Carolina, in contrast, had forward thinking regulations, allowing their banks to grow outside their borders. Banks like Wachovia, which grew fat with tobacco company profits, was able to lend that money anywhere, allowing it to grow. Texas banks, even though flush with oil money, could not. South Dakota drew several banks by virtually eliminating usury rates on credit cards. Citibank and other massive credit card banks moved there to take advantage of this gold mine. Other states eventually followed suit, leading to the crime that is credit card interest rates today.

None of this has to do with where the Federal Reserve is located. All of it has to do with the foresight of state legislatures in crafting banking laws. Note, this is as short of an overview as one can write on Texas banking, but it illustrates why Texas is not a leader in banking.

Your witness couselor.

My family in Dallas said that it was real windy yesterday and dust was flying around. I saw this while looking at DallasFortWorthUrban:

^Photo taken directly above the metroplex.

that looks like a particularly bad smog day in Houston! Kinda looks cool though, doesnt it.

I don't think they have decided what part of Dallas they are moving to yet.....But I really hope they do choose Downtown.

Is downtown Fort worth considered a downtown of Dallas? (Just wondering.)

neat. there really is a show to watch. maybe there will be one showing how wealthy consumers select rotisserie chicken in the deli. word is that Walmart has deli's in their european and asian stores with rotisserie chickens and coffee shops...

HAHAHAHHAAHAHA

ROFL!!!

I think it had something to do with listening to the video peresentation with that serious voice commentator, then following up with this post latent with all the chicken references.

I'm anxious for this project to get started, I want afton oaks to get swamped with traffic.

HAHAHAHAHA

A little bitter, are we?

You read my mind about his avatar. I love that there avatar.

Ive said it before and Ill say it again. The best places are the street taco truck vendors. Ninfa's got nothing over the trucks. Brings back memories of walking across the border to Reynosa Mexico and hitting up some of those taco stands. Cheap, too.

4 Towers!!!???? Damn. And all that in addition to the Park tower, and the new park, and Pavillions. And from what I have been reading, the new Metro multi-modal terminal is seriously in the planning stages now. The metro page has some pretty detailed layout plans allready.

Nope that Bretley won't eventually become a Houstonian? Or nope that lots of folks would want to call themselves Houstonians?

I think we all know which "nope" he was refering to. BTW, I just came back from typing some rather complimentary things over the DFW forum - I said some nice things, only to find that I was prempted by a standard Houston trash post!! Which reminded me once again why we sometimes loath Dallas! Oh well, you can lead a yak to water, but you cant make him, oh, enough with the farm animal references (I'm always going there)

Seeing how obsessed you are with Barnes & Noble and movie theaters, it sounds like the suburbs is the perfect place for you.

Hey! I resemble that remark! I live in the burbs! It doesnt mean I dont care about downtown and wish it to succeed, or that I'm some kind of looser!!

They weren't deleted, they were simply rearranged.

Kinda' reminds me of some of the corporate speak: "No, were are not laying off. We are right-sizeing"

Looks like Camden's superblock project is still alive after all.

From the Chronicle:

Link to Sarnoff column

Excellent. I cant wait to see the changes that are coming for downtown/midtown. Nothing against the market square area, but Main street in the historic district had started to get old, and bringing people from out of town and repeating the same club circuit for them I'm sure was getting boring. It will be nice to have a larger part of the city that is accesible by light rail, to show off our city a little. I'm kinda looking forward to see what the Wheeler station will turn into once the University line is integrated with the Red Line. I remember reading somewhere that Metro had purchased that triangular piece of property there, and that they had plans for a mixed-retail-LRT Station kinda of development. Sweet.

How long does the vacancy rate have to be tight before someone starts thinking about a new tower!!!??? Man, I hope this lasts...how nice would it be to go through another boom-town ara, with tons of new skyscrapers being built!!

Do you honestly think if any of those areas had more massive parking garages, more surface lots to create dead zones on certain blocks, and more cars driving about multi-laned streets, that they would have more pedestrian traffic, more street life, and more street level retail?

They are crowded and desirable because they are some of the few places in this nation that do NOT cater to the car.

I dont know. I mean, parts of Manhatten are pretty pedestrian friendly, but no all of it. There are parts of downtown Manhattan that have very little retail after 5:00pm, I walked around city hall and the surrounding areas at night and there was absolutely nothing to do at 9:00pm, it was dead. Even parts of Midtown werent all that happening at night. Times Square, restuarant row, etc. was a different story alltogether, of course. If Houston could make it's downtown more vibrant, it's doing a pretty good job. It's not like the whole of Seattle and other cities are predestrian friendly. I have been there, and guess what, it looks pretty suburban except for certain districts including downtown. Why does Houston have to be held to some unrealistic measure? Every city in the U.S. is primarily a car city, with maybe a few of them having substantial pockets of pedestrian friendly areas, but, amonst a majority of car-centric surrounding areas. I'm just saying.

My office has a fairly unobstructed view of the construction site of both The Park Tower and Discovery Green, so I will try to bring my camera phone to work tomorrow and snap a few pictures.

I may be a little behind on this thread, but has construction actually begun on the Park Tower? I know I have seen activity around the park, from a distance that is. Havent drove by it yet.

Can you smell it?

It's real. It's happening right in front of us. This is it this time, it has finally begun!

The current Houston rail plans includes two commuter lines, if I am not mistaken, one towards Sugarland, and one other one somewhere else. The phase after is suppose to include a commuter train from downtown towards the bay area. And if I read correctly, a new transit center/park and ride somewhere around where the commuter train would pass through. So hopefully, this will arrive in time for the horrible traffic that will come with all the development along the coast. It's allready bad. But none of this helps an existing problem which is the chronic local congestion. What would be nice is some kind of local service around CL. It's allready within METRO's jurisdication, at least the parts that are withing Houston city limits. I'm not sure how popular it would be. But when the day comes when it takes 1 hour to get from Kemah to Bay Brook Mall, maybe people would start using local transit. Oh wait, it allready takes an hour to get from Kemah to the Freeway. Sorry for the rant.

Does anyone know the combined student population between the 3 UH system campuses within the city limits? I wonder how the UH-System (Houston only) stacks up in numbers compared to UT-Austin and A&M. I'm only talking size and population here.

UH is more or less landlocked. They plan to expand up and get more dense.

Isnt UH right next to the old Schlumberger complex that they "aquired"? That could provide some allready in-place lab space or what have you. Is it still UH property?

Actually, maybe its not quite next door....I think you have to cross some train yard to get to that complex. But still, that's some valuable building space.

I tell you what I'm lookkng forward to - and it allready has began and is in full force - is all the 3 to 5 story infill that is going on all around Midtown and just west of downtown. When you come from I-45 south and approach the pierce elevated interchange, you can see the densness starting to form all around the outside perimeter of downtown. It may not be 10 - 15 story buildings. But 3 to 5 is still pretty cool. And, it's packed in densely. I know if I had the money and was single, that is probably where I would want to live. I keep threatening my wife that I am going to by a weekend getaway townhome somwhere around downtown!!

Went to visit recently. Although not exactly like it used to be, it's pretty darn close. I like it just as much. I remember the dog being different, though. Is that a different dog?