arche_757

How so? A 70 floor residential tower is hardly a supertall. I think Austin has a 60 or 65 floor tower. And the developer being foreign doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Besides that Dallas has A LOT of housing next to Downtown (more than Houston) in the adjacent Uptown area. Why would you want to be in a big tower Downtown when the amenities are so much better just a few blocks away? Houston is a different animal than Dallas - both can handle a lot of development - but neither town is going to build a supertall just for hospitality and residential. It will take a large office portion too.

Here's food for thought: Even with a daily toll of $1.75 just to go through one of the Sam Houston Tollways stations (on the main road) x 2 = $3 a day x 5 = $15 a week x 4 = $60 a month x 12 = $720 a year spent on tolls... and the drivers using the tollways have only increased. That's one tollway. Presumably if all major freeways were to be tolled then there would be likely a rate decrease in the cost of every toll? At least initially. I wouldn't think the totals for driving through these areas would break the bank. The problem with implementing something like this in Houston... we have umpteen on ramps - far more so than any other city - which honestly is a good thing and traffic progressive I think. So imagine placing tag stations or pay station all over? And I would expect the true impact of this would be on the lower income drivers, forcing them onto the side streets and alternate routes - and on transit (to an extent). I would doubt the initial program would cause transit ridership to jump dramatically. To Slick Vic's point that people would be forced to move closer to work - either in or out of town - I think that's false. $720 - $1400 a year on tolls is way lower than buying a new home and moving (assuming people could even move). I commute about 25 miles or so each way every day - its a little longer than I would like, but the traffic isn't bad at all. I would possibly move closer except my wife works very close to where we live, so there's a trade off... I can't move closer without forcing my wife further away from her work. In the end the move would be a zero-sum-game for us. She could take a different job, or I could, but still its doubtful we would ever really work within a 5 mile radius of each other. And that's today's working world. Gone is the American Nuclear Family version where triumphant bread-winner Dad drives the family car to work in a tower Downtown while Mom stays home and manages the house.

I was going to say I read the Taipei times and it clearly stated "OR" not both. So my guess is Chicago first - bigger airport, closer to more people. Though Houston is a different region so maybe we would get the first new flights?

A wonder they are being allowed to proceed that way!

Found the Rossonian! Built in 1911! Love this little building and would have made a great hotel or nice condo conversion if it still was around in Downtown. I think - not certain - that it had a roof top garden of sorts? http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/print-edition/2011/01/28/high-rise-apartment-buildings-were.html?page=all

Really? They've opened up the back of the 6 floor addition. I work nearby and I'll have to walk by later and see what it looks like is going on. Last I heard it was going to be time shares. 83 of them. So that averages out to around 700 sq ft per unit (roughly) as the Building is 80,000 sq ft - minus the 6,000 sq ft retail on the ground floor and assuming around 10,000 sq ft of the building is circulation space+mechanical?

I think so. Technically *most* of us are probably a little overweight (by 10-15 pounds), but that doesn't mean we're fat or obese.

The Rosonian (I'll have to find a picture - cool old Condo/Apartment building circa 1910s that was torn down not too far from the Savoy Hotel). Prudential Building at TMC. Any of the old Downtown Theatres that were demo'd over the past 50-70 years. I'd also LOVE to keep the old Sam Houston Coliseum. It would have been a nice mid-size (indoor!) music venue in todays scene.

I voted the TMC. Simply for its uniqueness - outside of Boston and Bethesda I'm having trouble thinking of a collection of medical/biomedical buildings and towers that nears the size and density of the TMC (in one place). In terms of most impressive buildings: 1) Downtown 2) Uptown 3) TMC I think the best view of Downtown is either from 59/69 heading north from Upper Kirby or from I-45 south looking over the Convention Center. The reasons are that the towers along Smith and Travis dwarf the older parts of town and hence hide a lot of the other buildings, whereas the views from the south still show off those big 50 floor towers with the smaller buildings and historic district in full view.

Yep. That was my initial thinking. I think Slick can admit (and rightly) that there are plenty of people in Houston who are overweight, but to claim a majority is false. Also, to claim that there are so many fat people around it fills our buses (and rail) up more quickly and with fewer people is also false. I do tend to lean towars what Slick is saying that the total number of people those buses can hold (based on what the manufacturer says) is very high and that trends to the realm of being very uncomfortable and very close to one another. Too close! So the actual prefered/comfortably full bus or rail car is probably 10-15 people fewer than what is quoted.

Haha! Nope. But that's a good one. The hidden room we opened wasn't the site of anything quite as famous as what Geraldo found in Chicago (which if I remember was empty?)!

^It depends on how far the sanctions go. Transaero is not Putin's lapdog airline... so I don't think it will hurt them too much. I would think the FAA would go ahead and allow this to happen. Though I think you do raise a valid question.

Realistically it can be done, however it is quite uncomfortable as no one wants to sit/stand on top of each other. I've waited for the next train before (and even a bus once) when it was so full I would end up sitting on someone's lap. We have a percentage of obese people, yes. I don't think our obesity rate lowers our transit ridership numbers. I feel that out of 50 people the 17 or so that are overweight (to varying degrees) won't cause too much disruption (assuming 50 is a full, yet comfortable bus).

Sure. A project we worked on that involved the demolition of an old bank vault to convert into an arts space turned up a hidden room (maybe Prohibition era?). There wasn't anything particularly valuable inside - but it was fascinating none the less. I'm sure there are times when items of note or value do in fact turn up in old rooms/buildings that time forgot.

Who actually wants more taxes? Any one? Obviously taxes pay for government programs/services (be it municiple, state or federal). Clearly we will pay more as Texas grows - that is not my wish - but it is reality. I agree the growth Perry has brought the state looks great right now, but in 10 years it will start to catch up to us in other areas. Oh well. There's a Catch 22 pretty much everywhere. I still see power as the immediate concern. Schools are always a concern, but our system is fighting over whether to teach about Adam & Eve versus science in the classroom (note: classroom not church!). So we clearly have a lot of hurdles before we can get to the bigger issues - like adequate funding for education.

I hope you're right! I see power (particularly June-September) as a major issue. EFH gambled and lost big. Hopefully people will be able to afford this cheap solar and it will be able to provide the power needed to suplement the grid?

More than LA or NYC? Doubtful. Houston (the city) is much, much bigger than Boston, or Charlotte, or Atlanta or any other city mentioned save LA, Chicago and NYC. To casually gloss over that fact is silly. Furthermore what constitutes fast food? Do they list the number of restaurants they classify as fast food? Does a NYC sidewalk vendor not count? I'll wager taco trucks do... for their metrics.

Houston has plenty of fat people, but its getting better and honestly I don't really see as many "fat" people as we used to in 2001 or 2005 or whenever the first issue of Mens Health came out with that. To even bring up how fat we are is absurd. It detracts from your point.

Sure, but its just icecream and whiskey! That's my families style. No eggs to sour the lot.

I never said anything about them being icky or kicking them out. I said the land will be more valuable some day and moving the subsidized housing elsewhere may make sense. If the government can sell that land and make twice what they have spent on that property over the years wouldn't that be a wise public decision? Yes. Absolutely! I only said that Clayton Homes is probably a site better used for something else (particularly since the land is more valuable than what its being used for). It needn't be bulldozed overnight, I'm saying years down the road.

Attitudes aside... I think a better question to ask is this: Would people rather ride rail or bus? Simple question, we all know the answer. Would a rail line end up with higher ridership than a bus route? Simple question, we all know the answer. I agree we shouldn't build everywhere right away. We should however start setting aside ROW and other particulars needed for rail, as there will come a time when the density is there and the demand is high enough. Failure to understand that is baffling. Like a flood control project, you don't wait until the flood waters are rising to build something to control it. Of course that's not really how we do things over here - we wait till we get a multi-billion dollar flood THEN we spend billions more trying to build improvements that could have been built in initially at much lower cost.

I seem to always get grouped into things here... not my intent. I was only agreeing that the "conflicts" in Afghanistan and Iraq have been expensive and if we reduced our defense budget down by just 2% and gave that 2% to NASA (my numbers above weren't quite as precise - lets just say), that would be a boon for us - in Houston. NASA getting a bigger budget by a couple of billion would be fantastic. However, roads and bridges (etc) may be municiple or state projects but we could still see an influx of federal dollars to help with required maintenance. And of course rapid growth will cause infrastructure problems. The greatest issue I see is power. Rolling brownouts are a joke. The inability for Texans to come together and allow new powerplant construction (this is an old issue) will come to a head and stare at us in all its ugly horror soon enough - same as transit issues. I vote for better use of our taxes - not more of them.

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum, Wie treusind deine Blätter! Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit, Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit. O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum, Wie treu sind deine Blätter! O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum, Du kannst mir sehr gefallen! Wie oft hat nicht zur Weihnachtszeit Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut! O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum, Du kannst mir sehr gefallen! O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum, Dein Kleid will mich was lehren: Die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit Gibt Mut und Kraft zu jeder Zeit! O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum, Dein Kleid will mich was lehren! You know... the German version of Oh Christmas Tree? Its before all our times as it was first composed in the 1820s.

Houston will have its own Rikers Island! Which isn't a good thing I've long thought that the Bayou will (as bachanon pointed out above) draw more and more development along its banks (so to speak) when the project to improve and add public features to it is finished. Allen Parkway/Memorial will be a unique district in and of itself (it already is in a way). I wonder - what are the chances the Clayton Homes eventually move and the land is sold because its simply too valuable to remain low income/federal subsidized housing? Any legal/real estate types on here want to chime in? I'm thinking - that land could become something

Neither. Just have another of whatever it is your partaking of. Prost!