arche_757

I guess there is a difference between overweight and obese.

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.

Wait, shouldn't it be the other way around or something?

 

Even if the highest number was true (38%, I think?) that's still not a majority. A majority, by definition, is anything over 50%. The actual number rests around 25%, maybe, and "obese" by definition doesn't actually mean morbidly obese.

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.

arche, is this you?

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.

I don't have any personal bias for men's health magazine.

Also I'm not talking about just downtown transit center.

Get on a bus, see how much space there is. I don't think 60-70 people can fit on one realistically.

I said that's why we need rail on the university corridor because no form of buses will be able to handle that kind of ridership.

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.

My point was how many houstonians can fit on a bus. That is the reality that we have a high percentage of obese people.

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).

I wonder if there valuable things found in these type demolitions or crimes uncovered?  Also legally, is it treasure trove and the construction guy can keep it in the case of finding a valuable.  

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.

The no-more-taxes response  misses the point: which  is  that Rick Perry's mercenary business development policies are unsustainable, so obviously so that one of our largest corporations (homegrown, not poached from another state)  has publicly acknowledged this.  Forgoing  future tax revenue for jobs now, combined with refusing to fund infrastructure and schools, will never add up up the long run. Whether directly or through unintended consequences.     

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.

The problem isn't exactly that new power plants aren't allowed, although coal units will come close under new air pollution regs, as much as the economics and market design.  Cheap gas has made a lot of older installed coal generation uneconomic to run.  Just ask the folks at EFH, which filed bankruptcy yesterday.  

 

Fortunately the market is on top of the problem, and more so, cheap solar has the potential to totally change the picture in the next five years.

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?

Houston ranking number 1 ccording to this link Also the most fast food joints.

http://www.mensfitness.com/weight-loss/burn-fat-fast/the-fittest-and-fattest-cities-in-america

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.

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!

Joining the police crew?

1. Sorry but the flood that led to building the Olmos damn, which led to the creation of the River Walk, happened a full ten years after the date you gave

http://drtlibrary.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/san-antonio-flood-of-1921/

The work on the dam didn't start till years later and the plans fur the Riverwalk were not finalized until about 1930. The riverwalk as we know it didn't start to take shape until a decade later

2. I don't remember anyone talking about clear, dirty or polluted. That's a sidetrack.

3. Exactly!!!! We have ideas, San Antonio has action. Allison wasn't downtowns only flood. San Antonio had enough 80 years ago, why is it that after more than a decade we have hardly done anything to mitigate flood damage.

4 and 5. Where did these two go?

6. Thanks, that info shows what im saying. Smaller city, but they got that thing done

1) I did a project over urban areas including the Riverwalk about 10 years ago in college... I forgot the Riverwalk idea came about in the early 1920s and not the teens.  Oops.  I didn't bother looking that one up - though dates don't really matter - as the Riverwalk took a long time to realize.

2) You mentioned having clear water running down Buffalo Bayou?  Maybe I didn't read that sentence(s) correctly?  Perhaps.

3) We're implementing things now - sadly much of what is being done is slowly taking shape.  Slow like a crawl.

4 - 5) I didn't include them.  Don't like them.

6) Yep.  Just included that information.

Houston is doing so much right now to improve Buffalo Bayou... the idea that a large tract of land on the northern edge of Downtown is coming up for sale is interesting.  I've said it before - I'm not overly motivated by any particular proposal about this land (yet).  If HPD moves its HQ/auxiliary buildings/services there - so be it.  However, I would think we can come up with a better use of that land than selling it to the police.

What?  A little too early in the day to start drinking right?

Its a museum not a highrise.  I'll take whatever we can get in the realm of tourism/pro-Houston stuff Downtown.

Yes, ending the wars overseas (officially - full pull out!) would cut some of that defense dept spending.  Maybe from 17% to even 15% of the total budget would be a nice reduction!  That's 2% more money we would/could have for roads/bridges etc that are in dire need of repairs.  OR here's a noble idea - give that money to NASA and let them find ways to innovate... but I digress.

Come on internet police. NONE of this freaking incidents are downtown. I wouldn't be that big an idiot to assume that they would alter all 2 million miles of waterways in Houston so why would you expect them to alter all 2 million in san Antonio. We are talking about the river walk area in san Antonio and the bayou area of downtown Houston. We are talking about developing the bayou water front in Downtown so it should be Crystal clear we are talking about a specific area

You do not have to contradict everything everyone says dude.

San Antonio started on they're downtown flood mitigation plan in the 1940s. By then Houston was way bigger

What?  Internetpolice?

First - San Antonio started the River Walk in the 1910s/teens.  So imagine San Antonio if they hadn't actually planned this back in and around World War One?  Their downtown would probably be a shell of itself.  Possibly the city would be more along the lines of an El Paso in size now (minus CJ across the river).

Second - The San Antonio River is hardly clear.  Buffalo Bayou is a healthy color.  Muddy water doesn't equal poluted, the same that clear water doesn't mean the source is free from chemicals/pollution/disease.

Third - look at the Buffalo Bayou masterplan and you'll see there are plans (as visionary as they may be) to eventually incorporate some sort of "river walk" promenade in and around the bayou near Downtown.  We won't have restaurants and cafes on the water (not as close at least as San Antonio) but at least they will be along the bayou... should that plan ever reach full implementation.

Sixth - San Antonio in 1940 had 253,000 peopel while Houston had 384,000

(Just thought that people might want to know?)

^Greedo missed!