AtticaFlinch

Supercenters are suburban stores and are not compatible with urban life.

You continue to demonstrate that you're not actually opposed to Walmart, but that you're just opposed to Walmart in this location. Do you really think a Walmart will diminish your cool street cred that much? And, your predictions about the deleterious effects this Walmart will have on the local traffic are grossly exaggerated at best. Why do you continue to mock the future with such blatant disregard for probability? Sure, the intersection at Yale and I-10 could become an impossible quagmire, the likes of which have never before been seen, and the damage wrought to the neighborhood and city as a whole may be immeasureable in real dollars or community morale. But, really... yeah, you'll see an uptick in traffic. So what? These things happen, and would happen regardless of what's built there. The only way to prevent that would be to legislate the crap out of those empty wastelands, preventing any future development there at all. And I doubt you're actually ok with that. You want something there, you just don't want it to be Walmart. Fortunately, the decision isn't yours to make.

As for your continued suggestion that there are more suitable locations for a Walmart development, how do you know those aren't also in the planning stages? Are you suggesting that you know more about retail development and store placement (beyond just location - to also include priority and time) than the ultra-successful multibillion dollar machine that is Walmart? If so, your arrogance knows no bounds. If not, you're merely a snob who doesn't want Walmart nearby. If there's a third personality option that I've missed, you've yet to display it, so get over yourself.

Also, the Heights is a suburb.

ah, but who are we to say what it means to think or not, or whether or not Houston is self aware? Just because we do not poses the technology, or capability to monitor and make a claim based on our current sciences whether Houston is a sentient being, as we define sentience, does that mean that it is not sentient? Are we so proud as to assume that our way of thinking is the only way to think, or to make determination? All because Houston may or may not observe such things, or go places as we can observe and go places. Can we say with any measure of true and real knowledge what a soul is, and whether this Houston possesses such?

Niche, you have to reply that while the possibility is small, in the absence of absolutely known knowns, we must admit there's a probability that Houston does indeed have a soul and is sentient. (And that mfastx may be the arbiter of needs.)

No. And no.

I desire that the question be answered.

Objection! Badgering the witness. You don't really want him to answer whether or not he's the arbiter of need.

Planning on staying single?

Heh. Yeah, good point. I doubt my wife and kid would be as pleased with the arrangement.

I am expecting it, however, because the alternative is to purger myself.

If you'd stop eating Kroger brand pizza topped with chorizo and bacon you wouldn't have to purger yourself anymore. You may still have to perjure yourself though. I've got no solution for that, except to maybe kill a wealthy businessman and steal his soul. Then you'd be rich. Or so a curandero told me once.

Didn't that ABS become Touppes or something like that (a lesbian-esque breakfast joint)? You definitely wanted to hold the cream there...

rim shot!

What, do you think it closed because it was making too much money?

You think those are the only two possible scenarios that would have led to the closure?

Ever since the announcement, KTRU has been playing a lot better music. I guess it was their complacency that had led them to play such odd experimental crap.

once again, an old post.is this an active community? Foubd it by accident, guess not to many people on here..top posts are old..

You'll find there are more readers than participators here. Don't let that dissuade you though. Feel free to share your thoughts, regardless of the age of the thread.

Are you the arbiter of need?

Are you? By questioning him, are you implying that the city does not in fact need this train?

Great tax rates? Hardly. They have come down a bit in recent years as MUD bonds have been paid down, but Woodlands taxes are still higher than Houston taxes. Depending on the village, some are as much as 40% higher (Creekside). Most are 5-10% higher than Houston's combined rate.

I don't think it matters. I'm willing to bet in the year and a half since the original post, a decision has already been made.

The real estate market in general has collapsed. Given the state of the economy obviously fewer McMansions will be built. I think you are right that it is premature to declare it some sort of societal trend. If the economy gets back to where it was I would expect the McMansions to come roaring back.

Maybe by that time (5 or 10 years?), the last wave of McMansions will be in such a bad state of disrepair that people will opt for quality over quantity when determining where to spend their dollars. It's not likely, and I know most people will chalk it up to the it-can't-happen-to-me principle, but it's a good idea nonetheless.

Frankly, I think Niche has the best idea. If running the ac in the summer wouldn't be so cost prohibitive, I'd think the idea was near flawless.

I, for one, am going to miss the most the monotonal beeps and blips that ran for upwards of ten minutes and the feline concertos that sounded as if they were recorded among the trashcans in the alley behind someone's house.

Looks like that gal has invested in some serious plastic surgery. The eyes, the botox lips...

This is what she used to look like, midway through her procedures:

Perhaps if she possessed more substantial talents I might be more sympathetic.

Then you should see what she can do with a ping pong ball.

Heights Boulevard is a thoroughfare - but not a major one.

MAJOR THOROUGHFARE: Major, multimodal streets in urban areas (arterials and collectors) which are designed to complement and support adjacent land uses.

On the Heights Assoc web site, under History of the Blvd: "The blocks were carefully arranged, scattered open spaces supplemented the 60 foot-wide esplanade on Heights Boulevard, a broad, tree-lined central thoroughfare patterned after Commonwealth Avenue in Boston."

Commonwealth Ave. in Boston is considered a parkway and a thoroughfare - not a major thoroughfare.

You're right north of 10. You're wrong south of 10.

And which side of 10 will the Walmart be on? 'cause that's the pertinent side for the purpose of this discussion.

Attack the idea not the person. One of the basic rules of debate....

Rule number 2: stoop to your opponent's level.

Someone who lyingly calls someone else a liar blatantly doesn't deserve my respect or reasoned discourse. This person has already proven several times over that the stardard rules of debate don't work for him/her.

Is there a way for us to compare her numbers with previous mayors?

If the crackheads lose their homes in the demo'd places, won't they just find a place somewhere else to stay?

Tonight, I got a six-pack of Shiner at the little neighborhood grocery store around the corner from my house (on 1960 for reference) and was accosted by not one, but two, homeless folks seeking "just a dollar" to get them a bus ride back to wherever it was they needed to go.

They were both white. I think the scummy displacement is equal opportunity. They're all leaving the inner-city to hang out in my 'burb.

You are a liar.

Do you think this tactic will work where whining didn't?

You may be right. Here is a list posted in April.

My link

However, other lists have Houston behind both Atlanta and Dallas, though those lists seem to all be from 2005. The numbers are all over the map. Population-wise, Houston is larger than Atlanta in every way measured.

The Houston MSA’s gross product in 2009 was $403.8 billion, according to The Perryman

Group. If Houston were a country, its economy would be larger than that of Colombia,

Belgium, Malaysia or Venezuela, according to the CIA’s World Factbook. Only 22 foreign

nations’ gross products exceed Houston’s.

GHP Link

Regardless of the rubric used, Houston isn't small potatoes.

But, I digress.

Don't let that stop you. It hasn't stopped anyone else in this thread.

If Wal-Mart goes in on Yale, it will definitely be a high crime location.

Can we agree to revisit this in five years? I'd like to make a bet that there will be no significant difference between Walmart's and Target's crime stats. If I win, I'll do something embarassing I guess. If you win, you have to stop being so resolute in your statements about such abstract and unproveable outcomes. Either that, or you have to tell us where you get your tea leaves, because I imagine they must make damned fine tea as they suck at predicting the future.

Can you just get your mom to go buy a sim-city game to scratch that itch?

Back when SimCity had 4-bit graphics, the most successful city I'd built had no roads, but had rail everywhere. Would tearing up all our roads and replacing them with tracks make our city more tourist friendly? It would certainly be unique. Maybe we can tear out our roads and replace them with canals. It would be very European. That's what we're trying to achieve, right?

You have notice that the rules could change because the historic distric is governed by an ORDINANCE. Ordinances are created, revised and repealed all the time by City Council. It is a ridiculous argument to claim that the ordinance could never be revised just because the ordinance affects real property or because people petitioned to create a historic distric. There is no bait and switch. The petition created a historic district that would be governed by an ordinance, not by an unchangeable restriction that is recorded in the real property records. When someone signed the petition, they were agreeing to be in a historic district governed by an ordinance. They were not singing a contract. They were not creating a deed restriction. It is like voting for annexation by a municipality but then complaining when the municipality changes an ordinance. Ordinances are ordinances.

They can be revised either way, either more lax or more draconian. And, simply because they can be revised doesn't mean they will. Regardless, if there is no ordinance, there's nothing to be revised. Again, give existing homeowners the ability to opt in or out, and make this ordinance mandatory for new buyers and the entire debate disappears. Why can't that be done?

I notice that there's no equivalent "Hottest Male Newscaster" thread.

Apparently women and gay men are more interested in the actual news. Not that that makes us smarter.

Either that, or everybody recognizes that all the male newscasters are toolbags.

Is Houston particularly "quirky and irreverent"?

Ok, quirky is a no. Quirky is lame. Quirky is Austin. Quirky can be commoditized and advertised and sold to the highest bidder. Quirky is on sale at a tourist trap kiosk in a mall near you. Houston isn't that.

Irreverent though? Absolutely. But you won't find it on a scavenger hunt or in the Galleria or the Woodlands or Sugarland. It's in the people here, the people who care about this place. It's in the people who want to stay true to our irreverent roots and not force some plastic Mickey Mouse identity on a city it doesn't fit. Houston isn't seeking an identity. It has one.