Newland To Transform Prison Land Into Telfair

[Sund]

Probably high end, sort of expensive stuff. You know, typical Sugar land Stuff. I'd expect prices to start in the mid 200s or so, for single family homes.

Yes you are right about the price range we should expect from mid 200's but you know i have been waiting to take some decision to build in Shadow creek range pearland if i know that Telfair is going to be much high then that or it is going to take long time then i can think about pearland.. Would appreciate any suggestion's and advice?

[marc]

Yeah, great news....unless you live there! My parents bought their house in First Colony in 1978 and I live there now. I remember cotton growing along Highway 6 and armadillos outnumbering the cars, so I think I have some say here.

Sugar Land was a bona-fide small town unto itself, a cookie-cutter of nowhere. The Palms Theater (built in 1945), The Sugar Burger and the Sugarland (note the OLD spelling) Department Store are gone or unrecognizably renovated. Now, we look like the Woodlands???? Or somewhere in Georgia???? Perhaps I'm in the minority, but the ambiance of SL is completely ruined.

Sure, it's nice not to have to go to Stafford for groceries anymore, but enough is enough! I can hardly get out of my subdivision on a Saturday morning to run errands for all the sightseers, pish-posh shopping mavens, and kids in their Daddy's BMWs. The Ruinization of Sugar Land really began in the early 90s and I blame (former Mayor) Hrbackek and his love of the Almighty Dollar for that.

My neighborhood is still beautiful and quiet, though houses for rent are more plentiful as they are being purchased as "investments". That brings the usual "riff-raff", shall we say, who don't care about the property as it isn't theirs in the first place. The various homeowner's associations do what they can, but they are bound by certain laws and aren't God, after all.

By the by, #1, even the Native Americans didn't want to live here, it was so swampy and mosquito infested in those days. Rice was the only viable crop until they started draining the fields and growing cotton, which took less land to grow and was more cost effective. Sugar cane grew until too many freak frosts in the early 1900s. As for slaves, it was wrong, unfortunate, and corrected 150 years ago. You can't re-write history no matter how the PCs may want to. Deal, OK?

#2: The land west of 59 was indeed a prison, for women and later for minimum security folks. I used to see them working in the fields in their black and white uniforms. They were physically paying their debt to society instead of watching TV and slicing one another with shivs, which should be fine with any taxpaying citizen. They were Self-sufficient, growing their own food and selling the surplus. Regarding the bad vibes: no killers were ever housed here. Likely, they paid their debt and moved on to productive lives. Should be good vibes there, actually, except for #3 below.

#3 Thanks to all this "wonderful" and "great" construction of our precious McCity, our neighborhood is now plagued by raccoons and opossoms, and our ecosystem is also in peril. The City of SL told me I could kill them if I want to, but (get this) it's illegal to trap and relocate them to a remote area! It's not the animal's fault. It's greedy, short-sighted and just plain nuts.

I could go on about this and if anyone wants to ask me a question, go for it. But in my opinion, Sugar Land is ruined. Just look at the vacant strip center store fronts that exist right now. One glaring example: The "old" Target building on Hwy 6 between Williams Trace and Settler's Way has been vacant for at least 3 years, maybe more, I lost count.

And who says there are no slums in SL. Anyone ever hear of Towne West? And I know about slums, as I was born in the urban Rust Belt.

No offense, but a cursory knowledge of the history of Houston and the surrounding area will show you that Houston has been in a continuous state of "urban/suburban sprawl" from the get go. I understand you longing for the small town atmosphere, but in the last decade, one would have to go roughly 50-100 miles away from any Southern or Southwestern metropolis to experience anything remotely like small town. I am sure it is no secret to you that the shift in the US for the past 50 years has completely flip-flopped regarding percentage of rural verses urban dwellers.

As for our beloved Houston. She has always grown, and projections have her continuously growing and expanding through out the next century. Houston has never, for the last hundred years, experienced neither stagnation nor a decline in population. As long as zoning laws remain some of the most liberal in the country, Houston will either take over, or just go around any existing "small town" in her way.

There is always a lot of talk about how Houston should build up instead of out. Two things prohibit this.

One is practical, one is a matter of attitude. The land underneath Houston is too water saturated and too soft for anything near a Chicago or NY like massing of high rises, thus, Houston continues to spread horizontally.

Secondly, Texans, for the most part, are like people from LA in this respect..........they LOVE their personal vehicles. Thus, the more freeways, tollways, interchanges and sprawling neighborhoods, well,......the better.

It is going to be a long, long time (after you and i are long gone) before Houston even considers slowing or even stopping urban sprawl. It is part of her legacy.

I invite you to look at some other suburbs in terms of "how far away they were from Houston" roughly 50 years ago. It is just a sign of the times.

BUT, isn't there a preservation society which could save some of the old architecture??

m.

[TheNiche]

No offense, but a cursory knowledge of the history of Houston and the surrounding area will show you that Houston has been in a continuous state of "urban/suburban sprawl" from the get go. I understand you longing for the small town atmosphere, but in the last decade, one would have to go roughly 50-100 miles away from any Southern or Southwestern metropolis to experience anything remotely like small town. I am sure it is no secret to you that the shift in the US for the past 50 years has completely flip-flopped regarding percentage of rural verses urban dwellers.

As for our beloved Houston. She has always grown, and projections have her continuously growing and expanding through out the next century. Houston has never, for the last hundred years, experienced neither stagnation nor a decline in population. As long as zoning laws remain some of the most liberal in the country, Houston will either take over, or just go around any existing "small town" in her way.

There is always a lot of talk about how Houston should build up instead of out. Two things prohibit this.

One is practical, one is a matter of attitude. The land underneath Houston is too water saturated and too soft for anything near a Chicago or NY like massing of high rises, thus, Houston continues to spread horizontally.

Secondly, Texans, for the most part, are like people from LA in this respect..........they LOVE their personal vehicles. Thus, the more freeways, tollways, interchanges and sprawling neighborhoods, well,......the better.

It is going to be a long, long time (after you and i are long gone) before Houston even considers slowing or even stopping urban sprawl. It is part of her legacy.

I invite you to look at some other suburbs in terms of "how far away they were from Houston" roughly 50 years ago. It is just a sign of the times.

BUT, isn't there a preservation society which could save some of the old architecture??

m.

You're right for a lot of the wrong reasons. 1) Watery soil isn't an issue with masses of towers because they're anchored to bedrock. 2) Sprawl occurs because a large chunk of the population values privacy, space, cleanliness, and the perception of low crime and good schools. 3) Vehicles are a means to the ends discussed in point #2. If they could get away with it, most people would rather walk 1/4 mile than drive for 30 minutes or more...but most of us either aren't wealthy enough, have significant others that are employed across town, or have some other limiting factor.

Cities fail to densify because the supply of land is so great and because there are few natural or political barriers; not because of geologic conditions. Most sprawl occurs in rural unincorporated areas that are not affiliated with a city that could enact zoning.

The City of Sugar Land could preserve historical buildings as it has a comprehensive plan and zoning enacted. By established law, the most that the City of Houston can do is to put a temporary moratorium on the demolition of historic properties.