I-45 Rebuild (North Houston Highway Improvement Project)

[Texasota]

That's not really accurate. Populations were smaller, but much more tightly packed. Size aside, the density of a contemporary American suburb/exurb doesn't really have much of a precedent in human history. Especially given that an exurb is 100% extractive.

And yes, that includes extended family hunter/gatherer societies, though we can mostly only extrapolate from more recent examples of that lifestyle, which is inherently flawed because contemporary hunter/gatherer communities are all pushed to the absolute worst, least productive land in the world. 

[Andrew Ewert]

On 5/9/2023 at 12:39 PM, august948 said:

For most of human existence we've roamed the land living in far flung groups of minimal density.  Suburbia is closer to our native habitat.  We will survive.

Yeah also for most of that we spent the majority of our time hunting and gathering for food...

[august948]

22 minutes ago, Andrew Ewert said:

Yeah also for most of that we spent the majority of our time hunting and gathering for food...

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

[editor]

On 5/6/2023 at 11:34 AM, Ross said:

Are you saying I should move every time my work location changes?

That's a choice you made. Why should the rest of the people on the planet suffer for your lifestyle?

[august948]

10 minutes ago, editor said:

That's a choice you made. Why should the rest of the people on the planet suffer for your lifestyle?

So is the ideal a place where everyone lives in 100sqft rooms in giant towers connected to other giant towers that contain work/shopping/entertainment?  Sort of a hive?

[pablog]

4 hours ago, august948 said:

So is the ideal a place where everyone lives in 100sqft rooms in giant towers connected to other giant towers that contain work/shopping/entertainment?  Sort of a hive?

The ideal is for people to be able to live the life they want/prefer without imposing that lifestyle and negatively affecting the life of others.

Do you love to live in the country or suburbs? Great for you! But your need for a car-dependent city negatively affects the quality of life of people living in the communities or neighborhoods closer to town.

You love dense walkable neighborhoods and towering skyscrapers? Great for you! But your love for those things shouldn’t mean we ban suburbs and cars.

The great thing is that there is a great solution/compromise; trains and public transportation, not wider highways.

[august948]

2 hours ago, pablog said:

The ideal is for people to be able to live the life they want/prefer without imposing that lifestyle and negatively affecting the life of others.

Do you love to live in the country or suburbs? Great for you! But your need for a car-dependent city negatively affects the quality of life of people living in the communities or neighborhoods closer to town.

You love dense walkable neighborhoods and towering skyscrapers? Great for you! But your love for those things shouldn’t mean we ban suburbs and cars.

The great thing is that there is a great solution/compromise; trains and public transportation, not wider highways.

Wouldn't requiring the use of public transport negatively affect those living in the suburbs?  How about trains AND wider highways?

[hindesky]

Demo plumbing permit.

[editor]

15 hours ago, august948 said:

So is the ideal a place where everyone lives in 100sqft rooms in giant towers connected to other giant towers that contain work/shopping/entertainment?  Sort of a hive?

No one said any such thing, but if you enjoy living out in a field like a farm animal that's your choice to make, so you have to live with your decisions.

Moreover, the "hive" thing is just a real estate industry meme spread by desperate low-end agents who can't come up with any logical arguments.  It's the real estate equivalent of calling someone a "poopyhead," and reveals more about the writer than the position being argued. 

I hate to break it to you, but the notion of continuously building vast expanses of single-family homes is last century's thinking.  Population decline is a thing, and has already arrived in many developed countries.  Who's going to live in all those empty suburbs?

To @Ross' point about moving because of his job, moving around for work is not unusual.  In the 70's and 80's, there was a joke in the tech industry that IBM stood for "I've Been Moved."  From 1994 to 2006, I had a job that constantly moved me and my family not just from neighborhood to neighborhood, but across the country.  I lived in about 11 states because of it.  But it was a choice I made.  I never thought, "We should spend billions of tax dollars building freeways to accommodate my chosen way of life."

[Amlaham]

Idk if this is related to the i45 project, but the giant double billboard that was in front of Clayton Homes was also taken down :))))

 

 

[Amlaham]

Noticed another giant double billboard and a small building off of St Emanuel and i45 were also removed. However, it looks like they were taken down December 2021. 

 

 

[Amlaham]

Found more, these buildings were at the south west intersection of i69 and 288. These were also demolished in 2022. 

 

 

 

[Amlaham]

Last one guys, sorry if these end up being irrelevant.

This one is on the south west side of La Branch and i69

 

[hindesky]

The TXDOT guy I talked with said they have bought a bunch of property in the area including the old Mexican Consulate. I'm surprised they let KPFT move in to their new building on Caroline St. because he mentioned that it would be coming down too sometime in the future.

[august948]

4 hours ago, editor said:

No one said any such thing, but if you enjoy living out in a field like a farm animal that's your choice to make, so you have to live with your decisions.

Moreover, the "hive" thing is just a real estate industry meme spread by desperate low-end agents who can't come up with any logical arguments.  It's the real estate equivalent of calling someone a "poopyhead," and reveals more about the writer than the position being argued. 

I hate to break it to you, but the notion of continuously building vast expanses of single-family homes is last century's thinking.  Population decline is a thing, and has already arrived in many developed countries.  Who's going to live in all those empty suburbs?

To @Ross' point about moving because of his job, moving around for work is not unusual.  In the 70's and 80's, there was a joke in the tech industry that IBM stood for "I've Been Moved."  From 1994 to 2006, I had a job that constantly moved me and my family not just from neighborhood to neighborhood, but across the country.  I lived in about 11 states because of it.  But it was a choice I made.  I never thought, "We should spend billions of tax dollars building freeways to accommodate my chosen way of life."

I think the extreme would be wild animal, not farm animal.  Though life on a farm would be nice.

I'm not in the real estate industry and so wasn't aware that "hive" was a real estate pejorative.  I'll keep that in mind now that I know.

Population decline is absolutely a thing.  Though for the US that will happen well into the future and at a much slower pace than the rest of the world.  The big unknown is how population decline will affect the economy and life in general.  It's likely, though, that when the population declines economic activity will also decline.  It's far from certain that economic decline is going to increase urbanization.  It seems more likely that such decline would increase ruralization as people return to greater self-sufficiency out of necessity.  The only example I can think of off of the top of my head is the de-urbanization that happened in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire.  If you have some other examples of what happens to a society when populations and economies collapse, I'd genuinely like to hear them.

[editor]

30 minutes ago, hindesky said:

I'm surprised they let KPFT move in to their new building on Caroline St. because he mentioned that it would be coming down too sometime in the future.

I'm surprised that it's coming down in the future, since the general manager and the disc jockeys on the air yesterday kept mentioning the new Caroline building like they're proud of it and expect to be there a long time.  Go figure.

7 minutes ago, august948 said:

I'm not in the real estate industry and so wasn't aware that "hive" was a real estate pejorative. 

Go out to the sticks to the west of Houston, and you'll see it on billboards put up in cow fields by local wantrapeneur real estate developers trying to convince people to move out of Houston.

[editor]

9 minutes ago, august948 said:

It seems more likely that such decline would increase ruralization as people return to greater self-sufficiency out of necessity

You don't have to look any further than America's own history, and the way business works today, to understand that population decline will mean people moving into cities and large towns, and not spreading themselves thinly across the landscape.

Texas is littered with dried up small towns that didn't make it.  People who live in small towns across America today constantly complain about the kids moving to the big city and leaving their towns to die.  That's been going on for at least the last half century.

From a business perspective, if I'm opening Ed's SuperSud Washateria, I'm going to put it as close as I can afford to the most people, I'm not going to put it out in the middle of a mouldering suburb with few people and no future.

From what I've read, I think Japan and South Korea are at the leading edge of the depopulation trend.  Their governments are giving the last remaining people in suburban villages incentives to consolidate into larger towns and cities.  It's just too expensive to maintain infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, police protection, fire cover, etc…) for a declining population spread out over a large area. 

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, hindesky said:

The TXDOT guy I talked with said they have bought a bunch of property in the area including the old Mexican Consulate. I'm surprised they let KPFT move in to their new building on Caroline St. because he mentioned that it would be coming down too sometime in the future.

Per the maps on TXDoT's NHHIP website, it appears the KPFT building will not be taken.

https://www.txdot.gov/nhhip.html

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Houston19514

[Houston19514]

1 hour ago, editor said:

From what I've read, I think Japan and South Korea are at the leading edge of the depopulation trend.  Their governments are giving the last remaining people in suburban villages incentives to consolidate into larger towns and cities.  It's just too expensive to maintain infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, police protection, fire cover, etc…) for a declining population spread out over a large area. 

Japan is paying families 1 million yen to move to the countryside 

https://theconversation.com/japan-is-paying-families-1-million-yen-to-move-to-the-countryside-but-it-wont-make-tokyo-any-smaller-197551#:~:text=The Japanese government has announced,000 on previous such payments.

Edited May 12, 2023 by Houston19514

[Ross]

11 hours ago, editor said:

No one said any such thing, but if you enjoy living out in a field like a farm animal that's your choice to make, so you have to live with your decisions.

Moreover, the "hive" thing is just a real estate industry meme spread by desperate low-end agents who can't come up with any logical arguments.  It's the real estate equivalent of calling someone a "poopyhead," and reveals more about the writer than the position being argued. 

I hate to break it to you, but the notion of continuously building vast expanses of single-family homes is last century's thinking.  Population decline is a thing, and has already arrived in many developed countries.  Who's going to live in all those empty suburbs?

To @Ross' point about moving because of his job, moving around for work is not unusual.  In the 70's and 80's, there was a joke in the tech industry that IBM stood for "I've Been Moved."  From 1994 to 2006, I had a job that constantly moved me and my family not just from neighborhood to neighborhood, but across the country.  I lived in about 11 states because of it.  But it was a choice I made.  I never thought, "We should spend billions of tax dollars building freeways to accommodate my chosen way of life."

I know all about moving for work. From the time I was born until I left home to go to college, we moved 9 times, including overseas. I've moved 9 times since finishing my degree, with 7 years overseas in 4 different countries.

I was responding to the point about having areas that are walkable and located near to work locations. I think that's an unreasonable expectation in Houston given how many different work locations are in the Greater Houston area. Implying that a person should move within Houston every time their work location changes is impractical at best, and really bad at worst. No one is going to be excited about moving 5 miles to be next to the new work location, with kid's schools to worry about, whether the available accommodation is any good, whether there are decent amenities, etc. If you own your home it's much worse. It just generally works out better to stay where you are and find a way to get to work.

[august948]

10 hours ago, editor said:

I'm surprised that it's coming down in the future, since the general manager and the disc jockeys on the air yesterday kept mentioning the new Caroline building like they're proud of it and expect to be there a long time.  Go figure.

Go out to the sticks to the west of Houston, and you'll see it on billboards put up in cow fields by local wantrapeneur real estate developers trying to convince people to move out of Houston.

Real estate developers trying to convince people to buy their developments?  Now there's a shocker.

[august948]

10 hours ago, editor said:

You don't have to look any further than America's own history, and the way business works today, to understand that population decline will mean people moving into cities and large towns, and not spreading themselves thinly across the landscape.

Texas is littered with dried up small towns that didn't make it.  People who live in small towns across America today constantly complain about the kids moving to the big city and leaving their towns to die.  That's been going on for at least the last half century.

From a business perspective, if I'm opening Ed's SuperSud Washateria, I'm going to put it as close as I can afford to the most people, I'm not going to put it out in the middle of a mouldering suburb with few people and no future.

From what I've read, I think Japan and South Korea are at the leading edge of the depopulation trend.  Their governments are giving the last remaining people in suburban villages incentives to consolidate into larger towns and cities.  It's just too expensive to maintain infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, police protection, fire cover, etc…) for a declining population spread out over a large area. 

I don't think you can look at America's history for guidance on this particular issue.  America has been in population and economic growth mode for all of it's history.  What we're talking about is permanent year over year declines in population.  That's whole different animal (and not a farm animal at that).  It's not at all clear that the long term (generations) reaction to that will be the further growth of urban areas. 

Japan and South Korea are export economies.  They need to sell goods overseas because their populations are in decline and they don't have the consumer base to support their economies.  Without the option to sell abroad, they would (will) experience significant declines in their economies, possibly going as far as deindustrialization.  Bear in mind that it's industrialization that has led to the phenomenal growth of urban areas since the second world war.  That's the reason people left the farms for the big cities.  If that goes away, so does much of your urban population.  This is whole economy level stuff, not Ed's SuperSud's level stuff.   No doubt, governments will try to maintain (obsolete?) twentieth century trends as you are implying Japan and South Korea are, but that's a losing battle in the end.

[004n063]

12 hours ago, Ross said:

I was responding to the point about having areas that are walkable and located near to work locations. I think that's an unreasonable expectation in Houston given how many different work locations are in the Greater Houston area. Implying that a person should move within Houston every time their work location changes

I specifically said "or transit options thereto," though.

Of course it's unreasonable to expect people to move constantly to be within walking distance of work. I really don't think that I implied that all. 

I don't think it's unreasonable to want a majority of employers to coalesce around transit-accessible nodes, however, if we're talking about a 30-year vision for the city.

I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that a transportation plan that relies on people's buying and servicing of expensive, large, private vehicles that rapidly degrade themselves, their extremely expensive infrastructure, and the environment around them is a bad plan. 

[samagon]

On 5/12/2023 at 7:34 PM, Ross said:

I know all about moving for work. From the time I was born until I left home to go to college, we moved 9 times, including overseas. I've moved 9 times since finishing my degree, with 7 years overseas in 4 different countries.

I was responding to the point about having areas that are walkable and located near to work locations. I think that's an unreasonable expectation in Houston given how many different work locations are in the Greater Houston area. Implying that a person should move within Houston every time their work location changes is impractical at best, and really bad at worst. No one is going to be excited about moving 5 miles to be next to the new work location, with kid's schools to worry about, whether the available accommodation is any good, whether there are decent amenities, etc. If you own your home it's much worse. It just generally works out better to stay where you are and find a way to get to work.

I've worked for the same company for coming up on 21 years. in that time the office has had 4 locations, and is completely closed as of now, ownership is going to be getting a new office (primarily to have a conference room, and customer training area). so I'll be able to say, in the next year or two, 5 locations, 22 years.

I used to live in the 'burbs, and commuting when the office wasn't near the house was a 1 hour affair from one 'burb to another. luckily, for most of that I could just toss cruise control and go, but about 30% of the drive was in stop/go traffic not on freeways.

anyway, I now live in the east end, and can happily say that for the 15 years that I've been in the area, my commute at office #2 was 20ish minutes, and #3 and 4 was less than 15 minutes (including the walk from the car to the office desk).

I don't think I'll be so lucky next office, rumor is that will be near i-10 Campbell area, so I'll be back to a 20-30 minute commute.

meanwhile, some folks have only ever rented, and they move with the office, others lived within minutes of the first office and have grumbled every time the office moves farther away from the primary location. a few quit. I'm out here just shrugging at the whole thing. I'm sure there's some actuarial table to assess that risk.

it's whatever, we all assume various risks in our lives and there are trade-offs for those risks. the big problem is though, the actual cost of living in the suburbs gets hidden in new developments paying for older ones (aka, roads and other maintenance of the older stuff that exists in those towns is paid for by taxes from new owners, there's little maintenance for the new stuff, so they don't have to worry about that for 10ish years, and then they just need to get some freeways expanded and woo some developers to build more homes), at some point that party is going to end and someone is going to be left holding the bag. and if freeway construction that helps promote that behavior is any indication, everyone is going to be paying those checks when they come due.

Edited May 15, 2023 by samagon

[hindesky]

First building demo permit.

[hindesky]

Two more building demo permits.

[samagon]

On 5/4/2023 at 12:39 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

Wow yeah F that, 20+ years!? And they wouldn't start on the capped park section until 2031. I've been on the fence about this for a while but this schedule just convinced me this is not what we need. 

it'll be the slowest moving train wreck in the cities history.

[Amlaham]

Idk if this has already been posted/discussed before, but Midtown TIRZ created funding for a cap park over i69 between Midtown and the Museum District. The dates are obviously off, but the important thing is that they plan on funding the park! 

 

[hindesky]

Demo of the buildings is underway.

[Luminare]

On 5/12/2023 at 10:47 AM, Amlaham said:

Last one guys, sorry if these end up being irrelevant.

This one is on the south west side of La Branch and i69

 

Some nice investigative work @Amlaham keep it up.