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Location: Baghdad by the Bay (San Francisco, California)
3,530 posts, read 5,132,725 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nairobi
To be fair, he did throw Florida in there. He has his way of taking things at face value.
The California comparison is obviously off base, but if someone compares Houston's landscape to that of Central Florida, they would have a valid point.
Do you, an obviously intelligent poster without ( as far as I can tell) an irrational agenda for boosting Houston, want to position yourself as a Metro Matt apologist?
Of course there are Central Florida locales that look a little like Houston. Do you think that's what he was talking about? There are plenty of places in the Inland Empire and Central Valley of California that look a lot like Houston, too. Neither side of that equation would boast about looking like the other.
He's not talking about Central Florida or Sacramento. He's trying to draw a comparison to the scrubby palms and environs of Houston with the Mediterranean climate of coastal Southern California or even the Humid Sub-Tropical climate of Miami.
Houston, while being Humid Sub-Tropical is not as coastally influenced as Southern Florida. Its prevailing wind and weather-makers are continental, not on-shore, as is the case in Southern Florida. In other words, the weather in Houston comes primarily from the Northwest, in the form of frontal systems. In Miami, the influence is more on-shore breezes, and less continental weather systems. The climate is similar, but the mitigating factors are very different. Within that difference lie the factors that change the types of trees that thrive there--and it's a really small area that's unique, but it is different.
It's similar to the situation with SF and LA. Both are Mediterranean climates, but our bay and position on the ocean side of some large mountain ridges affords SF more exposure to the mitigating factors of the Pacific fog, while 30 minutes away, on the other side of the hill, Walnut Creek has weather very similar to LA's.
Just having a homer moment here. You live in Houston right? Downtown Denver and Downtown Houston are the same size. Almost exactly. Just saying.
Downtown Denver has about 23,000,000 Sq. Ft. of Office space. Downtown Houston easily has twice as much office space as that.
I won't even go into the super tall comparisons.
Plus, it has 3 sports venues (Astros, Rockets, and Dynamo) and the second largest theater District in the US. Also, there are multiple projects that are just finished, or about to break ground that will make it even larger.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by H'ton
Downtown Denver has about 23,000,000 Sq. Ft. of Office space. Downtown Houston easily has twice as much office space as that.
I won't even go into the super tall comparisons.
Plus, it has 3 sports venues (Astros, Rockets, and Dynamo) and the second largest theater District in the US. Also, there are multiple projects that are just finished, or about to break ground that will make it even larger.
Vertical office parks don't impress me when I'm walking around town (this is what downtown Dallas felt like to me when I was there a three years ago). As a genuine inquiry, how busy is downtown Houston on a Saturday night? How vibrant are the blocks at street level in terms of retail, restaurants, and bars? What is the critical mass like at a pedestrian level on a Friday afternoon? How many people live downtown? To have a successful and vibrant downtown requires a healthy dose of residents living in downtown.
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 07-27-2013 at 12:03 PM..
Vertical office parks don't impress me when I'm walking around town (this is what downtown Dallas felt like to me when I was there a three years ago). As a genuine inquiry, how busy is downtown Houston on a Saturday night? How vibrant are the blocks at street level in terms of retail, restaurants, and bars? What is the critical mass like at a pedestrian level on a Friday afternoon? How many people live downtown? To have a successful and vibrant downtown requires a healthy dose of residents living in downtown.
Houston's downtown isn't vibrant because there are so many other pockets of vibrancy scattered around town these days...Washington Ave., Montrose, Rice Village, Westheimer, etc.
Right before & after the Superbowl came to Houston circa 2002, Main Street looked like NYC on a Friday & Saturday night until about 2005 when it all of a sudden died. Rents went up & clubs/bars moved out.
Vertical office parks don't impress me when I'm walking around town (this is what downtown Dallas felt like to me when I was there a three years ago). As a genuine inquiry, how busy is downtown Houston on a Saturday night? How vibrant are the blocks at street level in terms of retail, restaurants, and bars? What is the critical mass like at a pedestrian level on a Friday afternoon? How many people live downtown? To have a successful and vibrant downtown requires a healthy dose of residents living in downtown.
Downtown has come a far way in just the last 5 years. The City built an new park Discovery Green and is using it as an anchor for its whole urban design strategy. the park is usually always busy. they've done a good job at keeping the park busy with activities (concerts, movies, exercise classes, farmer's markets, etc.).
On the other side of downtown, the City renovated the historic Market Square to be a "mini-Discovery Green". Both parks are so popular that multiple developers have, or are considering, building residential around them. The activity for both of these "people places" spills over to the nearby restaurants in Green Street or Franks' Pizza, among others.
The Residential component is often regarded as a vitality indicator and the "bullish" attitude is a good thing for downtown Houston. Also, there are numerous hotels set to break ground soon around that district. The link to the downtown map I included shows the rail lines that are currently under construction.
Now the office space...not parks.
there are currently 5 new office highrises on the boards. 2 of them will be around 50 stories, or more, and they have varying degrees of connectivity to the street. Add all of this to a downtown that employs 150,000 office workers and the million plus fans that visit the sports venues and theaters and you have a busy place that only seems to get busier with each passing day and with each new pieces of the downtown puzzle.
Also, note that the areas directly around downtown, along the rail line, are booming with new apartments and town homes. In Town homes, in EADO, is currently building Phase 3 and can barely keep up with demand.
This is not the downtown Houston of the 1980's. When the Super Bowl comes back in 2017, it will be a drastically different place then it was during our last Super Bowl, in 2004
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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^ good post
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