Why is Houston the most attacked city in Texas? By other Texas cities? (Dallas: credit, neighborhood)

[War Beagle]

Originally Posted by DabOnEm

Or perhaps city leaders 100 years ago should have relaxed on the massive annexations and allowed the suburbs to have more local control. After Harvey, there's been more talk about just how massive the unincorporated areas are and how they're hindered and can't do things such as create ordinances since Texas counties weren't designed this way. Harris County is stretched extremely thin.

I think DFW having more incorporated cities plays a part in the perception. Both DFW and Houston sprawl forever, but at least in DFW there are different cities sprinkled throughout the area, which can give it a bit more variety than is found in Houston. Granted, it's mostly superficial but it breaks the monotony.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by War Beagle

I think DFW having more incorporated cities plays a part in the perception. Both DFW and Houston sprawl forever, but at least in DFW there are different cities sprinkled throughout the area, which can give it a bit more variety than is found in Houston. Granted, it's mostly superficial but it breaks the monotony.

DFW had more "pre-existing" cities and towns before the mid-20th century urban explosion of the Dallas and Fort Worth. They had their own downtowns and identity. Houston basically lacked that - once you left the young City of Houston it was just low-population countryside and farmland. Places like Alief, Fairbanks, Addicks, Missouri City, League City were pretty much nothing-villes compared to Plano, Garland, Grapevine, Burleson, McKinney, etc. So, DFW just had more to start with in this regard. Even our few historic suburban downtowns (Tomball, Humble, Conroe, Baytown) seem wimpy compared to a number of the ones around DFW. (I'm excepting Galveston, of course, which is just unique in Texas period).

[madrone2k]

As a native, I would like to be supportive of Houston in this conversation. However, I agree with War Beagle's and LocalPlanner's comments. It has always called my attention that Houston did not have more neighboring towns that were large enough to be seen as distinct entities. To illustrate, consider how many towns near Houston have what would be considered to have a "downtown" district? Not many, compared to towns around DFW or even Austin or SA. I don't intend to "pick on" Houston, but its a though worth considering.

[stoneclaw]

Originally Posted by madrone2k

As a native, I would like to be supportive of Houston in this conversation. However, I agree with War Beagle's and LocalPlanner's comments. It has always called my attention that Houston did not have more neighboring towns that were large enough to be seen as distinct entities. To illustrate, consider how many towns near Houston have what would be considered to have a "downtown" district? Not many, compared to towns around DES or even Austin or SA. I don't intend to "pick on" Houston, but its a though worth considering.

I was somewhat with your post until your second to last sentence saying that towns even near Austin or SA had more of a downtown district. To me, that invalidated your entire post.

[AcresHomes44]

Houston's no-zoning law allowed it to grow the way it has. I see Houston annexing the unincorporated areas of Harris Co. in the near future.

[timlot]

Originally Posted by AcresHomes44

Houston's no-zoning law allowed it to grow the way it has. I see Houston annexing the unincorporated areas of Harris Co. in the near future.

State law has changed requiring voters in the affected area to approve to be annexed so you won't be seeing Houston annexing anyone anytime soon. Besides Houston is already 650 sq/miles. Its already having issues servicing the area it has now.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by timlot

State law has changed requiring voters in the affected area to approve to be annexed so you won't be seeing Houston annexing anyone anytime soon. Besides Houston is already 650 sq/miles. Its already having issues servicing the area it has now.

Agreed, Houston doesn't really want to annex the residential areas anymore - they don't pay off. It just does the SPAs / LPAs with the MUDs that have commercial / retail uses to get sales tax, without providing services.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by AcresHomes44

Houston's no-zoning law allowed it to grow the way it has. I see Houston annexing the unincorporated areas of Harris Co. in the near future.

Zoning doesn't really have anything to do with annexation, other than annexing allows zoning to be put in place. I have to think that's partly why Sugar Land has recently annexed, so that it can brutally enforce its harsh zoning in adjacent areas rather than respecting the principles of property rights and market efficient land use.

[DabOnEm]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

DFW had more "pre-existing" cities and towns before the mid-20th century urban explosion of the Dallas and Fort Worth. They had their own downtowns and identity. Houston basically lacked that - once you left the young City of Houston it was just low-population countryside and farmland. Places like Alief, Fairbanks, Addicks, Missouri City, League City were pretty much nothing-villes compared to Plano, Garland, Grapevine, Burleson, McKinney, etc. So, DFW just had more to start with in this regard. Even our few historic suburban downtowns (Tomball, Humble, Conroe, Baytown) seem wimpy compared to a number of the ones around DFW. (I'm excepting Galveston, of course, which is just unique in Texas period).

Yeah DFW definitely had a few more established towns with Downtown cores. This is one reason why Houston has a larger core than Dallas and FW. But if we are to look at the four core counties of DFW (and outside of the two big cities), it had Denton (county seat), McKinney (county seat), Grand Prairie, Irving, Plano, and Arlington that were sizeable before 1950. Besides that, they were pretty insignificant until the housing boom started in the 50s. Houston suburbs like Sugar Land, Pearland, Conroe, Katy, Pasadena, etc. (basically the incorporated suburbs now) were all pretty close in size back in 1950 to the super burbs of DFW today. They just didn't have as much land to annex or include in the city limits because Houston gobbled it all up. It's hard to find population figures for places like Spring or Alief back then because they aren't cities.

I think that if the satellite cities around Houston were allowed to incorporate (and if Addicks wasn't forced to move and the reservoir was built elsewhere), then the cities around Houston would have stronger core downtown areas. Katy has 12,000 people currently, but the Katy address is used by 400,000 people. If Katy was really a town that large, then it would for sure be more developed in it's core. It'd need a larger courthouse, city service buildings, etc., which would bring more retail and all that other good stuff. Alief, Spring, Cypress, Klein, Addicks, Humble/Atascocita, etc., all have similar situations so it would be the same way. When Houston did it's finger annexations of commercial areas, it pretty much killed any annexation ideas/plans and a few of these cities just disbanded.

[madrone2k]

In the 1960s, I was a kid and rode my bike through Addicks a number of times and up Highway 6 to the north. Even earlier, a summer art class I took had us sketch the little old church that sat just south of Addicks Dam. Based on those experiences, I don't think there was much there, compared to Katy. At least Katy had -- in addition to the grain storage facilities and the RR stop -- a hospital and a Ford dealership. However, in those days it seemed really way out in the country and even now "Old Katy" seems to have been much smaller than Plano and other cities around Dallas were. I'm not really arguing a point here, but I've always wondered why there were (apparently to me) more small towns in north Texas that had growth spurts that towns around Houston did not have. I do know that a lot of towns in north Texas boomed with the cotton business ... but I wonder why that would not have also been true around Houston, which did also have a lot of cotton farming.

To me, it's only the towns of Richmond and Rosenburg that stand out as distinct entities near Houston. Sugar Land does, to a lesser extent, but it really was a company town. No one here ever mentions Angleton or Lake Jackson, but they were also distinct entities, albeit farther from the core of Houston.

I'm just thinking out loud here, but it's in part because I remember spending a summer in Dallas in the mid-70s and was interested to note that there were towns nearby that had "downtowns" and were distinct from the city of Dallas. For instance, UT-Dallas was still surrounded by corn fields while Plano was considered "way out in the country" but had a small downtown. Meanwhile, there were small towns south of Dallas (like Streetman) that boomed in the cotton era and basically disappeared later ... many of the banks and other businesses gone with the wind.