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Even riding the redline through Midtown between downtown and the Museum district, the store fronts look decayed, old, and unused. Many of them are boarded up or either contain hideous buglar bars. Not very inviting for someone trying to get to know Houston.
Eventually that area will be developed, if the government doesn't get in the way. Google "East Palo Alto". It used to be a slum too, but it's been up and coming for the last 10 years because it finally became economically feasible due to the crazy costs of doing business in Palo Alto. Unfortunately a bunch of nuts came out of the woodwork whining that now that EPA isn't so much of a slum people who can only afford to live in a slum can't live there anymore. Gee guys, maybe there's some relationship between the rents a property can command and the quality of the property? Maybe a new owner who renovates a property is going to want higher rents to compensate for the cost and risk of taking on a problem property? Nah, that's greedy capitalist talk.
You know why most of Philadelphia looks like a dump? Because of the anti-development mentality of the city government and the endless bureaucratic crap. Who wants to do business in that environment? It's no coincidence that Philly's suburbs are a heck of a lot nicer.
Zoning attracts anti-development activists in droves, not just lobbyists but the permanent bureaucracy too, and makes slums stay slums as by-product. As a bonus, corruption always attends such power. That's why I'm very suspicious of the endless attempts to zone Houston.
Eventually that area will be developed, if the government doesn't get in the way. Google "East Palo Alto". It used to be a slum too, but it's been up and coming for the last 10 years because it finally became economically feasible due to the crazy costs of doing business in Palo Alto. Unfortunately a bunch of nuts came out of the woodwork whining that now that EPA isn't so much of a slum people who can only afford to live in a slum can't live there anymore. Gee guys, maybe there's some relationship between the rents a property can command and the quality of the property? Maybe a new owner who renovates a property is going to want higher rents to compensate for the cost and risk of taking on a problem property? Nah, that's greedy capitalist talk.
You know why most of Philadelphia looks like a dump? Because of the anti-development mentality of the city government and the endless bureaucratic crap. Who wants to do business in that environment? It's no coincidence that Philly's suburbs are a heck of a lot nicer.
Zoning attracts anti-development activists in droves, not just lobbyists but the permanent bureaucracy too, and makes slums stay slums as by-product. As a bonus, corruption always attends such power. That's why I'm very suspicious of the endless attempts to zone Houston.
That's not right at all. Philadelphia is a dump because there are no jobs there and no one needs to do business with the city. It's not really apples and apples.
Houston, and Harris County in general, need some form of zoning because in it's current form, it's far, FAR too easy for developers to destroy whole communites with their endless construction.
Location: The land of sugar... previously Houston and Austin
5,429 posts, read 14,869,540 times
Reputation: 3672
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfre81
They still don't own their property. To hear you tell it, people seem to have to own property to feel a connection with a place. So as it turns out it's economics after all.
Well, I rent - and not expensively - and I somehow have a connection with the city.
It's a generalization. Not a rule. You're an exception. I was an exception when I was a renter. I used to paint over graffiti as a renter living in Austin because the apartment managers wouldn't for whatever reason. I'm sure everyone must have thought I was nuts.
I'm just telling you what I've been told by law enforcement and others who deal with these issues much more often than I do; the areas in Texas cities with more renters are generally more transient, have less sense of community and tend to have more problems. There is plenty of evidence to support this as well. I can't speak for cities in other states where the dynamics are so different than here.
I'm just trying to brainstorm ways to improve a city I've come to enjoy. Don't take it personally!
That's not right at all. Philadelphia is a dump because there are no jobs there and no one needs to do business with the city.
Why are there no jobs?
1) Crazy and intrusive government bureaucracy
2) RE transfer tax is 4%, 2% the rest of the state
3) 3% city tax on employee wages on top of the state income tax
4) 6% corporate income tax on top of the 9.9% state income tax
5) Dozens of other city-only fees, taxes, and levys
Philadelphia makes it clear they don't want your business. Philadelphia is too important for the odious smell of capitalism to taint its air. Don't you dare suggest it needs fewer bureaucrats. How else will incredibly important city services get done?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Callo
Houston, and Harris County in general, need some form of zoning because in it's current form, it's far, FAR too easy for developers to destroy whole communites with their endless construction.
That must be why Houston is prosperous. It's being destroyed.
That must be why Houston is prosperous. It's being destroyed.
Moderator cut: see comment Houston is prosperous because the world couldn't survive without oil & energy. Yeah, its being destroyed too with all the high rise construction & dense developments going up all over the city.
Last edited by Bo; 08-01-2009 at 09:41 PM..
Reason: See finnisher's DM for details.
Yeah, its being destroyed too with all the high rise construction & dense developments going up all over the city.
I know facetiousness when I see it, but there are people who would post something like this, being dead serious. They're a driving force behind keeping whatever images people have of Houston in place. That said, randian's post was in the same spirit as yours in response to Callo's insistence that we need zoning.
Zoning could get approved Monday and be put into place next week and the apartments near Westador will still be there, just like everything that is actually in Houston will be sitting where is. Then we'll have a zoning board given the task of doing the deckchair rearranging. Bureaucracy for the win.
Quote:
I'm just trying to brainstorm ways to improve a city I've come to enjoy. Don't take it personally!
Likewise. You're not the only one to make the same generalizations, I just probably wasn't bothered enough to go into a tl;dr soliloquy in response to it that particular time.
Maybe this should get renamed the "Houston improvement topic" or some other name in case anyone else has a more original idea than that. This has gone in so many directions, but it was a nice change of pace from going on for two pages about the freeways.
Why would anybody want to beef up the overpriced boondoggle that is Metro? Rail is an insane, stupid, awful, crazy way to move people. Metro should be shut down.
So are highways and cars. Having just one mode of transportation period is a crazy and stupid way to move people. Rail was here way before cars and was sustainable as well. I'll tell you this, w/o rail in DC, the area would not be as popular and aesthetically pleasing. For DC residents, rail is much more popular than cars.
So are highways and cars. Having just one mode of transportation period is a crazy and stupid way to move people. Rail was here way before cars and was sustainable as well. I'll tell you this, w/o rail in DC, the area would not be as popular and aesthetically pleasing. For DC residents, rail is much more popular than cars.
Here's the reality. Rail is the only feasible mode of transportation that helps to defray public (government) costs. Unless we make every road a tollroad, rail is our only cost-effective option. The biggest expenses are the initial upfront costs, but since we're pretty committed as a city not to build elevated or tunnelled tracks, each line's budget will probably be comparable to that of building a new football stadium. We seem to be ok with that, and that offers considerably less value than smart public transport.
Philly also lacks expressways through the city, so you must often drive around the city to get anywhere. No, Roosevelt doesn't count, it has way too many stoplights. As a result, it takes ages to drive about Philly. Buses are even slower. And by the way, driving through Philly isn't exactly a beautiful sight either. Most of Philly is quite ugly, actually, compared to what I've seen of Houston.
Why would anybody want to beef up the overpriced boondoggle that is Metro? Rail is an insane, stupid, awful, crazy way to move people. Metro should be shut down.
Well that was part of my idea. I know that most of the traffic heads over to Jersey, but my whole thought is that SEPTA (Philly transit authority) has done an excellent job in making the city accessible via public trans. But uh, it is much faster to drive from downtown Philly to northern suburbs on 95 (equivalent to 45 in Houston). I spent 15 minutes in traffic yesterday. I spent an hour in Houston traffic last week. I think I have the knowledgeable advantage on that one . . .
And yes Philly is very ugly in many places, but my point was that riding on 45 you see MANY abandoned strip malls. Riding on 95 you see trees, one big prison , neighborhoods, and bridges to Jersey. Not much in terms of abandoned buildings . . .
Lastly, Metro is stupid at points, but it is much cheaper than SEPTA. A SEPTA bus trip is $2, while Metro is $1.25. And while Metro does not have an unlimited option (SEPTA has many unlimited options as well as tokens at discounted prices), I feel much better paying $4 to come from zone 4 on a Metro bus rather than $7.50 to come from the equivalent on a SEPTA train . . .
Bottom line . . . Metro will be there as long as Houston exists. No one is gonna knock it off. Try advocating for change. It's the way things get done . . .
Location: from houstoner to bostoner to new yorker to new jerseyite ;)
4,084 posts, read 12,704,860 times
Reputation: 1974
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfre81
Spend enough time around anything and you will deal with the problems associated with it.
Maybe that's why, for one, I don't really think of Houston as being that "big." I used to drive through Houston from Texas City to get to work, which might have been in Conroe or Magnolia or Columbus, or in Houston, or just a "short" drive to, say, Clear Lake or Santa Fe. Since, at the time, I spent most of my time on the freeways and I got rather weary of the driving and, indeed, of the scenery. I had little free time to explore the city or anything, considering I didn't live in it, so to me it amounted to the 600 square miles of billboards and loud signage that some would have you believe. Then a few years later I started laying my head here, taking more local roads and fewer freeways, driving through places like West U, Rice and the Heights to get around instead of 45 or 59.
On many levels it's not very fair to judge a city by driving through it on strip of concrete designed to take you past its location and not through it, if that makes any sense. If my first encounter with Austin was a drive through it on I-35 south at rush hour, I could easily jump to the conclusion that Austin as a whole is not only aesthetically unattractive (especially once you're past the downtown and UT area) and that it has traffic that puts the Gulf Freeway to shame. But of course I know the whole city isn't like that, because I've actually been in it and not through it.
Anyway, I notice we're very focused on the freeways. I know Eisenhower had a lot of things in mind when he pushed the interstate highway system through in the 1950s but creating scenic drives wasn't part of the plan. Even when you're driving through the country, you're driving through it. You skip all the red lights and the small town cops who pretty much paid by the ticket, but you're also skipping everything that reveals the character of such places.
I stopped at Whataburger off 59 in Edna, outside of Victoria, a couple weeks ago. I haven't really been to Edna, I've just been to Whataburger. It was next to Church's Chicken and a Wal-Mart, just like along any other small town's freeway frontage. I didn't do anything else there. Odds are there's a quaint, barely-alive downtown that has a little charm in it and some nice older houses there. But I didn't see any of that, because I never got further off the freeway than the Whataburger, and then I was off on my way.
It's the same principle with the people who do most of the complaining here, driving in from 30 miles out to work then go back home. They either get numb or they get just plain unhappy with their lives. Maybe I'm just numb. Or something else that rhymes with "numb," who knows.
Does it have to? I'd think a "singular" looking city would get rather boring.
It would be nice. A city doesn't have to be boring because things actually look nice. The thing is, most cities are planned based on tried-and-true methods. Houston has attempted to reinvent the wheel and why is that when, by most accounts, the result hasn't been pretty? Houston hides its pretty parts and shows off its ugly side without compunction. Most cities do the opposite. Why is that?? is what I'd like to know.
And about the freeways, Houston has them criss-crossing in all directions so that, by design, they're the way most people traverse the city, so how is it possible to discuss Houston's appearance without mentioning them? My observations weren't based solely on freeways. I saw the same problems driving around on surface streets and throughout neighborhoods. My inner loop neighborhood had bars, restaurants, and other small businesses in strip centers that may have looked okay individually, but looked odd and out of place because they didn't fit into any larger scheme. It also had 400K homes, but guess what? They were next to falling-down shacks that needed painting, with broken or missing sidewalks, dilapidated stores, abandoned buildings and warehouses, empty lots with weeds growing through the cracks and litter strewn about, and industrial areas within walking distance. My observations were based on what I saw every day leaving home as well, not just freeways.
Last edited by houstoner; 08-01-2009 at 01:46 PM..
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, neighborhoods, and bridges to Jersey. Not much in terms of abandoned buildings . . .
