Why does Houston feel more urban than Dallas??? (West: to live, zoning)

[TX_AGGIE13]

Wow!! Those are beautiful pictures above!! Looks like fun!!

[ahzzie]

I think "no zoning" makes Houston unique. It's not ugly to me, I like it just the way it is.

[Synopsis]

Ugh, that is horrendous.

[bamba_boy]

That's a great photo a previous viewer added with famous Christian pastor Joel Osteen on a billboard exhorting clean living right under a monstrous Tequila hard liquor ad! Sort of the Texas mentality in a nutshell! :-)

[AK123]

Those photos were chosen for being some of the ugliest views in the city. NOT representative of the entire city.

I could go to any city anywhere, pick the ugliest parts of it to take pictures of and they'd probably look just as bad as those.

But, what about these pictures:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/6246710-post34.html
http://www.city-data.com/forum/7013570-post7.html

[AK123]

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

No zoning makes Houston more "free" from government telling you what you can & can't do. Less government is better government sometimes. It also gives Houston a quirky vibe no other city in the US has. Where else can you find a 500+ foot tall skyscraper plopped right at your back yard or a XXX video store across the street from a church?

I think the city has ordinances to prevent some of those things, especially in the placement of adult-oriented businesses near churches or schools. Instead of zoning, Houston has ordinances and HOAs. So in most areas, it's not as bad as people make it out to be...

[Synopsis]

Originally Posted by AK123

Those photos were chosen for being some of the ugliest views in the city. NOT representative of the entire city.

I could go to any city anywhere, pick the ugliest parts of it to take pictures of and they'd probably look just as bad as those.

But, what about these pictures:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/6246710-post34.html
http://www.city-data.com/forum/7013570-post7.html

Those are beautiful. Thanks.

[AK123]

Originally Posted by Synopsis

Ugh, that is horrendous.

You know, I'm starting to wonder if that last picture of FM 1093 (aka Westheimer) was doctored. I used to live not too far from there, and thought it looked odd in this pic. Way uglier than I remember, and in the pic you can see the Williams Tower way too close. It is not that close to Lazy Hollow Dr (which you can see in the pic).

So I went to Google maps street view, and sure enough, doesn't look quite right. Type in "8650 Westheimer, Houston, TX" and take a look for yourself. You can still see the Target and Lazy Hollow Dr, but the Williams Tower is barely visible and I don't see all the mess like in that pic....

[Spade]

Originally Posted by C2H (ComingtoHouston)

Maybe i'm missing the point you're trying to relay but Sugarland, Pasadena, Katy, Spring, The Woodlands are their own boundaries. They are not even Houston. They are Houston metro. However Irving, Plano, Richardson, Carrolton are not Dallas either, they're Dallas Metro, but when you start going further west like in Arlington and DFW airport, then its DFW comblined metro.


Houston feels more urban to me because in Houston, you get the best of both worlds. It has the ethnic diverse population, 2 stadiums downtown, Relaint Park, Uptown, Medical Center, Greenway Plaza all inside the loop, and Uptown right at the edge. I'm going to repeat what i said in the other thread. You see just as many urban clusters inside of loop 610 as you see in the entire DFW metroplex. Everything is connected to Houston as one network instead of everything being spread out further between two major cities, thus serving as two networks. (I'm guessing that's what WillysB was trying to say).

Also downtown Houston is more urban than downtown Dallas. Houston has its own little version of the nightlife that Dallas's Greenville Ave has INSIDE downtown on Main Street. It also has its version of Victory Park INSIDE downtown on the development happening on the eastside of downtown Houston. It also has midtown which is equivalent to Dallas's uptown (although Dallas's uptown is slightly ahead).

One thing that Dallas has up on Houston is its mass transit system. As of right now (2009), Dallas's murders Houston's. But withnin the next 5 years, we'll start to see Houston's catch up to Dallas's.

I don't know about this. It isn't like DART isn't expanding itself. I mean their ridership numbers will skyrocket once it goes through the medical district and services the two airports of the region. The Orange line alone IMO will put the daily numbers over 100,000 for the system.

That said, Houston IMO feels bigger than Dallas. You get that sense just from walking around the area. I do think Uptown Dallas is the best pedestrian neighborhood out of anything in the two cities. But midtown in Houston is improving and could be one day like Uptown Dallas.

[TiltShift]

It's because Houston's main "centers" are all less than 7 miles from each other (downtown, the Galleria, the medical center), while Dallas and Ft Worth are 33 miles apart. There are without a doubt more people in the DFW Metroplex than in Greater Houston. It just so happens the locus of Houston's population is more centralized, relative to DFW. Nothing more, nothing less.