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Sorry, but this is not dense or walkable or particularly urban by any definition. It looks more like Tysons Corner.
This reminds me of Rosemont just outside of Chicago and near O'Hare airport. Full of some high rises but not that walkable. Here's some from downtown Houston. Better but still blah. Reminds me of parts of downtown Minneapolis, actually but there's too many podiums that don't interact with the pedestrian experience very well. A lot of blank walls and parking structures.
This is where this entire conversation started and pay attention to the bold. He only said this in remark that Houston was making strides. Nobody said Houston would equal Chicago if ever. Nobody said the inner loop in its entirety is super dense, urban, or walkable. Google maps does not show the multitude of various projects that got off the ground the past few months and won't show the thousands of units getting off the ground this month. I only showed the links that Houston is still developing and maturing but somehow this is met with negativity. I really don't know why certain cities are discussed on this forum. Because the moment it's mentioned, it brings out the opportunists to bash away.
You can say this about many cities to be honest. Truth is, people don't photograph Houston that often outside of it's skyline...so google maps it is.
Instead of annexing more and trying to be the 2nd or 3rd biggest city in the country, it needs to learn how to urbanize better. No one's going to be impressed that you have a population of 3.5M people if you can't even walk .1 miles outside of the downtown borders and already be in suburbia type development.
Houston has by far the most spending potential out of any sunbelt city to quickly urbanize the city. It has more development than Atlanta, Dallas, and maybe even Miami.
Atlanta already has pretty good development policies going..just imagine if it had Houston's current construction investment. Midtown would probably be 95% built out in 5 years.
Well I don't disagree there. Houston is a city with no zoning but different ordinances. Developers have ran this town for some time now. There are many things that frustrate me with Houston that I have brought up since my time on here including the sidewalks. The city knows this as well. Putting it into action is another. I also would never classify uptown as urban for whoever brought that up. I had to inform Houstonians of that themselves a couple months ago. It's getting denser but it will never be a walkable place unless something drastically changes there. Honestly I wonder where Houston would be as a city if it had zoning. Probably a more cohesive urban environment.
All I said though is that the inner loop has the chance to create a consistent dense urban and walkable environment. Never said that it's there already.
You can say this about many cities to be honest. Truth is, people don't photograph Houston that often outside of it's skyline...so google maps it is.
Instead of annexing more and trying to be the 2nd or 3rd biggest city in the country, it needs to learn how to urbanize better. No one's going to be impressed that you have a population of 3.5M people if you can't even walk .1 miles outside of the downtown borders and already be in suburbia type development.
Houston has by far the most spending potential out of any sunbelt city to quickly urbanize the city. It has more development than Atlanta, Dallas, and maybe even Miami.
Atlanta already has pretty good development policies going..just imagine if it had Houston's current construction investment. Midtown would probably be 95% built out in 5 years.
I'm going to say Houston will never be like Chicago, or New York in terms of high density. But more so will look like Los Angeles and I'm fine with that. What can be done in which has already happen, is to greatly densify the downtown area. Downtown Houston alone has appox. 1000 units U/C. (I know it's low compared to a city like Austin which has more) but it's a start.
Standard...you mentioned that you didn't view the development map because you are looking for urbanity and not development.
Well, if you spend anytime looking how cities are developed you would noticed that they are built in LAYERS and increase their urbanity over time.
At the turn of the 20th century Houston had a close knit- somewhat dense downtown with street cars suburbs linked to downtown. That layer was replaced with a layer that most, even myself did not like. Well NOW there a new layer is being built. I would actually say that new layer started around 1998-1999.
The development map is important because a number of the new developments in Houston are concerned with density and urban issues. The city has invested time and money in steering the development of the city...our Mayor has successfully steered developers into building 3 urban parks in or touching downtown, they are a pedestrian rich convention district, there are a dozen or so new residential buildings going up in downtown and a new Retail district is being planned.
We are not New York...or Philadelphia...or San Francisco.
Houston was created in 1836. New York was created in 1624 and has a 212 year head start over Houston!
BUT I can honestly say that Houston is further along in its 178th Year of existence than than New York was when it was 178 years old, in 1802. Central Park wouldn't even be around for another 60+ years...and the New York in the early to mid 1800s was nothing impressive at all.
In fact, you can find many, many, descriptions of New York form that time. Most were from snobby Europeans eager to point out what is wrong with the New York City. They boastfully stated that New York will NEVER be as civilized of a city as the Londons' and Paris' of Europe.
Eerily familiar to some of the comments here.
Thank you for injecting some common sense into this argument concerning Houston's urbanity. It was really needed.
Seems like people are making irrational arguments about Houston's urbanity (Zero urban neighborhoods? Lots of McMansions in the urban core? Please). Must be a warm up for the comedy routine.
Thank you for injecting some common sense into this argument concerning Houston's urbanity. It was really needed.
Seems like people are making irrational arguments about Houston's urbanity (Zero urban neighborhoods? Lots of McMansions in the urban core? Please). Must be a warm up for the comedy routine.
Just because a neighborhood doesn't have new suburban development doesn't make it urban.
When we say urban neighborhoods, we mean neighborhoods that have a cohesive streetwall with retail on the street level at least on the main drag of the neighborhood.
People here in Atlanta aren't calling Virginia Highlands urban because it has historic victorian homes.
I'm going to say Houston will never be like Chicago, or New York in terms of high density. But more so will look like Los Angeles and I'm fine with that. What can be done in which has already happen, is to greatly densify the downtown area. Downtown Houston alone has appox. 1000 units U/C. (I know it's low compared to a city like Austin which has more) but it's a start.
There's going to be lots more than that in downtown in a few months. But yes, Houston is building more in the form of a western metro. Still, I do wish Houston fix the sidewalk problems.
Just because a neighborhood doesn't have new suburban development doesn't make it urban.
When we say urban neighborhoods, we mean neighborhoods that have a cohesive streetwall with retail on the street level at least on the main drag of the neighborhood.
People here in Atlanta aren't calling Virginia Highlands urban because it has historic victorian homes.
And Houston already has that taken care of, and improvements are being made as we speak. Anything else?
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