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Where are you getting that? That is not true at all. Houston will annex the tiny commercial strip where the Exxon campus is, not over 250 square miles. The only annexation Houston has done since the 90s has been limited purpose annexation of commercial areas ONLY.
They will annex Exxon-Mobile, Southwestern Energy, Springwoods Village, and Springwoods Medical Center when all is said and done, no?
^^^ Yes @ 3:41! ^^^
City boundaries are just political boundaries put in place by various mechanisms of law & code. Until Denver managed to break the long limit on it's incorporated size that strangled it & began vigorous annexations in the 1990's, it's city growth had petered out to the point of stagnation.
Since Denver was allowed to begin a new program of annexation, the city has gobbled up huge amounts of land & much of their newer growth is very suburban in nature & far-removed from the actual traditional core of Denver.
Now Seattle is an entirely different type of case. It has grown significantly since 1980 after it peaked in population the first time in the 1960 census & is now a considerably larger city in population. This growth has all occurred without the benefit of one iota of annexation.
So, Seattle's growth is truly due to an intown renewal & re-energized city proper.
And as for Boston, it does very well in it's tiny 48 square miles as the vibrant & vital business, social & cultural center of New England.
They will annex Exxon-Mobile, Southwestern Energy, Springwoods Village, and Springwoods Medical Center when all is said and done, no?
Was that not their intention from the start?
Yeah that has always been their intention to put all of that commercial and retail into their city limits for an increase in the tax base, but it is no where near 250 square miles. It might be 3 or 4.
I wish Miami would annex some of its surrounding surburbs. Our city limits only cover about 36 miles of land but we have close to a half million people in that little space. I wonder what the population would be if our city limits covered 150-200 sq miles. It would probably land us in the top 6 in population.
^^^ Yes @ 3:41! ^^^
City boundaries are just political boundaries put in place by various mechanisms of law & code. Until Denver managed to break the long limit on it's incorporated size that strangled it & began vigorous annexations in the 1990's, it's city growth had petered out to the point of stagnation. Since Denver was allowed to begin a new program of annexation, the city has gobbled up huge amounts of land & much of their newer growth is very suburban in nature & far-removed from the actual traditional core of Denver.
Now Seattle is an entirely different type of case. It has grown significantly since 1980 after it peaked in population the first time in the 1960 census & is now a considerably larger city in population. This growth has all occurred without the benefit of one iota of annexation.
So, Seattle's growth is truly due to an intown renewal & re-energized city proper.
And as for Boston, it does very well in it's tiny 48 square miles as the vibrant & vital business, social & cultural center of New England.
Only partially true. In fact, I'd venture more false than true. Denver annexed the land required to build the airport, increasing the city's area by roughly 50%. This has led to a large swath of open space that will develop in a more suburban style, I'll not argue that. But the bulk of Denver's annexations are now the airport. Further, the Stapleton neighborhood (site of the old airport) has seen a tremendous amount of renewal, as has the neighborhood on the NE fringe of downtown. Denver is not as dense as Boston or Seattle, no. But to argue it's population growth has come from annexations and growth therein is not accurate.
On a side note, I've never understood this fixation on area and density. Each city is its own study in the time period and location in which it grew up as a city. Each city is a little different as a result. I wouldn't deem a place like Houston not a "real city" because it's roughly the size of a small country in area. If I were to take part in the "Chicago vs Houston" debate this thread has become, density is not something that would even compute with me. There are so many other qualities for both cities and every other city discussed here that are far better to discuss than density and area. That's just how I see it. Perhaps I am an exception.
Escape from those heat waves is precisely why immigrants from Europe didn't come to the Deep South much until after A/C was invented. Places like Atlanta get heat waves like that almost every summer and without cooling A/C systems people would die in large numbers from the heat.
Now that A/C is here there is no point in living in a place like Chicago.
South Georgia and North Florida are hotter than HELL in the middle of August. You can't even go outside and walk to the mailbox without feeling faint.
Add to that gnats in the day and mosquitoes in the evening and WHEW CHILE! That's why I'm THANKFUL Atlanta sits higher in elevation.
It gets hot in the A too, but not like it does in the Southern portion of GA.
Houston currently has multiple 20, 30, and 40 story residential towers under construction, or in the pre-construction phase, right NOW. These are all in the city center so YES Houston continues to get more dense each day, the urban connectivity continues to improve each day, new mass transit lines are under construction which improves the car-less lifestyle.
For those keeping score,here is what is happening in Houston right now:
San Antonio has surpassed 1.4 million within the city limits which is actually within 300 square miles not the official 400 sq miles. The additional 100 square miles is new annexed land to the far south that is mostly undeveloped to help balance San Antonio's lopsided growth. The far south is now just starting to grow due to the Ford Shale boom, new A&M campus, and Toyota plant. Then there is another 35,000 people in the central core in bedroom cities some that are located near the downtown area but are not included in the city stats.
I wouldn't doubt there is about 1.5 million people within 350 square miles. The urbanized area tapers off at about 1.9 million(Austin begins)within 1,000 square miles and a metro of about 2.33 million. San Antonio is actually pretty dense in the first 150-200 square miles, I'm sure well over 1,000,000.
Wow, It's incredible the amount of construction going on in Houston!
Yes! that's the point...Houston is currently infilling and densifying its city core each and every day. It seems as if a new proposal pops up every day around here.
And in regards to this thread, and catching Chicago, the overwhelmingly positive job trends continue:
Oh and job growth is DIRECTLY correlated to real estate activity and DIRECTLY correlated to population increase.
That development map shows that the new "inner loop" project are very urban in nature so even the ardent Houston critic can acknowledge that this is a positive.
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