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How is that any different from the undeveloped areas in Houston?
Is it the tree canopy that makes the difference?
I disagree with nigeriannightmare that Houston is the only city from that list with what he describes as rural areas.
All these cities expanded by increasing their original limits.
Many times there were gaps in the development that were left undeveloped.
In terms of looks undeveloped forested areas would be my favorite, but undeveloped is still undeveloped whether it is forests like Atlanta, Flood plain like Dallas or Houston or just undeveloped pasture.
Houston has an unattractive problem not a development one.
If the areas nigeriannightmare is complaining about was fronted by beautiful trees I doubt he would be complaining about them. I absolutely love the Greenery in and around Atlanta.
I was probably giving Atlanta a little too much credit. But the reason why I give this to Houston is at 600 square miles, most of outer Houston is suburbia and large sections are downright rural. You could argue neglected as well but NE Houston is as rural as it is neglected. But also to be fair to what your saying a lot of the rural parts of North Houston if not nearly all of it isn't actually in Houston city limits. Aldine, Mount Houston Road, the majority of the Northern part of the Beltway. Atlanta does have Buckhead outside of the skyscraper streets, which is basically worse than anything you'll find within the city limits of Houston.
But this one is filling up more and more everyday. Theirs's also the area between Sunnyside and Pearland which will likely never get closed, or will well after a significant portion of Brazoria is suburban development due to the massive differences between the area around Hobby and Pearland in general.
Last edited by NigerianNightmare; 11-25-2020 at 07:46 PM..
Well the thing is that the reason I say it’s becoming more night and day is because that first link could easily have a better chance to become urban. There’s no chance in the other link. But yes, Midtown would be better as it’s in the core. West chase really never had a chance no matter how much they fix it up. Honestly the only place outside the loop that can really “urbanize” is uptown and even with that one I have my doubts.
Houston has a lot of "Potemkin urbanity" (to give it a new phrase) - big buildings with impressive urban-like facades, but with very limited walkable street presence - examples:
So many lost opportunities in Houston the last 5-10 years of build-up to add more pedestrian capabilities, and now locked into car-centric for another generation or two with these building decisions.
Thanks for the links. A lot of it is still in Midtown which is a pretty small area, but it does seem more urban than a decade ago, although you still see a lot of random developments that end onto a highway ramp (?) in these pictures. The stuff outside Midtown still seem pretty scattered and sparse, some of the newer housing designs are pretty cute though. Lots of opportunity still for more infill and development.
I wasn't trying to say the homes in Houston have 8 lane roadways, but getting anywhere without driving often involves crossing 8 lane roadways because a lot of the subdivisions have no commercial activity in them and getting out of them requires taking the one and only feeder road to a major thoroughfare.
Nope. I didn't post any of midtown, TMC, Kirby or any of those high density areas.
And it did seem like you were implying the norm for residential areas was like what you posted.
You posted saying this is near where you live, look at the scale and how wide the street is and how dangerous it is to cross and how different it is from the area you lived in Seattle.
It may not have been your intention, but it was deceptive to compare one city a few miles from downtown with another city 20 miles out.
There is no doubt that Seattle has a more urban layout but we can do that with more apples to apples comparisons. We could even use the links I posted to show that Seattle has a more urban form. But westchase isn't the best representation of Houston.
Do you think those are fair representations of Seattle?
Wouldn't you think that it would be deceptive to represent the city as such?
Yes Houston city limits are vast but look at the development that far out and look at Seattle's.
You do have to admit that Houston carries its development uninterrupted for far longer than Seattle.
It is the same when you compare Houston to Atlanta.
Heck the flood plain in Dallas deals it a severe blow and even Dallas doesn't hold its uninterrupted development as far as Houston. That flood plain hurts Dallas right outside of downtown :
That area floods so it is that the area isn't urban, it's just not an area That can be built on
Quote:
Originally Posted by RocketSci
Houston has a lot of "Potemkin urbanity" (to give it a new phrase) - big buildings with impressive urban-like facades, but with very limited walkable street presence - examples:
So many lost opportunities in Houston the last 5-10 years of build-up to add more pedestrian capabilities, and now locked into car-centric for another generation or two with these building decisions.
This I agree with.
I think it's just hard to shake car culture in Houston.
But hey maybe that's what the popular version of urbanization in the coming decades. A mixture of high density developments tied with car culture
Last edited by atadytic19; 11-25-2020 at 08:06 PM..
And it did seem like you were implying the norm for residential areas was like what you posted.
You posted saying this is near where you live, look at the scale and how wide the street is and how dangerous it is to cross and how different it is from the area you lived in Seattle.
It may not have been your intention, but it was deceptive to compare one city a few miles from downtown with another city 20 miles out.
There is no doubt that Seattle has a more urban layout but we can do that with more apples to apples comparisons. We could even use the links I posted to show that Seattle has a more urban form. But westchase isn't the best representation of Houston.
I was originally talking about commercial strips, where Seattle's commercial strips even in sleepy residential neighborhoods full of SFHs look and feel more urban. I picked the Upper QA neighborhood because that's where I live. It is for all intents and purposes a sleepy suburb full of craftsman houses, young families and ice cream stores (even though it is close to downtown as the crow flies, it is somewhat cut off by the steep terrain). I could have easily picked neighborhoods further out with similar strips or even in Eastside suburbs like Bellevue and Kirkland (20 miles out, see here), which also feel more urban and walkable than Midtown Houston. So far, I have yet to see any streetview you posted of a sustained commercial strip of stores and commerce (more than 4 stores) in a residential area that does not look like Westheimer or isn't an outdoor mall (like Rice Village). I posted near Westchase because that's where I lived, but had I posted Montrose it would look not that different from Westchase (Montrose is 3.5 miles away from downtown core, which I am not convinced matters for Houston since the downtown is a ghost town at night). I don't think we are talking about the same things, I think we are arguing on different planes and causing needless conflict, so I will walk out of this thread.
When I lived in Midtown, Atlanta I felt like I was living in an urban suburb.... most of the city felt that way except for a few pockets. Portland is definitely the least suburban out of the bunch.
When I lived in Midtown, Atlanta I felt like I was living in an urban suburb.... most of the city felt that way except for a few pockets. Portland is definitely the least suburban out of the bunch.
Portland is relatively urban among this group. But Seattle is clearly the most urban.
San Diego can compete with Seattle on residential density (higher numbers if you draw a wider circle) but nobody has remotely the core density, even if you just count residences.
And Seattle annihilates the whole group on transit and pedestrian commuting.
Very easy to argue that San Diego is the least suburban of all of these, even if using all 325 miles of its city limits.
Also, the ongoing over-estimation of Portland's status as a big urban city is pretty funny tbh.
I think you need to read through this thread a bit more, especially the last few pages. Some good discussions going on regarding how PPSM does not necessarily translate into urbanity. If PPSM were the end-all-be-all then there wouldn't even need to be a discussion, just a ranking by density.
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