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Im from Reston, no it isn't. Reston is mainly low-rise (3-6 stories) and more spread out than Irvine. Its also far more residential and bland even. Irvine must have 60 total high-rises over 10 stories. I cant see Reston with more than 20. I know you like to discredit California for some reason, but you shouldn't make things up.
The only suburb on your list have more 10-12 story buildings is probably Arlington.
Again, I never brought up the skyline. I said job clusters because the Houston poster was dishonest. He also took that as a skyline arguement, because he had little else to say.
My argument is there's very few suburban job clusters as big as Irvine, since the Houston posters keep talking about long commutes to LA for some reason.
Im from Reston, no it isn't. Reston is mainly low-rise (3-6 stories) and more spread out than Irvine. Its also far more residential and bland even. Irvine must have 60 total high-rises over 10 stories. I cant see Reston with more than 20. I know you like to discredit California for some reason, but you shouldn't make things up.
The only suburb on your list have more 10-12 story buildings is probably Arlington.
Again, I never brought up the skyline. I said job clusters because the Houston poster was dishonest. He also took that as a skyline arguement, because he had little else to say.
My argument is there's very few suburban job clusters as big as Irvine, since the Houston posters keep talking about long commutes to LA for some reason.
No, I am a proud Irvine homer. And I definitely acknowledge that Irvine is denser than Reston and most outer DC suburbs. Los Angeles has the densest outer suburbs in the country.
So back to Irvine commutes. Yes, Irvine is a huge edge city, and the city likes to your that one third of residents work within Irvine, and that commute times are relatively short. But if you ever want to go to LA for fun, it's going to be a longer drive than someone from Sugar Land going to Downtown Houston.
I will say that Irvine's roads are very well laid out and organized, very wide streets with most major roads being six or even eight lanes and having 50, 55, or even 60 mph speed limits with no stop signs, just traffic lights, and they've synchronized virtually all lights in the city. So you can get across the city very fast on the surface streets.
The biggest complaint about Irvine traffic people have is the freeways, which admittedly get clogged during rush hour, but those are Caltrans responsiblity. If you're just talking about surface streets, then traffic really isn't that bad for a city of Irvine's size, and the very high speed limits helps a ton.
That's true. It is farther to do fun stuff in LA.
Not that you can't in Long Beach, Newport, Hb etc.
Sugarland is 17-18 miles from the Houston Loop. Let's not act like it's close to "fun" stuff either. I'll take Irvines nearby places over typical sprawl. At least oc has something.
Its 23 miles to downtown Houston. Irvine is 39.from la..its not big of a difference.
Oh, and Plano/Frisco is building high rise condos like crazy and is definitely going to outclass Irvine in terms of skyline. Once again, that's expected because they're not in seismic zones, unlike Irvine.
True.
There was an article I read recently with analysts who said the area of Frisco / Prosper is going to be "Orange County 2.0"
That's true. It is farther to do fun stuff in LA.
Not that you can't in Long Beach, Newport, Hb etc.
Sugarland is 17-18 miles from the Houston Loop. Let's not act like it's close to "fun" stuff either. I'll take Irvines nearby places over typical sprawl. At least oc has something.
Its 23 miles to downtown Houston. Irvine is 39.from la..its not big of a difference.
When traffic is factored in, that difference is huge. Traffic in Houston is bad, traffic in LA is much worse.
There is no need to drive 39 miles to LA proper for anything since all you will ever need/want surrounds Irvine, incl the Segerstrom Performing Arts and Concert Hall, Angels Baseball, world class shopping, several beautiful beach towns, nice downtown districts in some of the surrounding cities, Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, decent sized airport. Not many other suburban or edge communties in the country can match it.
Agreed. Irvine isn't in a normal suburban area. You can't compare it places like Reston, Marietta , Sugarland etc. Orange County is as big as many metro areas on it's own. It gets overshadowed by LA County, but i can't think of many suburban counties that have more to offer.
I would've loved to trade Reston/Tysons etc for Laguna and Newport . All this talk about Tysons malls here, South Coast Plaza blows it away. Then there's the Spectrum, Newports Fashion Island all within 5-7 miles of Irvine. South Coast Plaza is basically Beverly Hills in a mall.
I've lived very near Irvine, and now live very near Sugar Land.
Moreover, UC Irvine exists, one of the best public universities in the U.S. There is no UT Sugar Land, or even UH Sugar Land, or even UH-Victoria Sugar Land Campus. There is the hellish Texas summer in Sugar Land, something our friends in Irvine thankfully have to never deal with given their Mediterranean climate. Irvine and Orange County has both a diverse population and diverse economy, whereas Sugar Land and Fort Bend County has just a diverse population (which admittedly may be more diverse than Orange County at this point).
Irvine for the win, clearly.
Sugar Land has a strong presence of the University of Houston, It has the UH Sugar Land Campus along a solid Nursing UH campus. You need to get your facts straight.
Civic Pride is fine if it makes sense. What if LA posters said "Man, NYC is so old. And it's only good parts are Manhattan. The rest of the city is poor". It wouldn't be received well, and it would be justified.
That said, I dont think Houston homers are as loud as they used to be, except for this poster. The energy layoffs and crime/city issues have lowered their voice and expectations in my observation.
And after looking on Google maps, anyone who says Westchase is a bigger business district than Irvine is fooling themselves.
The Irvine Business complex alone has 50 high-rises in it, its just so spread out it doesn't form a skyline. But does Westchase have one? Not really. But as I stated, this was about jobs anyway.
Look, Im not going to defend all Houston posters. Weve got some yahoos on our side just like you have on yours. But lets brings some facts into this.
If were talking about Irvine vs, Sugar Land (since that was the topic of this thread) of course Irvine is going to have more buildings and much taller ones. Irvine also has more jobs.
But what we have to consider is that LA and Houston are not laid out similarly. Economically, LA is laid out more DFW where you have multiple clusters of taller buildings and jobs.
If we look at the number of high rise buildings (over 40 stories) in both the city of LA and the city of Houston, there are actually quite a few more in Houston despite LA being twice as large:
Houston: 39 high rises
Los Angeles: 26 high rises
I think there is a simple explanation for Houston having more high rises despite being half the size: the jobs in the metro area are much more concentrated in the primary city in Houston and in LA they are more scattered. That would make it much easier for job clusters to create in places like Irvine vs. a place like Sugar Land.
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