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If these places are so walkable, why is nobody walking? Probably because there is no place to walk to. It looks like quite a few parking garages, with nothing of interest at street level that would draw pedestrians. Hence, not one in sight.
I personally wouldn't judge if a place is walkable or not if you hardly see anyone walking in google maps. You could be right. But google maps is the last place to determine this.
Exactly. As these are new builds, the streetscape will be stuck in this condition for decades. Houston lost an opportunity for true walkability.
I'm not a Houston defender by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't know that I'd say they lost the opportunity for it true walkability. For starters, most of the streetview shots seem to be secondary streets, not primary ones. For example, the 1100 Pease streetview image is about a block off of Main St. which has ground level retail, light rail, etc.
Second, these things do take time. I am by no means a fan of the architecture there, but adding residents to the area is one of the first steps toward making the city more pedestrian friendly. A critical mass of residents within walking distance to primary streets like Main St. will lure a more diversified pool of businesses to the area to serve the new population, new residents will be attracted by the critical mass of businesses, and the cycle repeats until you have new neighborhoods that are walkable. It takes decades, and by that time, you'll likely see that retail has trickled onto some of the current side streets and today's ugly new constructions without ground floor retail will be outdated and replaced with spots that have it.
Of course, Houston has other problems. The worst thing about those street view shots you posted is how clear it is that Houston needs major road diets. Those boulevards are way too wide to ever truly be pedestrian friendly. Take a lane (or two) away from cars, bump out the sidewalks, add separated bike lanes, parklets, encourage restaurants to have outdoor seating, etc. The goal shouldn't be to force people to walk, it should be to create and environment where they want to. And in order to do that, you need to have people to encourage. The buildings in those streetview shots are ugly, and lack ground floor retail, but they're at least bringing people to the area.
I'm not a Houston defender by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't know that I'd say they lost the opportunity for it true walkability. For starters, most of the streetview shots seem to be secondary streets, not primary ones. For example, the 1100 Pease streetview image is about a block off of Main St. which has ground level retail, light rail, etc.
Second, these things do take time. I am by no means a fan of the architecture there, but adding residents to the area is one of the first steps toward making the city more pedestrian friendly. A critical mass of residents within walking distance to primary streets like Main St. will lure a more diversified pool of businesses to the area to serve the new population, new residents will be attracted by the critical mass of businesses, and the cycle repeats until you have new neighborhoods that are walkable. It takes decades, and by that time, you'll likely see that retail has trickled onto some of the current side streets and today's ugly new constructions without ground floor retail will be outdated and replaced with spots that have it.
Of course, Houston has other problems. The worst thing about those street view shots you posted is how clear it is that Houston needs major road diets. Those boulevards are way too wide to ever truly be pedestrian friendly. Take a lane (or two) away from cars, bump out the sidewalks, add separated bike lanes, parklets, encourage restaurants to have outdoor seating, etc. The goal shouldn't be to force people to walk, it should be to create and environment where they want to. And in order to do that, you need to have people to encourage. The buildings in those streetview shots are ugly, and lack ground floor retail, but they're at least bringing people to the area.
With the exception of Main, all of the downtown streets are one-way, most are 4 and 5 lanes wide, built primarily for rush-hour traffic management. Lights are synchronized, so cars are rushing through at 30-40mph at times.
Houston's development is largely market-dependent due to the lack of a zoning ordinance. However, the city does have a couple regulations encoded which do affect how buildings are designed - two of these quite crucial in affecting walkability are minimum parking and minimum set back requirements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joakim3
Houston is what ~600 sq. miles of land?... you could fit DC + Baltimore + Philly + NYC in it's boarders. Its simply never going to reach the density require to necessitate walkable neighborhoods on any sort of grand scale.
Sunbelt cities have already sprawled to the point of no return where short of rebuilding their entire road network & infrastructure along a seismic cultural shift, there is no mass desire and more importantly no need to urbanize the way their bigger/denser counterparts do.
The two types of cities are truly apples to oranges in terms of built form and function and forever will be and thats fine.
Any redevelopment surely is not going to use up all the 600 sq miles, much of which is annexed territory that can be cast off as cities of their own. Rather, the areas of Houston with suitable infrastructure, the central portions, will see greater emphasis.
I personally wouldn't judge if a place is walkable or not if you hardly see anyone walking in google maps. You could be right. But google maps is the last place to determine this.
It's the built environment. If you click on the links, not only will you see no one walking, you will also see street fronts without retail. You will instead see a handful of garages with the rest just windows on featureless buildings. There is nothing to walk to. That's the main issue. It looks like a missed opportunity when all this construction went up.
It's the built environment. If you click on the links, not only will you see no one walking, you will also see street fronts without retail. You will instead see a handful of garages with the rest just windows on featureless buildings. There is nothing to walk to. That's the main issue. It looks like a missed opportunity when all this construction went up.
If you looked hard enough. You saw empty storefronts. It could be retail just simply hasn’t leased out those areas at the time when google maps came through. I’m just saying that nobody is walking based off google maps isn’t a good indicator. Who knows when google maps came though. Could be a Sunday when people aren’t walking as much.
I will say that I have criticized as well that every development in Houston should have ground floor retail imo. If not everyone, the vast majority of it. A couple projects I saw last time I was there didn’t have retail and felt that was a big mistake. I think the podiums and/or stand alone garages are a big hinderance for vibrancy for not only Houston but sunbelt cities. To bad Houston couldn’t build the garages underground.
In theory, Houston is in favor of promoting walkability, but in practice there has not been any integrated approach to doing what needs to be done, and often the half-way approach (better sidewalks but no pedestrian friendly design or zoning standards) will often set back true walkability for many decades.
A few years ago Houston redesigned Dallas Street between Main Street and the Convention Center to include bump-outs for parking, and more pedestrian-friendly sidewalks and crossings. While this is a step forward, there are almost no storefronts along the entire route, mainly parking garage walls, parking lots, or other blank walls. What looks like a major department store is now a parking ramp. While this is "walkable" it is low in "walkability."
Here is another Houston street that went through a street "diet" with bump outs, traffic calming, and naturally landscaped drainage swales, but aside from providing parking and a cut through, it is not much of a pedestrian path or destination. The adjacent apartments are mostly gated complexes.
Midtown Park was created and is very nice when in the park, but the adjacent area still has a walled-off appearance - the apartments have no door fronts or first floor retail. Infill to date is still too spread out. Some first floor retail has been added, but most of the frontage does not really promote "walkability."
Upper Kirby went through major road redevelopments in the last few years, with loads of apartments and retail added. Sidewalks were redesigned, but access to businesses often has no sidewalk entrances, and parking lots and driveways abound. Few people actually walk, and drivers pulling out of the lots generally pull onto the sidewalk without looking before entering traffic.
Agreed on most of that, with an exception: Even with good density, there won't be enough customers for retail on every street. So there should be streets with lots of retail and others within little or none.
If there's a walkable strip a block or two from some of these no-retail apartment complexes, the new building will help them -- more customers, no added completitition.
As for the blank walls and parking garages of Downtown Houston...it's really bad.
For all of you google map users I actually live in Houston and can see first hand what is happening. Yesterday I was in the museum district and there was plenty of foot traffic. The weather the last few days has been ideal. Today is a chamber of commerce weather day! People are out in full force, biking, walking, eating outdoors. Don’t cry for Houston!
For all of you google map users I actually live in Houston and can see first hand what is happening. Yesterday I was in the museum district and there was plenty of foot traffic. The weather the last few days has been ideal. Today is a chamber of commerce weather day! People are out in full force, biking, walking, eating outdoors. Don’t cry for Houston!
Houston has pleasant sunny periods during fall, winter, and spring, which offer conditions great for walking, open-air sports spectating, as well as other outdoor activities. Now, if it makes the necessary improvements regarding its pedestrian friendliness, quite a hefty undertaking depending on the planned extent, then activity like you saw yesterday can shift from occasional to common place.
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