Why isn't Houston as upscale as its peers? (Dallas, Atlanta: transplants, sales)

[Oildog]

Lizzy you may want to note its 98% of those over 24 who have the financial means to choose where they live. There are a few students living at home that pine for somewhere else.

[alphajet]

LizzySWW - the FACT that over 100,000 new residents move to the 4th most populated city in the country.

yes- but where are the 100k people coming from each year? And does more residents coming into Houston make it a better place to live: as in quality of life, education, roads, infrastructure, sprawl, & entertainment options?

An estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants reside in the Greater Houston area.


Houston, Texas : Demographics

[HoustonRonnie]

Who cares if it's upscale or not? With lower taxes, lower cost of living, no state income tax, lower unemployment than the rest of the US, who gives a rat's youknowwhat? It's all about the Benjamins, my friends. Upscale my a$$. Gimme more disposable income and a crappy baseball team any day...at least until I retire.

The better question here would be "In which city would you most like to retire?". Hmmm..... not Houston.

Just sayin'...

Ronnie

[blkgiraffe]

Why do we need to give a damn about upscale stores??? Expensive shopping is the last thing we need to be worrying about in this economy.

[Texas User]

Originally Posted by HoustonRonnie

Who cares if it's upscale or not? With lower taxes, lower cost of living, no state income tax, lower unemployment than the rest of the US, who gives a rat's youknowwhat? It's all about the Benjamins, my friends. Upscale my a$$. Gimme more disposable income and a crappy baseball team any day...at least until I retire.

The better question here would be "In which city would you most like to retire?". Hmmm..... not Houston.

Just sayin'...

Ronnie

I agree, this means the quality of life is better because you are saving more money automatically. Its how the resident manages their money.

[Trae713]

Originally Posted by alphajet

yes- but where are the 100k people coming from each year? And does more residents coming into Houston make it a better place to live: as in quality of life, education, roads, infrastructure, sprawl, & entertainment options?

An estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants reside in the Greater Houston area.


[url= Texas : Demographics[/url]

For future reference, the Census doesn't count illegals. So, the illegal number is in addition to the 140K that the Houston area is growing by each year (it includes natural increase, domestic and international migration). The international migration is legal migration.

[Mr. Football]

Houston is not a lifestyle town. It's a working town. It's not zoned. It's too big and unwieldy and doesn't allow outlying areas to incorporate themselves, who would otherwise do so.

[Trae713]

That's one thing I think Houston should do. Houston should release more of its unincorporated areas (like it's doing for The Woodlands), and let those places incorporate. For example, Katy should be able to annex the areas with a "Katy, Texas" address. It's population would go from 13,000 to over 220,000+. Atascocita, parts of Richmond (many areas use a Richmond address, but are in Houston's ETJ), and the communities in NW Harris County, too.

[DANNYY]

^ I see this more as an opportunity for the suburbs and the city.

We all know, no one here is blind that inner loop has been building on density at a rapid rate.

But given that the suburbs have less land and more demand, that will cause them to become dense too. Honestly if you look at one thing no Chicagoan will admit is how they too in the past had annexed in land from nearby suburban communities, thus leaving the suburbs with less land but more desirability to live there for those that did not want to live in city limits for whatever the reason maybe.
That allowed the suburbs to start becoming more dense, and some suburbs started building up because of land restrictions.
Thus you see a lot of these row houses, and triple deckers and things like that.

Let me show you an aerial of Chicago and it's organized grid system and you can see the dense architecture of residences in the outer city and see how much more compact and "walkable" it makes the city. And let me show you Queens (a borough of NYC).

Chicago:


New York City (Queens):


As you can see, the style of housing makes it so that way more people can live in the given city and that the city area is more "walkable" and pedestrian friendly. The grid system by far makes public transportation far easier as well.

This is what Los Angeles caught onto in the 1980's and started doing also, this method of density and urban planning.

I think Houston should just keep the land, and work on doing this, IMHO. It would make the pedestrian life and city life better. It's not copying these cities, it's just becoming "more urban that what it already is" because every city begins doing this eventually. The proof for Houston already is Midtown, that is a start and they need to expand that start, but hopefully they preserve some of their urban forests while their at it and make it into a park!!

[SouthernBoy205]

Does anyone know what upscale stores are coming to BLVD Place?