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How the infrastructure is laid out is only half of "walkability". Drivers respecting pedestrians' presence is the other half, and that is where Houston falls into the bottom of the barrel.
Well I was talking about Philly and responding to a quote above stating that it was not a tourist destination... which is completely false. But speaking of Pgh, it is still crap in about 2/3rds of its 90 neighborhoods. It should've marketed itself as a tourist destination instead of "most livable" seeing it continues to shed population. But that's what happens when all you do is look inward. BTW that gondola thing will never happen.
You responded to my post? Because I said Philly is a tourist destination.
I was being sarcastic with the "if you left your hotel room" part because your views on LA neighborhoods and where they stand today are not accurate especially about Downtown LA. It's become the hotspot for tourists to stay in which is why there's so many highrise luxury hotels there now. Or how Rodeo is "only 3 or 4 blocks" when in reality it's triple that at least, and the wide streets you talk about are more narrow than the roads in DT Houston. The whole Rodeo Drive and Beverly Grove areas are very walkable.
Walkability is what's in nowadays. People want to be able to leave their hotel room or AirBnB and walk to cool stores, nice restaurants, entertainment, parks, etc. Houston is on its way to offering this in parts of the Inner Loop (DT, Midtown, Uptown), but not quite there yet.
If I had the stomach for a nine-mile hike that particular day, I can walk right from Rodeo/Wilshire Blvd. straight to DTLA and have no more trouble getting across than I would, say, walking down Milwaukee Avenue here in Chicago to the Loop. In fact, that walk in LA is probably easier in spite of being longer because here I'd be having to change direction where Milwaukee ends and I have to walk out of the way a bit to cross the Chicago River. Plus, chances are, the weather is better on Wilshire than on Milwaukee.
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Originally Posted by tstone
How the infrastructure is laid out is only half of "walkability". Drivers respecting pedestrians' presence is the other half, and that is where Houston falls into the bottom of the barrel.
Detroit probably illustrated this better for me than anywhere else I've been. It's the Motor City, not only built for cars but built by cars. Making them, driving them, the infrastructure reflects that. But you have a lot of people who walk or ride bicycles, sometimes much longer distances than what we talk about as "walking distance" on here, and people are mindful of them.
If they were Houston drivers, they'd just run 'em all over.
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speaking of Pgh, it is still crap in about 2/3rds of its 90 neighborhoods. It should've marketed itself as a tourist destination instead of "most livable" seeing it continues to shed population. But that's what happens when all you do is look inward. BTW that gondola thing will never happen.
Means little as far as tourist draw goes. NOLA is 93 percent crap by this standard, but there's that seven percent that people pay to see, and it's just enough.
Pgh sheds population, more than anything, because it's kind of an expensive place to live for the level of economy it sustains. It's cool if you work in energy and you make some money. For the pay vs. rent it's tough sledding for anyone in a regular retail/service gig. They're better off almost anywhere else. They never completely leave the city. They just quit paying taxes there. It's a vicious cycle. You saw it.
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Originally Posted by As Above So Below...
Houston is a city you can truly enjoy if you have a reason to be here. I cant imagine what would make a tourist come here for no other reason than tourism. Maybe NASA? Shoppers from Latin America?
We've mentioned Orlando, and things that aren't really in Orlando but people fly into the airport called Orlando to get to. Kennedy Space Center is just one of them, as it's comparable in distance from MCO's terminal and/or the hotels across the expressway from it as IAH<->JSC. Then you have Disney and Universal and all that other stuff not that far away. Then there's the beach - the real, Atlantic Ocean beach. Not sure Kemah and Galveston punch in the same weight class, for the average American tourist anyway.
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Originally Posted by DabOnEm
I have a coworker here in LA who has family in Houston. His sister was killed years ago by someone in a pickup. Unfortunately she was walking very close to the road because there were no sidewalks and only muddy grass for pedestrians. Even worse there wasn't even a curb so she was walking level with the truck who veered just a bit to the right and hit her. He stayed and wasn't charged with anything but to think if sidewalks were a priority, she'd have been elevated walking along it instead of straddling the line and be alive today.
I've had it explained to me that, by eliminating sidewalks, you somehow eliminate access to a neighborhood by undesirables and - apparently - creating dangerous situations like this instead.
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Originally Posted by Spade
Yeah nobody goes to Orlando to go to the city. It’s all about the themed attractions over there. Same with Vegas to a smaller extent. You visit the strip. Not Las Vegas as a whole. Mentioned this earlier. I agree with your last point. Houston should continue to build a better city naturally. That will draw the tourists and catch the eye of people outside the region. I still think an efficient transit system and high dense attractions that are cohesive with each other are needed.
I mentioned this to a couple from Houston I met at work last night, and they weren't in disagreement - If Ferris Bueller's Day Off (which is basically a bunch of kids cutting school to do what people who visit Chicago tend to do) was set in Houston instead, half its runtime would have consisted of Ferris, Cameron and Sloane in some ongoing Clerks-esque banter for 40 minutes stuck in traffic trying to get from point to point, with Ferris constantly assuring his girl and best buddy that they would have been there by now if they'd just add another lane in each direction, and people just learned how to drive.
I wouldn't invest in that until DT survived a couple more hurricanes. Also riverwalks aren't that unique anymore. Even Oklahoma City has one. It would be nice if they can pull it off though.
I recall a proposed plan to dig a secondary channel that connects Buffalo Bayou to it's White Oak tributary. But nevertheless, the bayou flooding during heavy rain events is mainly an issue for areas west of downtown - going east, especially towards the Ship Channel, the waterway can support shoreline infrastructure since its wide enough at that point to capture flood waters without drastic water-level changes.
As for uniqueness, that quality comes not from the development itself, but rather, how it interacts with the city and the associated environment. So whatever "RiverWalk" development emerges in Houston will encapsulate enough of the city's natural qualities that a distinct experience would be formed.
Houston is a city you can truly enjoy if you have a reason to be here. I cant imagine what would make a tourist come here for no other reason than tourism. Maybe NASA? Shoppers from Latin America?
Actually there are a lot of south of the border shoppers who fly up here to shop the Galleria area.
I mentioned this to a couple from Houston I met at work last night, and they weren't in disagreement - If Ferris Bueller's Day Off (which is basically a bunch of kids cutting school to do what people who visit Chicago tend to do) was set in Houston instead, half its runtime would have consisted of Ferris, Cameron and Sloane in some ongoing Clerks-esque banter for 40 minutes stuck in traffic trying to get from point to point, with Ferris constantly assuring his girl and best buddy that they would have been there by now if they'd just add another lane in each direction, and people just learned how to drive.
If I had the stomach for a nine-mile hike that particular day, I can walk right from Rodeo/Wilshire Blvd. straight to DTLA and have no more trouble getting across than I would, say, walking down Milwaukee Avenue here in Chicago to the Loop. In fact, that walk in LA is probably easier in spite of being longer because here I'd be having to change direction where Milwaukee ends and I have to walk out of the way a bit to cross the Chicago River. Plus, chances are, the weather is better on Wilshire than on Milwaukee.
Most of the thrill about driving down Wilshire is avoiding head-on collisions on the 6-lane undivided road (double yellow lines) and making unprotected left turns (Houston-style infrastructure is rare in L.A. as they prefer cheap). The section between DT L.A. and the Miracle Mile comes to mind. The only thing comparable in Houston is Westheimer through Montrose.
The weather gets hotter and dryer in the basin as you get further from the 5-Mile Zone of lovely coastal weather. Santa Monica and Malibu are always the coldest (except during Santa Anas) and inland basin WeHo can be 10 degrees warmer than the coast. Also it gets dreary along the immediate coast during June Gloom, similar to Galveston this time of the year between cold fronts.
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If Ferris Bueller's Day Off (which is basically a bunch of kids cutting school to do what people who visit Chicago tend to do) was set in Houston instead, half its runtime would have consisted of Ferris, Cameron and Sloane in some ongoing Clerks-esque banter for 40 minutes stuck in traffic trying to get from point to point,
Maybe on the 405 in L.A. as they make their way to pay the $20/car at the Getty. I've taken the Park-and-Ride and transferred to the Red Line to visit the MFAH (especially on the free, extended-hour Thursdays).
There should be room for the dancing scene on Main Street near the square for the impromptu parade. I've even heard the hilarious HPD officer use his built-in bullhorn on his patrol car to shame jaywalkers there, especially the homeless. The cop could say something patronizing and hilarious to Ferris.
There should be room for the dancing scene on Main Street near the square for the impromptu parade. I've even heard the hilarious HPD officer use his built-in bullhorn on his patrol car to shame jaywalkers there, especially the homeless. The cop could say something patronizing and hilarious to Ferris.
*Ferris, looking at camera*
"Cameron has never been downtown in his life. His dad says he could get mugged there. It's time to take him out of his bubble. The world's a lot bigger than Kingwood and, as his best friend, I should be the one to show it to him."
I think some of our most famous celebrities could have invested more in the city from a tourism perspective - looking at you Beyonce. Imagine if Beyonce had set up some type of large Madame Tussauds' style museum on her career, upbringing, etc. Imagine how much tourism interest something like that could have brought.
I think some of our most famous celebrities could have invested more in the city from a tourism perspective - looking at you Beyonce. Imagine if Beyonce had set up some type of large Madame Tussauds' style museum on her career, upbringing, etc. Imagine how much tourism interest something like that could have brought.
Beyonce participated in that "Houston, It's Worth It" thing awhile back. She's done her part.
What you describe sounds similar to what Smithfield, North Carolina (seat of Johnston County, a little southeast of Raleigh) has with a museum built around Ava Gardner, mid-20th century actress who is the county's most prominent celebrity, with wrestler "Sugar" Shane Helms aka The Hurricane from WWE coming in second probably. I don't know who comes third. So yeah, that museum exists, but Smithfield isn't exactly a tourist magnet because it's there. Sure, Beyonce's alive and Ava Gardner's long dead, but that's probably not going to cover the spread we need.
It might be something that generated enough interest if it was easily connected to other things to see and do, which is the real problem here.
There's stuff to do, but there's the same problem that the Cleveland Cavaliers fan planning a brief visit in the other thread going right now has. Everything is spread out too far, there's no particularly efficient way to get from point to point, and so it doesn't lend itself very well to a short-term visit. Houston's infrastructure does not pay any mind to people like him. It exists to get people in the suburbs to work in the city, for the most part. That's it.
Well, Port Arthur has the Gulf Coast Museum right downtown (saddest downtown ever, unless it's changed) with exhibits on some very famous people like Jimmy Johnson, Janis, Babe, and I think George Jones, but I can't say it's turned the place into a tourist magnet.
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