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  #101  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2014, 4:47 AM
mhays mhays is offline
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Originally Posted by caligrad View Post
Shouldn't have to be held to a high enough standard to get what they are trying to say. Yes the writer and editor are both ridiculous and should take some writing/editing courses but the simple point of the matter is nobody is denying the fact about what this article is about. instead of complaining about " oh wow, the writing is all wrong and information is missing and blah blah blah". get over that. the point is that a Lack of Zoning + Free Market = Houston...easy. not up for debate. its pretty straight forward. and the article pretty much states where they are going with things after the 2nd paragraph.... even though I get what your saying and it does tend to jump from one thing to another thing to another thing but it is what it is.

As I stated before. its known that Houston zoning laws are very relaxed compared to other American cities, hell there was a whole special about it on the history channel. it was dubbed "a blessing for the city but also a nightmare". look it up " how the states were made, Texas". Am I picking on Houston ?? no I live in LA county. a city KNOWN for a lack of urban planning and ridiculous sprawl, it is what it is. Houston is a sun belt city just like LA, phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, San Diego. If you google maps an Ariel View of all these cities. They are built the exact identical same. like wagon wheels, the center is the central business district, the spokes/rods are the freeway arteries and the outskirts are the nodal city centers. easy. point blank period. Please people stop whining about it being written poorly. if you need to..... read it again to understand it. if u don't get it the first time, read it again. we were taught that in grade school
Welcome to how most people read articles, and how most people act on SSP and any other message board. Complaining isn't going to change much, or maybe anything. Much like my complaining about the media.
     
     
  #102  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2014, 3:09 PM
pacarlson pacarlson is offline
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Originally Posted by Shasta View Post
Too many right wing/libertarians try to pump up Houston as some Utopia and the inevitable left wing chorus pipes in to tell us how our city sucks. It's all so predictable and boring.
True, and kind of funny.
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  #103  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2014, 1:16 AM
pm91 pm91 is offline
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First off, it's GALVESTON!!! Sorry, I had to get that off my chest. Second, what's the purpose of a headline? TO GRAB YOUR ATTENTION. Geez, don't take it so literally. As Caligrad mentioned in post #91 is right. The article is simply stating that a major, metropolitan, American city doesn't have zoning and as a result you get different neighbors ie.) San Felipe, The Huntington, Beer Can House, etc. that pop up in non-CBD neighborhoods.

Business center, economic center, skyline, skyscraper clusters, are all the same thing. They all require essentially the same characteristics to be given one or the other definitions.

http://www.energycorridor.org/sites/...013_Report.pdf <<< Read that and tell me it's not an edge city. Btw, density wise it looks pretty similar to Irvine.

The fact of the matter is, whether you agree or not, is that 5+ entire employment centers have been created outside of the CBD all without planning and all within the same city limit.
     
     
  #104  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2014, 1:25 AM
llamaorama llamaorama is offline
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Its kind of debatable how much politics matter here.

For example, San Francisco is supposed to be the liberal mecca. But surely there are plenty of average people there who just go to work and come home and aren't vegetarians volunteering with a environmental group.

Likewise I guess because of the oil industry and the fact it's Texas, a lot of people from Houston are the type who drive pickups with pro-gun and libertarian bumper stickers. But most people including my family from there are just normal.
     
     
  #105  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2014, 1:27 AM
pm91 pm91 is offline
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Originally Posted by Bailey View Post
Houston is an interesting case study. While, on the surface, it appears to mirror the other sun belt cities it is slightly different story once you analyze how things are actually getting done.

True there are no "zoning" ordinances per se but that doesn't mean there are things not directing planning in a certain direction. Let me explain the 3 major factors than CAN influence planning in Houston.

1) Private Interests. George Hermann died a wealthy bachelor and left land to the city. He also left a stipulation on what the land was to become. He asked for some to become a park (Hermann Park) and for some to be set aside for a future city hospital. This was the site of the first hospital in the Medical Center and even without formal 'zoning' it somehow turned into one of the largest medical centers in the world. Future developers and city planners kept up with the "intent".
Rice University, The Museum District, The University of Houston, Memorial Park, St. Thomas, etc. were also created by private interests and they morphed into what they are today.

2) By Developers. Houston is a very pro developer city. There are very little hurdles, even though they are increasing by the day, but developers with enough clout can find a way to manage their interests via Deed Restrictions. Rive Oaks is the perfect example of this in Houston. You can't buy a lot in the middle of River Oaks and build a boutique office tower. maybe on the periphery, on "unprotected land", yes but not in the middle. The NIMBY's are upset with exactly this...developments on the border of the deed restricted neighborhood.

Also developers with big pockets can heavily influence what an area becomes...think Gerald Hines and Uptown, Frank Sharp and Sharpstown, and George Mitchell and the Woodlands.

3) Management Districts and the Mayor. This is the game changer for Houston. Both of these entities can HEAVILY INFLUENCE development patterns. Houston has a very strong Mayor/City Council setup. We also have divided the city into "mini cities" called Management Districts. Doentown, Uptown, Midtown, EADO, Sharpstown, ets. are all different Management Districts. Here is a link to more info and a map of the Management Districts:

http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/Ne...hood/mgmt.html

Each Management District has a board that tends to issues "within" their management District. they have built in ways of enticing certain type of developments or discouraging certain type of developments. It's a fluid process but things are really taking shape and it makes Houston a very interesting case Study.

One of the most active Management Districts is Downtown. Together, the Mayor/City Council and the District are working at steering the type of the development in the district. the Management District ran studies on how to encourage residential and retail developments and they turned to the city for help. The city responded with many solutions...One was Discovery green which was a hybrid of #1 and #3. The City purchased the land and turned to private interests to build and manage the park. On the Residential situation, the City Council under the Mayor approved a residential incentive (something like $12,000 PER unit) for developers who build residential in a defined part of downtown. This has bee Highly Successful with a half dozen-dozen large residential projects currently under construction or are set to rise in the near future.
^^^ You sir, are spot on. Absolutely spot effin on.
     
     
  #106  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2014, 1:35 AM
AviationGuy AviationGuy is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by llamaorama View Post
Its kind of debatable how much politics matter here.

For example, San Francisco is supposed to be the liberal mecca. But surely there are plenty of average people there who just go to work and come home and aren't vegetarians volunteering with a environmental group.

Likewise I guess because of the oil industry and the fact it's Texas, a lot of people from Houston are the type who drive pickups with pro-gun and libertarian bumper stickers. But most people including my family from there are just normal.
Yeah, too much stereotyping occurs. Most people and cities are a big mix and don't fit neatly into box. I keep having to remind people that Houston (the city limits of which include many suburbs) voted Democratic in both 2008 and 2012. And of course the city has repeated elected a gay mayor.

Case in point: I vote Democratic, am pro-environment, pro-health care and anti-gun, but am not vegetarian, am pro-life, and pro-business. I like people who are a mix of things, because it shows they can think for themselves and not rely on what Fox or MSNBC tells them to think.
     
     
  #107  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2014, 1:37 AM
pm91 pm91 is offline
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Originally Posted by LA21st View Post
Lol. Ive been to greenspoint. Its less impressive than century blvd/lax corridor, el sequndo burbank etc etc. Greenspoint isnt a freaking downtown. Its a basic suburban office park. Orange county has areas like that everywhere.
^^^ You have a point with Century City, bravo. But, El Segundo is a seperate city. So is Burbank. Obviously you can't have multiple downtowns, but if you were to use context clues you would've understood inSaeculaSaeculorum meant. This isn't a "who has a more impressive D*#k" contest.

Quote:
Originally Posted by LA21st View Post
The energy corridor and the woodlands sre office parks. Not downtown districts. Galvenston?
^^^The Woodlands is a separate city with their own codes. Yes, it's a Downtown. Revert back to the Energy Corridor PDF. Office Park? No, no, no, no.
     
     
  #108  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2014, 1:02 PM
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brickell brickell is offline
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Originally Posted by pm91 View Post
The fact of the matter is, whether you agree or not, is that 5+ entire employment centers have been created outside of the CBD all without planning and all within the same city limit.
But that's does happen metro wide in many other places due to municipal fragmentation and weak zoning laws.

That it happens in Houston all within one city limits is just an accident of where borders are.

Yes, Houston is an interesting case study, but I still don't think it's entirely unique in the situations that are being described.
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  #109  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2014, 2:53 PM
mhays mhays is offline
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The Woodlands looks like a good mix of uses and attractive in spots. But very low-density. More "sprawl done well" than "downtown."
     
     
  #110  
Old Posted Mar 20, 2014, 10:16 PM
LA21st LA21st is offline
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Originally Posted by pm91 View Post
^^^ You have a point with Century City, bravo. But, El Segundo is a seperate city. So is Burbank. Obviously you can't have multiple downtowns, but if you were to use context clues you would've understood inSaeculaSaeculorum meant. This isn't a "who has a more impressive D*#k" contest.


^^^The Woodlands is a separate city with their own codes. Yes, it's a Downtown. Revert back to the Energy Corridor PDF. Office Park? No, no, no, no.
La does have more than 5 areas in the city limits. Its close to 10. If greenspoint counts as a downtown so do places like sherman oaks/encino. Just saying.
     
     
  #111  
Old Posted Mar 21, 2014, 3:41 AM
pm91 pm91 is offline
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Never said LA didn't have more than 5. Honestly, I don't care for it since it's on TV all the time. I see enough of it. Plus I had to study it for a semester, absolute hell IMO. Greenspoint isn't a DT, it's an employment center with major companies and clustered together. LA isn't Houston and vice versa. Our standards will not and should not equal yours. Apples and oranges. What constitutes as such may not qualify in LA and again vice versa.

The article talks about how certain developments are accepted without much of a second thought (minus the Ashby of course). Just read it from a Houston perspective and try not to get critical of it. Accept it as an education opinion rather than direct fact. The author wrote it with the city's culture and urban landscape in mind and made his own connections. He's not entirely correct. He's not entirely wrong. Brickell is right, Houston is an interesting case study, but I feel the author chose Houston because of its reputation for occurrences such as the ones under discussion.
     
     
  #112  
Old Posted Mar 21, 2014, 3:51 AM
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caligrad caligrad is offline
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Just when the thread got back on track about what the topic of discussion is really about.... somebody just HAD to make it a city vs city again aka LA VS Houston. Thanks. people were over that 2 days ago. Thanks for bringing it back up............ This thread needs to be bumped.
     
     
  #113  
Old Posted Mar 21, 2014, 4:14 AM
pm91 pm91 is offline
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It's a thread about Houston...of course it'll get bumped. Thank God for HAIF. Don't have to constantly defend my city against others there.
     
     
  #114  
Old Posted Mar 21, 2014, 9:14 PM
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KevinFromTexas KevinFromTexas is offline
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Enough, this is ridiculous.

The next time this happens anyone perpetuating city vs city arguments will be suspended.
     
     
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