IronTiger

You're accusing me of denial, yet the best you'll probably offer is just theory. (Your track record is denial isn't that good, too) The population growth of Houston and its suburbs (yes, Sugar Land and Cypress did exist before 1970) can be directly connected with the prevalence of climate control. Again, the freeway removal (starting back with Portland) are fringe cases. In nearly all cases of U.S.-based freeway removal projects, the freeway in question was pre-Interstate standards and had been functionally replaced, or a spur that essentially went nowhere. Your "it worked in X, it can work everywhere" argument is grossly naïve and has been (pardon the pun) thoroughly dismantled on previous threads. The heart of the city was spared entirely. In fact, if you look on Google Earth, there were houses downtown, and many of them even weren't touched at all by the freeway, they disappeared as land value skyrocketed and taller buildings took over. The suburbs of south College Station are walkable, though sometimes evenings it can so quiet that Rush's "Subdivisions" is a rather apt fit. You could walk or bike over to the corner store or the H-E-B (and the fast foods that orbit around it) rather easily. Problem is, some people really don't like to walk or bike very much. This is very similar to the old saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" ("You can add sidewalks and bike lanes, but you can't make people walk"). [sidenote: this is a similar reason why people have a stigma about crossing freeway underpasses/overpasses] Houston is an unusual case in that "sprawl" didn't result in total desolation of the city and people living there. While Houston could (and did) expand its borders, it was a successful enough city that people still live in the Loop. It's expensive to live there. Compare that to Detroit or St. Louis. Detroit and St. Louis had become undesirable enough (mostly corruption) to live in the 1960s and 1970s that people moved out entirely. The freeways were the avenue for these push and pull factors--but were the main things keeping jobs from escaping as well. Change happened in urban America in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, but to blame them on freeways is nonsense. In most other parts of the nation, crime was getting out of control, corruption was destroying the middle class, and pollution was extremely heavy. And not just "a bit of smog in the morning" but "raw sewage pumped into waterways" (Houston also was guilty of this). New York City in the 1970s, for instance was notoriously grimy and full of crime ("Welcome to Fear City"). Nobody wanted to live there, and many that didn't simply couldn't afford to. tl;dr--Even without freeways, people would've moved out. And they did. Of course, history has proven that "those who can escape the city will", as was demonstrated nearly a century earlier by the romanticized streetcars.

Again, neighborhoods aren't last to forever and it's certainly true the "functional lifespans" were cut short by freeways (there were many post-war neighborhoods in Houston that didn't last). The black neighborhoods had lower land value, which was cheaper to acquire for freeways. Even then, freeways tended to run on pre-existing roads. Had that actually been the case with what you're claiming, roads like Elgin or Dowling would be freeways, unless you believe that would be less damaging. It's worth noting that freeways were built at the same time as air conditioning started to become popular, and of course, Houston and its suburbs grew like fire, fueled by the oil industry. No, it couldn't. Remember the "leg breaking" analogy? Would you rather have a broken leg for a few months, or be crippled for the rest of your life? They went around the heart of cities, and if you look on a map, you'll find that for the most part, the "heart" of the city was spared. In a way, 10, 45, and 59 form a miniature "loop" around the city, avoiding it. If you were draw a straight line from the place where 45 splits off from 10 to roughly about Cullen Blvd, you'll see how damaging it really is, and why the Pierce Elevated saves downtown instead of destroying it. Houston also has more total area than other large cities.

I always kind of liked the third (I think it's the third?) level with the early American stuff, but mostly because it was pretty quiet (at least compared to the more hectic lower levels). When visiting, it's never been very busy (if not completely deserted) due to its semi-isolated location. I picked up a map of the newly expanded museum this last past August but didn't go in (I wanted to see the tunnels downtown, and as much as some of you despise them, I had a blast) Still had fun tooling in and around the entryway hall (gift shop, the marble globe outside, the preview for the planetarium, etc.) though!

Also: I don't want this turn into a freeway removal thing, it's to look at why freeways are unfairly stigmatized.

Neighborhoods, as much as we hate to admit it, aren't going to be the same place indefinitely. In a perfect world, once a neighborhood is built and established, we would want it to remain as crime-free as possible and have the same demographics. You can come back 10, 15, 20 years later, and it would still be the same...ranch homes with large oak trees, kids riding bikes. The problem is, neighborhoods don't last. I was recently looking at a Google Earth image of a neighborhood built in the 1950s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George_Place]St. George Place and realized that nearly every home had been rebuilt, many of which in the last 10 years. The neighborhood had been through a period of decline ("Galleria Ghetto") and was being redeveloped. No freeway cut through it, and it still changed. As for racist accusations, it's easy to imagine such a thing in a more politically correct world like we have today, but the root of the matter was that they acquired based on land value. The fact that some of it were African-American communities was an unfortunate coincidence. Freeways tend to have a truncated lifespan due to the fact that either its very busy and needs to be expanded, or tastes change and powers that be decide to tear it down. It's expensive to maintain only in the fact that there's so much of it to begin with. Common misconception. Avenues of any type that lead out to more desirable places will cause outflow and thus, sprawl. This "moving out to the countryside" has happened generations before, and freeways were just scapegoated for that. Well, just because you never see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I almost never see any people on certain sidewalks, but only because there's just not much pedestrian traffic in the area. There's a certain stigma about freeways, but it's all perception and not because it's inherently pedestrian unfriendly. It was construction. People simply used alternate routes and dealt with it. Most other freeway removal projects in cities were either outdated redundant stretches that weren't used very often or stubs that went nowhere. Freeway removal in the 1980s was hailed as a new wave of the future but they were fringe cases. Places outside the U.S. have entirely different traffic flow (having cities centuries older than ours) and can't be used for a good comparison. They didn't. Houston's core is some 150 blocks encircled in freeway, and the CBDs of most (if not all) cities in the Interstate highway system were saved (Boston's Central Artery was pre-Interstate highway system).

Exactly. My point was that even generations before the freeways, the rich moved out to the countryside (enabled by trains). It was the poorest people that lived in the city core: the City Beautiful movement in the turn of the century (1900) was meant to address that.

Not too long ago I read a publication from the late 1960s that was about freeways, or more specifically, pro-freeway propaganda. It sure sounded good: - It cleared up horribly congested surface streets. - It raised the land value of area where it came in. - It created parking underneath it in urban areas. - It was pedestrian friendly, allowing pedestrians to cross safely instead of trying to cross dangerous surface streets. But people don't see freeways that optimistic anymore, they are useful in all but fringe cases. However, the freeway is unfairly maligned in some cases, with rumors abounding, and I'm looking at a few of them, with Houston especially in mind for this: "Freeways suck life out of downtown": This is a common argument, but this has been the case since the days of the rail, when the upper class moved out to the suburbs ("streetcar suburbs", like Montrose or the Heights). It may be a problem, but it has long existed since before freeway. "They destroy the street grid": This is the case for many, many cities, but the thing about street grids, is that they're often meant to be guidelines, not absolutes. Houston's streets have often never connected, and sometimes the connections are destroyed by other factors (apartment complexes) "They create pollution and noise": Highways do not create pollution and noise, cars do. When you have a busy surface street five lanes wide, you get much of the same problems as highways in this respect. "They create visual blight": This one is popular because it's all relative. Sure, highways may be ugly--but so are the raised railroad viaducts in the Northeast, abandoned buildings, high voltage power lines, and a variety of other structures. Singling out highways is a ridiculous assertion. "They destroy neighborhoods" / "They divide neighborhoods": Grouping these two together because it's pretty complicated. First off, getting an affected neighborhood isn't good news, as living near a freeway has a ton of problems. Freeways are held down by a weight by some people because in the 1960s when they were built destroyed and cut through numerous African-American communities. This was not a (deliberately) racist plot, as freeways tended to go through the lowest land value they could at reasonably straight lines. Many white middle class homes also disappeared, too. Neighborhoods change. They gentrify and deteriorate. Not having freeways isn't going to stop that. Look at Montrose or the Heights--both of have experienced rapid change in the last past 5 years. Homes are being demolished with townhomes replacing them, for instance. "It's expensive": This is perhaps one of the better uses of tax dollars, a high-class transportation system that you and everyone else can use. So much of tax dollars are being used as things that benefit a small group of people (if not completely irrelevant wastes). Best of all, at least in the old days, a freeway was...free. "Pedestrian friendliness is a joke!": This is in possible response to the "pedestrian friendliness" as above. I won't lie, the pedestrian overpasses over Interstate 10 are quite creepy-looking: narrow sidewalks in a rusting chain-link fence "cage" over a rumbling highway. The solution then is to just build better systems. Look at the gracefully integrated bridges in the US-59 rebuild, for instance. Of course, when frontage roads are involved, you have to cross two busy frontage roads and a dark, cavernous area. What would go on there is just build safer pedestrian crossing signals (zebra striping for crosswalks), wider sidewalks under the underpass, and better lighting. Having two smaller roads to cross is better than one big one (wide boulevards) anyway. "It induces sprawl"/"They'll never permanently fix the traffic problem": This is related to the "life-sucking" part, and is often used for newer projects like the Katy Freeway rebuild. This is important to note that as long as an area keeps growing (like Houston), the traffic problem will only get worse. This is unfortunate, but unless cities start losing population (like in the Northeast), or we get to a post-automobile existence (many decades away), we won't solve it. Limiting sprawl ends up having disastrous long-term effects (see: San Francisco). This is only to discuss freeways, advantages and disadvantages. Don't try to turn it into some mass transit argument, because those topics derail and get locked.

That's debatable, but we're not here to discuss that. That would be cause for concern. It's worth noting that Parker did not bank her entire campaign on her being a lesbian, and no one wants a city run like a theocracy. I think your point is more that she's basing her campaign around her religion, not necessarily her religion in and of itself (but it sounded a bit like that way). Carry on, I suppose.

Yes, but that's missing the point. The point I was trying to make is that dismissing someone on the basis of religion alone is as narrow-minded as dismissing someone on the basis of sexual orientation alone and vice versa. You could argue (either way) about what this means to their character, though. Is Victoria Lane qualified to be a mayor? Obviously not, as she only got barely more than 1% of the vote, but her faith doesn't "automatically disqualify" her or some such.

And yet, when people vote against Parker on the sole basis that she's a lesbian (not policies), they're called bigots and homophobes. Now, it's not that they're right, but how is beliefs like as seen above all that different?

Man! The TGI Friday's in College Station closed a month before this one and we haven't gotten any replacement yet!

Perhaps this?

I saw that article, and I tend not to believe it's nearly as bad as they make it out to be as it's typical slide-show format, poorly researched linkbait crap.

Here's an idea: turn it into an indoor amusement park! We could call it AstroW--wait a minute. We blew that one, didn't we.

It's kind of weird to see how the perspective changes...the train's going the same speed, but it appears to be a lot slower when approaching the crossing. Glad you enjoyed it! I liked it too.

Like I may have discussed before, Houston has a highly competitive grocery market, but I'm curious as to what stores HAIFers like/shop: Kroger, Fiesta, H-E-B, Walmart, Trader Joe's? Please put a line as to why it's your favorite (organic produce, closest to home, has a specific brand of fish sauce you enjoy, etc.) and what the location is (not all H-E-Bs and Krogers are created equal). I'm not doing this for any project, it's just for fun. Thanks!

Not entirely true. There's sports teams, shopping venues, restaurants, museums, and other "city" attractions, and Houston draws like a magnet from a rather vast radius, easily encompassing Baton Rouge and College Station (among others).

OK--the county made a lot of bucks selling off parts of the interior. It would cost Houston almost as more to demolish the structure than to renovate it. The solution? I'd say have the county practically give away the dome (some strings attached) to a willing acceptor. Like Bass Pro taking over the Memphis pyramid, who wants to see a Cabela's?

That was 2002-2003. Even back in 2006, it was a bit strange to see a department store replaced with a three-level Banana Republic/GAP/Old Navy combo.

I think that Michelangelo's may be "Sacred Heart Studio" today IF it was on Taft. There's a concrete pad there that looks like it may have been a patio at one point (link). I must say, I am kinda disappointed with this thread, in the fact that the title infers much more than what's actually here. There's no general pictures of Houston in the 1970s, just ads for Montrose-area shops (the "Rat Hole" head shop was in Rice Village) and music ads. Maybe I just want to see more actual picture-pictures. Who knows.

Michelangelo's was on Westheimer, what's the cross street?

That's another made up if/then statement...I'm guilty of it myself, inferring Houston was a bit unsightly because of no zoning.

I thought that's what it was known by later (after Roxy).

Prop 6 needs to be voted against. Under the guise as securing water for future growth, it's being supported by developers (friends of Gov. Goodhair?) who intend to build lakeside developments, all the while depriving native plant & animal river wildlife while using the rainy day fund. Absolutely disgusting.

A place where nobody dared to go, the love that we came to know / They call it Xanadu / And now, open your eyes and see, what we have made is real / We are in Xanadu --- When did the mainstream commercial establishments (Kroger, McDonald's, Burger King, etc.) open in Montrose? I know Kroger opened in the 1970s...