IronTiger

I don't think total population is a good indicator for disruption. Unlike Eastern seaboard cities, Houston doesn't have set borders and thus the density is likely exactly the same in '73 than in today, barring any redevelopment (specifically Montrosr, Midtown)

The Dallas St. shopping district was unrealistic to begin with...

Wagner Hardware only recently became its current incarnation (I want to say "At Home", but that's Garden Ridge's game) about five years ago. JBX became Village Flowery, now River Oaks Plant House.

In better days of the HAIF, there was a lot of talk about the draconian Heights historic district. RedScare would probably sympathize, but he's gone, unfortunately.

Ah, no, not really. In 1978 (since Google Earth doesn't have 1973) you can see that the sprawl extends out to about the Beltway (well, it wasn't the Beltway as we know it today, but it was still a wide surface boulevard) except for the northeast and south parts (which are still mostly un/underdeveloped today). By 1978, development had jumped across the Beltway in the west part and the north part. Downtown has most of its taller buildings along Main, though not so much the South side (the Houston Center development tore down most of the southeastern part of downtown, and because the project shrank so dramatically, most of that became parking lots). Sprawl had already taken hold of FM 1960, too. Obviously, the Inner Loop still had some homes that hadn't been torn down for denser developments yet, but as far as people goes, yes, there still would've been considerable disruption on all counts.

As I guessed, it's a lesbian porn flick. From what I've read on IMDB, it actually isn't that good of a movie though. Getting back on topic, what was the south part of the complex like, pre-Arcade? I know there was a Jack in the Box there (or some other fast food, maybe KFC) but it just seemed a lot less dense than the essentially-outdoor mall we have now.

But Houston's economy is based on more than oil these days. Maybe this will mean trouble to places like Midland, but not Houston. There's still the huge shipping/energy industry, for starters.

Actually, whether they own the Westpark ROW or not now is irrelevant because that's certainly not what the case was in 1973: that was definite freight rail owned by freight rail, as with the Katy line at the time.

Yes they do. When they bought the rail line, they managed to trade half of it to HCTRA for their tollway and kept the other half for rail-based transit use. It's possible that it could've paralleled it (since it would've followed the same line) but that wouldn't work for other lines (like the Katy, unless they replaced the high voltage power lines that were also displaced in the widening) You will notice that it goes straight through downtown, possibly on Main Street. If it wasn't light rail, though, it would've been enormously disruptive either way--probably far more than the light rail ended up being.

Found an old 1980s-era KFC in Waco... http://goo.gl/maps/yxOvE

Does anyone have a good idea of what Rice Village used to be like before its current incarnation as a more upscale place with chains and quirky boutiques? The closest I've found is a long-standing bead shop that closed a few years back (along with the late Variety Fair, and a head shop called "The Rat Hole"). Was it more of a counter-cultural store collection, or more of just a ramshackle bunch of businesses that congregate around universities and aim for the college student demographic? Or both?

Don't feel bad, I've similar gaffes in trying to ask what something used to be. Some of those are best left unsaid.

Yeah, the last L&C lasted into the 1990s, and it was bought by Rice Epicurean.

Maybe I'm just reading into this a bit much, but the lines for the most part seem to be on existing railroad right of ways, many of which still exist. Would they run on freight tracks/newly built standard gauge tracks, or a heavy rail system?

The Biomedical Corridor isn't well-positioned for the highways it's near. FM 2818 can't really become a full freeway due to the awkwardness of the interchange at FM 2818 and Wellborn, and the student apartments along it make things worse, and with Mission Ranch filling in the remaining part of the northwest section of Rock Prairie and Holleman, that area's going to fill up more. Therefore, a highway needs to be placed to connect Highway 40 (and the Medical Corridor, by extension) with Highway 47. What does this have to do with the city council? They need to push west, not south, to control development in that area. I imagine a highway running over parts of North Graham and North Dowling would do the trick (assuming some ROW demolition and re-connecting roads).

Student rental housing is killing neighborhoods and "gentrifying" others. There needs to be a limit to how much of the city is considered "student housing".

Better than "Rice Urban Lofts"...

* by the way, "mass transit fetishists" was supposed to be hyperbole, in case you didn't catch that Although speaking of mass transit, there needs to be a connecting highway (at least ROW and a smaller road for it) between 47 and FM 60 and Highway 40 and Wellborn Road.

From Google Earth, I don't even see this parking garage that the train will go through.

I personally am not a fan of New Urbanism as it stands (that's not to say there aren't some good ideas to take away from that), and especially not the types of people that tend to follow it (mostly talking in terms of the anti-car/mass transit fetishists--I'm not saying that all the NU people subscribe to that idea, but it's a dangerous philosophy). Nor do I expect College Station to stay the same: it's going to continue to grow, and places like Hearne and Navasota are going to be the small town/suburb hybrids to it. The big question is whether the "Houstonization" of the town is a good thing or a detrimental one.

Much as I despise Beyoncé, her music isn't really "thug hip-hop", it's more of just trashy pop music.

Hey, long time no see! Hartz Chicken is kinda common...there's at least 2 along 290 and another even older specimen along 45.

An independent FM news station? Never heard of it locally...there's NPR on FM or Rush and his pals on AM.

It might be, and was presented to the local media as what Century Square might look like. EDIT: Yes it is. Never mind.

No, that's a rendering of Century Square (formerly Campus Pointe) going up in College Station. Don't plan a trip yet--construction hasn't really started.