Houston19514

I refer you back to my post #65 for consideration on this topic.

While interesting, the concentration information Simbha calculated is not terribly useful in determining an airport's status as an international gateway because it is inherently subject depending on where one draws the lines. For example, what would be Miami's passenger concentration if we drew the line to combine Latin America and the Carribean (a completely reasonable line)? Similarly, what would IAH's concentration be if we drew the lines strictly along continental boundaries? An analysis of concentration broken down to the route level would be more useful (although a whole lot more work).) Just found a cool US DOT table: As has been mentioned before IAH is the 8th largest US gateway, making Houston the 7th largest US gateway city, by passenger traffic. Interesting to note: Even if we were to disregard all Latin American traffic (as nonsensical as that might be), IAH would still be the 12th largest US gateway airport. (Of course if we played games of disregarding various regions of the world, we could have all sorts of fun making up incoherent and irrelevant rankings) ;-) Table 6 : Top 40 U.S. Passenger Gateways to the World, Scheduled Passenger Service US Foreign US Foreign 12 months ended Sept 2010 Gateway City - Apt. - Passengers - New York, NY JFK 22,424,658 Miami, FL MIA 15,902,787 Los Angeles, CA LAX 15,098,801 Newark, NJ EWR 11,152,288 Chicago, IL ORD 10,338,987 Atlanta, GA ATL 8,997,205 San Francisco, CA SFO 8,079,700 Houston, TX IAH 8,038,591 Washington, DC IAD 6,074,944 Dallas/Ft.Wth, TX DFW 4,948,143 Philadelphia, PA PHL 3,702,652 Boston, MA BOS 3,545,267 Honolulu, HI HNL 3,508,217 Fort Laud, FL FLL 3,012,646 Orlando, FL MCO 2,883,964 Detroit, MI DTW 2,754,214 Guam, TT GUM 2,613,086 Seattle, WA SEA 2,589,949 Charlotte, NC CLT 2,572,107 Minneapolis, MN MSP 2,202,612 Phoenix, AZ PHX 2,066,108 Las Vegas, NV LAS 1,994,535 Denver, CO DEN 1,840,705 San Juan, PR SJU 1,230,919 New York, NY LGA 852,018 Saipan, TT SPN 592,100 Salt Lake City, UT SLC 461,719 Portland, OR PDX 408,837 Baltimore, MD BWI 374,627 Tampa, FL TPA 359,647 Cincinnati, OH CVG 281,377 Memphis, TN MEM 269,224 Washington, DC DCA 251,762 Cleveland, OH CLE 242,495 Oakland, CA OAK 225,799 San Diego, CA SAN 225,373 Fort Myers, FL RSW 203,636 Anchorage, AK ANC 201,908 Kahului, HI OGG 195,627 St. Louis, MO STL 174,102 Source : U.S. Department of Transportation T-100 Segment Data Page 1 of 1 1/ Ranked in descending order according to latest year ended data. YE Sept. 2010 YE Sept. 2009

At basement level will be The Cellar, a beer and wine bar. The basement will also serve as an event space.

Yeah, it's a no-frills discount grocery. They also own Trader Joe's.

I completely agree with this. And we could also do a much better job of marketing. I cannot believe the Convention & Visitors Bureau does not work with Bush Airport to capitalize on the enormous traffic that passes through every year. It is better than it used to be. Not long ago, one could pass through IAH without every seeing a clue as to what city one was in. But it needs to be MUCH better. I love going through O'Hare, for example, because one gets such a flavor of Chicago, in art displays, welcome signs, concessions, etc. etc. 40 Million + people pass through there every year and they are captive (and bored) for some time. IAH should be covered in Houston promotional material... photo displays, historical displays, displays about the Museum District, Theater District, Medical Center, NASA, the Port, welcome signs, mini-branches for MFAH, HMNS, Childrens Museum, etc., etc., etc.

Yet more evidence that Houston is, in fact, a gateway city to the world, even aside from Latin America: Houston to be 6th city in US for A380 service. The new list of US cities with A380 service: NYC, Miami, LA, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Houston.

Why would we consider routes only to the top 30 international airports? It seems that a true gateway city would likely be the airport that has more international routes to more destinations, not just to the world's other hub airports. Further, why would we make the ranking based on the number of routes (incorrectly limited as you have done), rather than number of passengers or even number of flights? Any analysis of gateway status that puts Charlotte (2 international airlines, 36 international destinations, and 2.5 million annual international passengers) in a tie with IAH (11 international airlines, 66 international destinations and 8.5 million annual international passengers) is suspect, to put it nicely. If we are going to divide our gateways into different tiers, Charlotte and IAH are clearly not even in the same tier. Similar with the ranking of DFW above IAH. DFW's comparable numbers are: (7 international airlines, 48 international destinations and 5.5 million annual international passengers) and would seem to put DFW in a tier below IAH, not above it. There are many more anomalies in your rankings, entirely the result of the faulty methodology. Your methodology, at its extreme, would rank as the number 1 gateway an airport having one flight per week with the smallest possible plane to each of the top 30 international airports, even if each flight flew half empty. It is less extreme versions of this that cause you to have Charlotte and IAH tied. Relying solely on passenger counts could cause similar anomalies, so I think a proper analysis has to look primarily at the number of passengers along with the number of destinations (not artificially cut off at the 30 largest international airports), possibly include number of flights (although passenger counts might be a pretty good proxy for number of flights), and, less importantly, but also worthy of inclusion, the number of international airlines. If we are going to divide our gateway cities into tiers, I would absolutely put Houston in the second tier, not the first. PS The link to DOT stats does not work. I would love to see that data.

ROFL. The lengths to which you will go to avoid admitting error never cease to amaze. I am sure no one on this board will be surprised that, even after having typed the words "ours is a second tier international gateway" you aren't man enough to admit the initial error or the contradiction with your initial statement that "we are by no means a gateway to the world"' but rather choose to continue your usual antics. Carry on.

To sum up our conversation, Niche has moved from his initial statement that Houston "is by no means a gateway city to the world", a statement that I challenged with passenger traffic and destination facts. Niche now says that Houston is a "second-tier international gateway." So, we are now in agreement that Niche's initial statement regarding Houston's status as a gateway city was incorrect.

And in Niche's judgment, they don't count because they are Latin American. ;-)

And your continued ramblings don't change the fact that Houston is in fact a major world gateway city. Facts are stubborn things. The numbers are what they are. Despite being, in your imagination, so poor and relatively sparsely populated that they should be ignored as irrelevant, somehow enough people manage to scrounge up the money for plane tickets betweenLatin America and Houston to help Houston attain its status as the seventh largest international gateway city (just as Latin American service contributes mightily to your model gateway city's (Miami's) status). My earlier posts over-stated our ranking; I had forgotten Delta's fairly recent massive increase in Latin American service from Atlanta has moved them slightly above us.

Even if everything in the above off-point rambling were true, it does not change the fact that your initial statement that Houston is not a " gateway city to the world" is clearly objectively false. Houston is in fact #6 among American "gateway cities to the world", soon to be one of the few cities in the world with nonstop service to every inhabited continent.

No disagreement about the advantage of a city with many international tourists passing through. The issue is your insistence on disregarding the Latin American traffic. That is just silly. Disregarding Houston's Latin American air traffic in a discussion of whether Houston is a world gateway city is indeed just like disregarding Miami's beautiful beaches in a discussion of whether Miami is a strong tourist destination.

No, it did not have 10 million guests within its first year. According to their own website, they have had 11 million visitors since opening in November 2005. A June 29, 2009 news release on their website states that they welcomed their 10 millionth guest on June 25, 2009, 3 years 7 months after opening. That's about 232,558 visitors per month. Our own Houston Museum of Natural Science averages more than 250,000 per month. So, I'm thinking a sizable majority of those aquarium visitors probably are indeed from the surrounding region. http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/members-and-donors/about-us.aspx http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/newsroom/pressdetail.aspx?id=146

Most of this post makes a lot of sense. But saying "aside from Latin Ameria, we're stuckk in the middle of the continent and by no means a gateway city to the world" is just silly. Sort of like saying, "without its beaches, Miami would by no means be a tourist mecca." Besides, the fact is, Bush Intecontinental Airport makes Houston a pretty substantial gateway city to the world even leaving aside Latin America (as preposterous as it is to do so). Roughly 35% of the international passengers to IAH this year will be to and from non-Latin American locations. That is more than 3 million passengers a year and growing pretty rapidly. Some time in 2012, IAH will join a VERY small group of airports that have non-stop service to every inhabited continent. Any way you slice it, Houston is a gateway city to the world. IAH is the seventh largest gateway airport (which makes Houston the sixth largest gateway city, since both JFK and EWR have more international traffic than IAH).

I would not use Grubb & Ellis numbers for this purpose because, IIRC, they do not include owner occupied or single tenant properties.

You have piqued my interest in this topic. Compared to what cities is Houston "very blue collar"? Using Transwestern's office inventory numbers and BLS employment numbers, and your (the Niche's) office space per employee as a proxy for white collar employment, it would appear that, far from being "very blue collar", Houston may just be more white collar than most cities. In this sampling of cities, only Denver appears to be more white collar than Houston. Houston: 2,605,800 employees in 219,064,500 square feet of occupied office space = 84.068 square feet per employee DFW: 2,922,700 employees in 237,246,970 square feet of occupied office space = 81.174 square feet per employee Atlanta: 2,235,000 employees in 109,865,000 square feet of occupied office space = 49.157 square feet per employee. Chicago: 4,296,600 employees in 333,961,000 square feet of occupied office space = 77.727 square feet per employee. Denver: 1,202,300 employees in 123,613,000 square feet of occupied office space = 102.805 square feet per employee. LA: 5,140,800 employees in 130,398,000 square feet of occupied office space = 25.365 square feet per employee Minneapolis St. Paul: 1,715,800 employees in 62,105,000 square feet of occupied office space = 36.196 square feet per employee Baltimore: 1,280,200 employees in 82,041,000 square feet of occupied office space = 64.085 square feet per employee

At the risk of side-tracking the discussion, isn't the view of Houston as a "very blue collar city" a couple decades out of date? Would be interested to see stats. Office space per employee is an interesting stand-in for a count of white-collar employment, as you suggested. I did a quick comparison to DFW (commonly and I believe outdatedly perceived to be much more of a white collar metro area): Houston has 219,064,500 square feet of occupied office space and total employment of 2,605,800 = 84.068 square feet per employee. DFW has 237,246,970 square feet of occupied office space and total employment of 2,922,700 = 81.174 square feet per employee.

1. As you know, those are projections into the future. As such, they do not provide evidence of any significant change in growth patterns having occurred. What portion of the 2000-2010 population growth was inside the beltway? Even if this projection turns out to be correct, would it demonstrate a significant change from the 2000-2010 growth pattern? 2. You changed the subject from "inside the loop" to "inside the beltway" and STILL only get a projection showing population increases of more than 5 people outside the beltway for every person added inside the beltway. 3. Sticking to the subject of "inside the loop" your linked source projects only 5% of the population growth to be inside the loop. Pretty close to the numbers the Niche initially posited. Again, I would be interested to see any evidence of any significant change in the growth patterns and it's apportionment between inside and outside the loop.

The population growth in inner loop Houston is almost insignificant in the context of the overall metro growth according to the 2010 census. The total population growth inside the loop was only 13,028. Even if we loook only at the growing side of the inner loop (the west side -- west of the North Freeway, west of the South Freeway and including the CBD), the net growth was only 29,704. That is only 20% of the city's population growth and less than 2.5% of the total metro population growth. (For every additional person added to the west inner loop during the decade, we added 39 additional people elsewhere in the metro area.). I would be interested to see any evidence that this trend has changed to any significant extent.

They are installing tolling systems. The HOVs are being converted to HOTs. Still free for HOVs, but single occupancy vehicles can get in for a toll.

Sorry

Interesting. Couldn't help but notice that the article spoke of the bonds being attained some two months in the future (after the article was dated) Any idea whether, or evidence that, the bonds were ever attained or the money made available to the earthquest folks?

Soapboxmom, anyone... What is the taxpayers' investment in this project?

What is the taxpayers' investment in this project ?