Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
You're making a false dichotomy. You cannot have good urbanism while accomodating the car for everything. It has nothing to do with being a "hardcore urbanist", but complete subjugation to the automobile will never give you a traditional urban framework.
Then you're finding the best streetviews you can find of Houston, comparing them to the worst streetviews you can find in other cities, and then hoping this "proves" something. These views are all pretty awful and anti-urban, and I can find a streetview in suburban Detroit that looks as good or better as something in central Tokyo; doesn't mean they're fundamentally similar in urban form.
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Those are far from the best or worst of either city and it is certainly not the angle I'm pushing if you were to actually read my post.
The subject at hand is Houston's "evolving urban form". Those town & row homes are becoming the predominant building typology throughout 75-100 square miles of Houston. The more familiar, Texas Donut style developments are numerous, but not as predominant as they are in other Sunbelt cities.
Of course this isn't a "traditional urban framework"; Houston appears to be creating it's own version of urbanity, which may not appeal to many here. But it seems to be among the more successful attempts at creating "missing middle" housing. It is very unlikely for "traditional" urban forms to emerge where they didn't exist previously due to the changes in land use regulations, consumer preferences & new technologies. Houston seems to be dealing with this reality in ways it can.
I have a feeling that the "anti-urban" developments being created there are a transitory, awkward teenage, phase in the development of that city as it moves from completely suburban, into something more mature. We're witnessing this latter phase in cities like LA & Denver.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays
On the flip side it has one-car garages, while Houston seems to have two everywhere. There's a huge difference for the streetscape. One is virtually nothing but garages and driveways, while the other allows a little patio or patch of lawn or something, though many don't do that in the Sunset.
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Agreed. I imagine as owners/tenants of the properties modify the dwellings away from the developer's default over the next 20 years, human-scale variances in the streetscape may emerge. Or if some of the garages are converted into flats. The crude artist depiction I added to my previous post alludes to some of the potential of the newer building stock over time.
I am also a bit more optimistic on the driverless car effectively making residential garages obsolete in the coming decades.
Quote:
Originally Posted by barney82
Houston shows just how difficult it is to transition from suburbanism to urbanism in the USA today. Houston has a high wage economy, growing population, doesn't have nearly as many of the regulatory roadblocks to building that you find in California, NYC etc. And it's part of the same American culture that's shifted aspirations increasingly to urban lifestyles...
But it's a very hard transition to make, even under the most favorable regulatory environment in the USA. How do you shift away from effectively 100% car orientation? Urbanism requires passable public transportation. Passable public transportation is hugely expensive, and it's essentially impossible to politically justify that cost when almost no one but the very poor uses public transport.
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I'd say that Seattle seems to be the place to look to for making this transition successfully. Houston's lax regulatory environment has led to an interesting & unique character to the city. But a cohesive urban environment does not appear to be the result of such of an arrangement. Maybe in 20 years, we can see if a new wave of development makes moves in that direction.
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