[ think ] archive
Learning from Glenwood Park
I recently found a great mini-documentary concerning Atlanta and an emerging New Urban neighborhood within the city. Notice the posted clip (read the complete article to see the video). This is a perfect example of a developer who understands the difference between the front and the back of a property – and correctly oriented the building to the street. Unfortunately, in Houston most buildings present their rear end to the public, and hide their face in the back yard.
Speaking Tonight on Property Value Theory
For those who are interested, I’ll be speaking tonight at 7PM at CNU-Houston’s April Professional Development meeting. The meeting will be held at “New Living,” which is a hardware store in the Rice Village area.
The talk will cover the connection between design decisions and property value impacts. I’ll apply these observations to Houston, and look at what the city should and should not do when it looks to invest in infrastructure and revitalize neighborhoods.
CPT Challenge Results and Editors Choice
Last week we held a quick design challenge, looking for people to showcase their ideas for cable-propelled transit systems in Houston. We were happy to receive five different entries, which I think is about what I’d hoped for given the short time frame and the requirement that entrants create an image of some kind to illustrate the idea. What exceeded my expectations was the quality of the entries! These are all thoughtful submissions, and picking and editor’s choice was harder than I expected. I did say I’d pick a winner, though… read the rest of the story to see who won!
Growing neoHOUSTON
Introducing neoHOUSTON’s newest contributing author – and the opportunity for additional contributors to join the site.
My Houston 2040
For those who are interested, I’ll be presenting some ideas at the My Houston 2040 happy hour tomorrow night. This should be a fun presentation, and it’s a wide-open discussion format, so there will be plenty of opportunity to chime-in. The full details are attached to the end of this post.
About the new web site design
Returning readers will notice that our web site looks somewhat different today. I’ve made a bunch of changes on the surface. You’ll notice that things look a little crisper, more polished, and overall more readable. Some redundant content has been trimmed out, and the important stuff has been made more prominent. There have been vastly [...]
CNU Accreditation
I received notice today that I passed the CNU Accreditation exam, and I’m now one of the first (the first?) CNU Accredited professionals in Houston. CNU Accreditation is a new process that recognizes professional New Urbanists. Over time I expect its value will grow, for now the biggest impact is that large development projects interested in earning [...]
Metro and FTA disagree about cost of Light Rail
This, from the River Oaks Examiner, is pretty interesting… Letters to the Metropolitan Transit Authority from the Federal Transit Administration place the baseline price of building both the North and Southeast light rail lines at almost $1.58 billion. Based on the correspondence, dated Aug. 17, that would place the cost of the 11.84 miles of [...]
Happy Thanksgiving
I’m a day early, but I wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving holiday! I’m enjoying a short hiatus from writing, as it’s given me some time to catch up on life and save up a few worthwhile ideas for future blog posts. I’ve enjoyed the series on High-Speed Rail, and the many comments I [...]
Ares 1-X Launch Successful!
Check out this very cool video of NASA’s successful launch of the new Ares 1-X rocket. This is intended as the replacement system for the Space Shuttle. Congratulations to NASA today!