Posts Tagged ‘urban’
Natural Ammenities
I read a column today that really struck a chord with me. In it, Nicholas Kristof points out the value his family places on interacting with nature, and then posits that the current generation is increasingly not exposed to the natural world at all. Such time in the wilderness is part of our family’s summer [...]
What to do with empty lots?
Cities and developers around the country are trying to find innovative ways to use vacant lots while they wait for the market to recover. What can Houston learn from these efforts, and where might we apply them?
Comparison of Houston Home Prices
Given Andrew’s recent post on property taxes and their effect on housing prices here in Houston (and the relatively intense reaction it garnered among some), I thought I would do a little comparison. I am currently looking at purchasing property here in Houston and my initial reaction has been surprise at how much more expensive [...]
Transit Corridor Streets
There’s been a lot of chatter about the Urban Corridors effort this week. Mike Snyder started things off by providing us an update on the ordinance, and several other bloggers have chimed in about it. Most notably, Cory Crow wrote a pretty scathing rebuke of the idea, though I think he was reacting more to [...]
Rivercrest: Why the Urban Network is Essential
Yesterday the Chronicle posted an interesting article titled: Did street closing bypass fairness? Neighbors inherit wealthy Rivercrest’s traffic problem. The article considers the plight of the Briargrove Park subdivision, which has seen a significant increase in traffic since the adjacent Rivercrest subdivision succeeded in having their streets made into one-way (exit only) at Westhiemer. The [...]
New Mobility Northwest
Last month we had a great discussion about the Grand Parkway. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since then, and I decided that I wanted to make a little bit more elaborate case for an alternate. Prior to revising the Grand Parkway, I wanted to take some time to write about some useful terminology [...]
Context-Sensitive Streets
Continuing in our discussion of some of the basic ideas behind good urbanism, today we’re going to look at Context-Sensitive Streets (or CSS). This idea came about after many years of study on the neighborhood impacts of very wide suburban thoroughfares, and the design requirements that mandated them. The definitive source of information on Context-Sensitive [...]
The Transect
UPDATE – From the feedback in the comments I decided to add a little on how and why the Transect is useful for Houston, see the end of the post. This week I’ll be writing about the future of Houston, and how we can embrace and encourage growth in a sustainable way. To do this, [...]
De Lange Conference: Day Two
Another great day at the De Lange Conference. Here were some of the notable quotes and excerpts: Today 1 in 7 people are living in slums and shanties, and in 20 years it will be 1 in 3. This is the market for housing in the world, and the most important priority for architects, urban [...]
West Gray Streetcar: Commonwealth Redevelopment
Update (2/10/09): Graphics adjusted to improve clarity. I’ve been thinking more about the West Gray Streetcar concept, and the more I think about it the more I like it. For those who didn’t read it before, the gist of the concept is to convert West Gray and Peden St. into a one-way pair from Shepherd [...]