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Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

texasmonthly.com

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Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#201

Post by Ericson2314 »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #95
Ericson2314 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right that's true, but little of that stuff is part of the fabric of an intact, living city right? Either because it was raised by colonizers (e.g. Just a few things from technocratic remain, which are largely dug up rather than continuous, right?) or abandoned first (like Mayan cities).

That depends on what you mean by part of an intact, living city. Oraibi, Taos, and Acoma are all continuously inhabited places, so obviously they count. Las Capas is a continuously inhabited region with small periods of interruption in certain specific areas, just like any city in the UK.

Sorry, I completely forgot about the Pueblos. Good point.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#202

Post by wozniacki »

abraxas wrote: post #177
maxsilver wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you feel "stacked on top of each other" in a Parisian townhouse with a magnificent shared courtyard, 12 foot ceilings, and everything you could possibly want a short walk or subway ride away? No, I wouldn't feel "stacked on top of each other" if I were a multi-millionaire in Paris. But, in the real world, your talking about putting families into 600sqft (at very best) boxes, with audible neighbors on every si…

Nonsense. There are very walkable and affordable cities with pleasant neighborhoods that don't break the bank in all parts of the world (sans North America). Off the top of my head and from first hand experience: - Warsaw - Glasgow - Porto - Lisbon - Athens (Greece) - Berlin - Budapest - Barcelona (OK, this one gets pricey but is superbly laid out)

The cities you list are not exactly diverse economic powerhouses in the same way even Houston is. A comparison of the "GDPs" of those cities would show that much.

Also no one wants to walk through blighted or a high crime neighborhood. American cities have a lot more diversity than any of the cities you mention with income disparities separating various races and stocks of people. Homogeneity of the populaces involved is a factor often totally and wholly ignored in these comparisons of "walkable and affordable" cities.

Walking through even the ghetto-est part of Belfast may not be the same as walking through the same in Opa-locka, Miami-Dade County, Florida. There are no racial boundaries to overcome in Belfast or Budapest. Not even remotely close to the extent we encounter in America. Like I said this metric should be factored into these conversations.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#203

Post by siliconvalley1 »

xg15 wrote: post #111

> But it wasn’t strictly an “everything is bigger in Texas” ethos that caused Houston to sprawl the way that it does. Rather, Cold War–era urban design philosophy in the U.S. prioritized sprawl because older cities that had urbanized pre–World War II—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit—were seen as being susceptible to nuclear strikes. Less-dense cities such as Los Angeles and Houston were less likely to be…

With that advent of MIRVs it makes most of this moot. A single missile could have a dozen warheads and you can blanket target massive areas.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#204

Post by crmrc114 »

johnisgood wrote: post #131
oblio wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tragedy of the commons, though. Your immediate best interest might be bad for the community.

Well, in all fairness, s/he did say: > I prefer to have a car. > I like being able to use a telescope and not hear cars. So I am not sure s/he cares much about the commons. :D

I mean, like I also have bees and livestock. Not sure why my parent comment here is getting downvoted like crazy. But yeah some people just don't like the cosmopolitanism. Then again I enjoy Walden and nature. This is getting a bit meta and off topic. It does seem like any mention of cars on HN will get a slew of automobile haters and lovers in a flamewar. Not my goal here. Just saying different strokes, the common good depends on your optics.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#205

Post by abraxas »

smerdyakov wrote: post #199
abraxas wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. There are very walkable and affordable cities with pleasant neighborhoods that don't break the bank in all parts of the world (sans North America). Off the top of my head and from first hand experience: - Warsaw - Glasgow - Porto - Lisbon - Athens (Greece) - Berlin - Budapest - Barcelona (OK, this one gets pricey but is superbly laid out)

To be fair at least some of these cities aren't described as affordable by locals. Berliners are constantly complaining about the rent prices.

I also heard that lately. But up until the recent run up in prices it was quite the bargain for what you were getting.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#206

Post by rdiddly »

exabrial wrote: post #7

The elephant in the room is the assumption that _everyone wants to be stacked on top of each other_. I do agree that designing cities around cars has ruined a lot of nice places though.

I wouldn't mind being stacked on top of my workplace which is stacked on top of my local organic grocery store. I don't need to spend more time getting around.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#207

Post by xvedejas »

rsynnott wrote: post #200
reddog wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always thought it was funny how whites moving from the city to the suburbs is bad (white flight) and whites moving from the suburbs to the city is also bad (gentrification).

I think you have to detach the idea of _personal_ blame from it. They're both phenomena which cause problems.

I've always seen gentrification as more a symptom of a problem, rather than a problem itself. After all, it's not the appearance of a higher economic class that's bad; it's the forceful displacement of the lower economic class, which may or may not follow. I've seen both scenarios play out in both urban and suburban areas, depending a ton on willingness to allow new construction and pre-existing home ownership rates.

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#208

Post by oliv__ »

drewbug01 wrote: post #106
adolph wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Some of Haussmann's critics said that the real purpose of Haussmann's boulevards was to make it easier for the army to maneuver and suppress armed uprisings; Paris had experienced six such uprisings between 1830 and 1848, all in the narrow, crowded streets in the center and east of Paris and on the left bank around the Pantheon. These critics argued that a small number of large, open intersections allowed easy contr…

Not directly related, but the US Interstate Highway system was at least partially designed with military concerns in mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Hist... . I'm reminded of it every time I see military vehicles on the highway. Obviously not the same thing that you're talking about here - but just interesting to me, and vaguely related!

Thanks for the link, very interesting! I love the US

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#209

Post by djsumdog »

xg15 wrote: post #111

> But it wasn’t strictly an “everything is bigger in Texas” ethos that caused Houston to sprawl the way that it does. Rather, Cold War–era urban design philosophy in the U.S. prioritized sprawl because older cities that had urbanized pre–World War II—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit—were seen as being susceptible to nuclear strikes. Less-dense cities such as Los Angeles and Houston were less likely to be…

Let's take a look at Houston on a Nuke Map:

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=5000&lat=29.7589&lng...

Re: Interchange in Houston is the same size as an entire city center in Italy

#210

Post by abraxas »

wozniacki wrote: post #202
abraxas wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. There are very walkable and affordable cities with pleasant neighborhoods that don't break the bank in all parts of the world (sans North America). Off the top of my head and from first hand experience: - Warsaw - Glasgow - Porto - Lisbon - Athens (Greece) - Berlin - Budapest - Barcelona (OK, this one gets pricey but is superbly laid out)

The cities you list are not exactly diverse economic powerhouses in the same way even Houston is. A comparison of the "GDPs" of those cities would show that much. Also no one wants to walk through blighted or a high crime neighborhood. American cities have a lot more diversity than any of the cities you mention with income disparities separating various races and stocks of people. Homogeneity of the populaces involve…

Is this your long winded way of saying "I'm scared of black people"?

There are plenty of very diverse races living in Europe and nobody is scared of them.

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