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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

#211

Post by siliconvalley1 »

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.

Probably true of locals of every city in the world but Berlin in particular is still very cheap relative to many western EU cities.

Numbeo cost of living index has it 153rd in the world including rent and it's well below places like Houston which is probably the cheapest large top tier city in the US.

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

#212

Post by mcguire »

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…

9MT W53 (Titan II warhead): Fireball covers downtown Houston, moderate damage out to the borders of Houston proper, 50% chance of 3rd degree burns as far as Sugar Land or Humble.

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=9000&lat=29.7500709&...

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

#213

Post by rdiddly »

So Houstonians have to live every single day (probability of occurrence of "a day": 100%) with an infrastructure optimized for a nuclear attack that happens effectively never. Well, it was somebody's best guess at the right thing to do 65 years ago. But that's the sticky issue with large-scale infrastructure like this. If you get it wrong, or if you get it right but conditions later change, the costs associated with it start to balloon & become astronomical. But the short-term costs of changing it are even greater, so nobody wants to tear the band-aid off, and you're stuck bleeding money and productivity forever. (contrary mixture of metaphors there... heh)

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

#214

Post by julesqs »

tuna-piano wrote: post #55

It's interesting that protests generally happen in dense parts of cities. Now imagine a city without a dense part - protesting becomes more difficult. Myanmar's non-democratic military government actually moved their capital from a dense city to a new city so spread out and with no downtown area - potentially to prevent the ability to protest the government. https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/inside-burma-s-ghost-t…

yeah I live in New York and I definitely went to more protests this summer because they were happening literally right outside my apartment than I would have if I had to deal with driving and finding parking (probably hard if it's a big protest).

I think generally American style suburban sprawl decreases social capital just because you're more isolated, and that includes protests. I think mask wearing is another example.

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

#215

Post by oblio »

luckylion wrote: post #114
oblio wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the name. You only have "sub-urban living" because there is an "urban" nearby.

You don't have to go to the urban center for everyday things though, you go there because that's where the jobs are. When full remote becomes more wide-spread, that might change things rapidly.

It's not only jobs. Do you want to watch theater? Opera? Concerts? Major sports events? Do you want to join a club for an obscure African sport? I could go on and on.

There is a reason we've been congregating in cities for millennia, despite having to overcome many diseases which are made worse by overcrowdedness.

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

#216

Post by [deleted] »

leetcrew wrote: post #98
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…

is there any further explanation of this? it strikes me that narrow chokepoints would be more advantageous to the numerically inferior but better-equipped/trained force.

[deleted]

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

#217

Post by anticensor »

timerol wrote: post #81
jupp0r wrote: post #23

So a city of 30k people requires less infrastructure than a city of 6M people? Where are the examples of major metropolitan areas without big freeway intersections?

Ahmedabad, India appears to have about 6M people and 1 highway interchange. The interchange isn't even a full cloverleaf, but instead only allows 4 of the standard 8 cloverleaf options. In 2012 it was listed as India's best city to live in.

Do you mean this interchange: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/22.9676/72.6599

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

#218

Post by matchbok »

johnbrodie wrote: post #84
oblio wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't want to be stacked, but they do want jobs, they want Chinese/Indian/French/... restaurants, they want daycares, they want schools, they want high-schools, they want notaries, and hospitals and clinics, they want shopping malls and delis, they want pharmacies and pawn shops, ... It's almost like wanting 50000 people with different professions nearby means you have to live next to 50000 people. Until we disc…

I'm confused as to whether you're describing urban living or suburban living. Both have everything mentioned, the latter without being stacked on top of your neighbors.

In no way do the suburbs have the quality and diversity of food that any urban core does. 0%. I've been in both, they simple do not compare.

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

#219

Post by nickff »

xvedejas wrote: post #207
rsynnott wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The harmful displacement effects of gentrification are really a symptom of unresponsive city planning and zoning. If governments were more flexible and faster to adapt to changing circumstances, gentrification could have been positive-sum.

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

#220

Post by dhd415 »

larrydag wrote: post #8

I live in Texas. This assertion is true of most cities in Texas also. Houston is the largest population center in Texas with 6M+ in the city. Also Houston is a busy center for interstate and international commerce especially for trucking.

The Dallas-Ft Worth metro area is more populous than the Houston metro area by about 500k people.
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