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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

#301

Post by dboshardy »

reddog wrote: post #173
dylan604 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urban sprawl happened because people were tired of living on top of each other, and cities that had the room to expand used it. There was also another name used for that sprawl, white flight. I think we're seeing some of the results of that today.

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).

That's a pretty generous interpretation of white flight. You leave out the redlining and segregation that were huge factors in white flight and subsequently reverse white flight and gentrification.

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

#302

Post by CydeWeys »

refurb wrote: post #279
dylan604 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When an area is ceded by one group, the vacuum will always be filled by another group. When the people that left try to reclaim that territory, friction will always happen. If the current occupants of that territory have no desire to relocate , or have no where else to relocate to, or have no means of relocating if it were possible then there will always be friction. It's repeated over and over through out history.

Right. One way to solve this is moving away from the identity politics (why is that group moving here) and tell people who want to “maintain their neighborhood character” to pound sand.

What does "pounding sand" actually mean in this context though? Considering that the people in question are complaining because it's already happening to them? You can't just tell people to stop complaining about grievances.

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

#303

Post by philwelch »

hannasanarion wrote: post #253
philwelch wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A rule of thumb is that if something is far enough that I have to take the car in the first place I'll be incentivised to drive further away to a big supermarket/other big stores while I'm at it. The grocery store that’s 2 miles away is a big supermarket. The US doesn’t really do small groceries in most places.

The US used to have tons of small groceries everywhere. The legislative mandate for free parking everywhere has put them out of business, and many were demolished to build freeways.

Yes, but now the US has tons of supermarkets everywhere.

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

#304

Post by CydeWeys »

adventured wrote: post #292
coryrc wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply is not increasing and that's just another self-induced injury by the USA.

Entirely depends on where you're at. Overall the US added nine million new housing units from 2010-2019, while adding only about 19 million people. For housing that's somewhere between keeping pace with and exceeding population expansion. Obviously not all of that supply expansion goes to family housing, however not all of it needs to either, given that's only a two to one ratio.

Location location location. A lot of that new housing is not where it's actually needed most. If you need it somewhere within commuting range of your job, but instead it's 18 hours away and several states over, it's really not doing you any good.

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

#305

Post by luckylion »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #277
luckylion wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It's primarily jobs though. I know quite a few people who don't care enough for the Opera or obscure African sports to pay two or three times as much in rent and taxes. It's a mixed bag, some love living in the city, but all have to live in the city i…

The urban poor in the 19th century went to see the performing arts, too. Yes, some theaters and operas were strictly for the bourgeoisie, but there were theaters for the proletariat too (and whole genres of plays written to appeal to them), and vaudeville/music-hall type venues. I don't know where you got this idea that the masses could only make their own entertainment at home.

It's not that they "could only" do that, it's that their primary life wasn't full of cultural entertainment as the comment made it sound. They came to the cities looking for work and and opportunity, not from a late-20th-century sense of "small town life isn't interesting enough".

The life described is one of privilege, not of the lower classes. It's pubs vs operas.

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

#306

Post by cousin_it »

CydeWeys wrote: post #255
RangerScience wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this is part of why why protests started marching down freeways. In LA, if you protest by marching down basically any freeway, you snarl up that freeway (and likely more) for tens of miles, at least (AFAIK). (the 101 between hollywood and DTLA is essentially a single thing, the 10 between DTLA and West Side, the 405 from culver city up to over the pass in sherman oaks...) AKA, the "center" isn't geographic, but..…

It also gives a great sense of your own power (which is very important to protest movements) in marching along and shutting down a freeway, which you could never in any other situation just calmly walk down the middle of. Critical Mass is invigorating for the same reasons.

(Deleted: not worth it)

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

#307

Post by dougmwne »

philwelch wrote: post #271
jfengel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What really strikes me is just how many ordinary buildings are older than our country. The monuments and palaces are one thing, but it's very common to eat in a restaurant or pub that dates to the 17th century. Not as a tourist trap or destination, but just as a perfectly ordinary building that has been retrofitted (sometimes awkwardly) with bathrooms and lights and such. I've been in 500 year old cottages that weren…

One thing I wonder is, how frequently are new European buildings made of stone? I occasionally encounter comments from people confused by American home renovation shows where people literally burst through walls Kool-Aid Man style[1] when demolishing them, but most of our walls (even exterior) are wood-framed and mostly hollow, and once you take out the framing there’s just drywall. [1] Not from an actual renovation…

Cinder block and metal roofs seem to be very commonly used in single family homes for new construction in several European countries I've been to. They're generally seen to be a sturdy materials for a house built to last.

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

#308

Post by CydeWeys »

cousin_it wrote: post #306
CydeWeys wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also gives a great sense of your own power (which is very important to protest movements) in marching along and shutting down a freeway, which you could never in any other situation just calmly walk down the middle of. Critical Mass is invigorating for the same reasons.

(Deleted: not worth it)

What a horrid comparison to make between those crimes and a constitutionally-guaranteed right.

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

#309

Post by _8j50 »

username90 wrote: post #174
_8j50 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can drive to the location of the protest. Less dense means more transportation, protests could also mean blocking off major freeways.

Where would you find parking for a hundred thousand cars? You can't really get protests like this without a dense city: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/March_fo...

You'd be surprised. Most of cities like this is parking lots. But yeah, in a protest situation they may not be available. Big marathons and marches happen just fine.

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

#310

Post by bluGill »

rdiddly wrote: post #213

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…

If they are right and there are a nuclear attack they survive, will your city? You fall for the same falicy as those who are saying covid isn't dangerous. (not that I disagree with you, but you haven't made a good argument)
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