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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

#51

Post by oblio »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #26
apacheCamel wrote: post #10

>Siena’s history dates back millennia. Houston, meanwhile, was founded in 1836. Every time I am made aware of just how young the US is, it blows me away. I've never been to Europe, I would really love to go some day, but I can only imagine the feeling of actually seeing these really old places/structures in person.

> I've never been to Europe, I would really love to go some day, but I can only imagine the feeling of actually seeing these really old places/structures in person. European cities are also relatively young. If you want to see old cities, you should visit the Middle East or China.

Most Chinese cities are younger than Rome or Istanbul or Athens.

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

#52

Post by kaesar14 »

tomrod wrote: post #48
kaesar14 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the GDP of this highway interchange?

Possibly, as the interchange allows a sizable fraction to more quickly get to work.

Public transit would've done the same in a much more equitable and environmentally friendly way. Probably faster too.

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

#53

Post by smcl »

A lot of people seem to be reading the headline, getting upset and immediately heading here to complain and getting on the defensive. The article is actually pretty interesting and isn't just trying to attack Houston, Texas, the USA or you personally.

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

#54

Post by immigrantsheep »

namdnay wrote: post #40
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never been to Europe, I would really love to go some day, but I can only imagine the feeling of actually seeing these really old places/structures in person. European cities are also relatively young. If you want to see old cities, you should visit the Middle East or China.

I think they mean the actual buildings and layouts, rather than the fact that people lived there 500 years ago. It's quite normal in Italy or Southern France for example to walk past churches that are 500-1000 years old

I come from a very small town on the Adriatic coast and the church there is from the 6th century. The town itself was founded sometimes BC.

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

#55

Post by tuna-piano »

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-to...

I don't think that's why Houston is the way it is, and while there is still a downtown there, imagining mass protests in Houston seems much different than Hong Kong - due to the density.

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

#56

Post by totalZero »

nend wrote: post #21
totalZero wrote: post #2

I disagree with the notion that space is better used if it exhibits greater density of population. I don't believe it is very easy to drive in Siena, Italy. I also don't believe it is very easy to live under a highway interchange. To each space its own.

I think the argument is that space is better used by designing for people, not for cars. Sometimes that means population density, but sometimes it means open plazas, pedestrian only streets, parks, etc.

This is the part that got a few nanometers underneath my skin:

Hendrix pulled this eye-opening comparison from a report compiled by the U.K.’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, which sternly suggests that housing 30,000 Italians is less wasteful and more sustainable than using the same amount of acreage to simply move cars around. There’s truth to that, of course [...]

There's no truth to that, of course. Houston is a gigantic port city and population center, in a region of the USA where automobiles are almost essential to life because everything is spread out and public transportation is sparse. Even if you only focus on designing for people, there are people commuting in those automobiles and their quality of life goes up when their daily commute doesn't include a series of congested off-ramps and on-ramps in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

In Houston, the user drives. Just because Tuscany is nice doesn't mean there is any reason why space in places where the use case is different should be judged with Tuscany in mind as an ideal.

To take it to the extreme, this article is akin to a comparison between the ISS and a soccer field. The author decided that the soccer field is a better use of space because it accommodates multiple times as many participants as the ISS.

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

#57

Post by teepo »

komali2 wrote: post #22

Ex houstonian here, university of houston and everything. Decently fun city, interesting history, cool people. The road and traffic situation is nightmarish. I slowly came to this realization in college when I went abroad a couple of times. I found out that didn't have to be How Things Are. The university of houston has a problem where students aren't attending classes because parking isn't available. Stories of tryi…

Current resident here! I can relate to some of your experiences. I will say though that Houston, like a lot of the sunbelt cities has multiple urban cores, the sprawl kind of connects them.

Going from one urban core to another can take some time, indeed an hour in some cases from one close-in area to another. (Close in meaning ~20 - 40 miles). It's very much like the East Bay in that regard.

Living in an urban area like Med Center / West U, or Galleria, energy corridor on the west side, most folks don't suffer, everything is nearby in those communities.

Houston does have a good park and ride bus system for the outer burbs, and it's been successful. They've added a light rail in town connecting downtown entertainment with the medical center and convention areas, and just launched BRT services that connect hubs in the Galleria to some of the park-n-ride depots in the city.

Lots of problems, lots of opportunities to improve, but for the price, the great airports (which I miss thee days with COVID), and these massive freeways to move us over great distance quickly, I'm still a fan.

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

#58

Post by apocalyptic0n3 »

csours wrote: post #41
apocalyptic0n3 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DFW Airport alone has 80% of the total land area that Manhattan does, which is always an interesting little bit of trivia.

Well, no one was using the land at the time[0]. Everything has grown to touch DFW airport - I lived literally across the street from it in Euless. Also, a lot of the land there is used by businesses like UPS, Fed-Ex, etc. 0. I'm sure someone was, but not very many people.

I'm not saying it's a waste of space or anything. Just that's it's interesting how large it is in comparison to Manhattan. It's about as useful a comparison as the one made in the article, frankly.

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

#60

Post by Ericson2314 »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #26
apacheCamel wrote: post #10

>Siena’s history dates back millennia. Houston, meanwhile, was founded in 1836. Every time I am made aware of just how young the US is, it blows me away. I've never been to Europe, I would really love to go some day, but I can only imagine the feeling of actually seeing these really old places/structures in person.

> I've never been to Europe, I would really love to go some day, but I can only imagine the feeling of actually seeing these really old places/structures in person. European cities are also relatively young. If you want to see old cities, you should visit the Middle East or China.

How much old stuff is in Chinese cities vs countryside though? My understanding is since the capitals moved many times (often with city destruction at dynasty end) that there's less old stuff in the cities (and a lot of 19th century less historical stuff has been raised.)

At least a lot of the famous stuff around Xi'an and Luoyang seems to be monumental works outside city. Maybe various parts of the grand canal and stuff surrounding is a better example than that?

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