How Houston Is Becoming America’s Next Dense City

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by JManc

Especially when you recognize a few buildings that you know are in LA that producers assume most people see as a random old building.

At least there were no palm trees. I don't think anyway.


Yes, that's happened before.

Not just for LA, either. "Arlington Road" was shot in Houston, and there was a few palm trees for that one too. I know NOVA well, and none of that movie looked like NOVA. Not as bad as the "Walking Dead" for Alexandria, VA. Ugh, that's so horrible. They didn't care at all, one of the worst one's I've seen.

[Cory]

A lot of those neighborhoods with questionable infrastructure are still evolving. There are areas of town where ditches have become foliage which is needed to sponge up a lot of the city’s flooding. https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7404...yQ!2e0?g_st=ic

Here is a better example of Rice Military once a block gets over its growing pains.
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7628...Uw!2e0?g_st=ic

Also a more established townhome block in Midtown.
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7405...ng!2e0?g_st=ic

[chris08876]

Houston has a lot of potential, with a booming population, to get density right. So long as the job growth and business growth continues (and housing)... city will continue to grow fast and hopefully big/denser.

[goat314]

Was in Houston for the first time a month ago. I don't think most people realize how massive Houston really is, if they have never been there. The scale of everything was just huge and it's very spread out. I don't know if I would describe it as a dense or urban city, but it's definitely a BIG city in every way possible.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Cory

A lot of those neighborhoods with questionable infrastructure are still evolving. There are areas of town where ditches have become foliage which is needed to sponge up a lot of the city’s flooding. https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7404...yQ!2e0?g_st=ic

Here is a better example of Rice Military once a block gets over its growing pains.
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7628...Uw!2e0?g_st=ic

Also a more established townhome block in Midtown.
https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7405...ng!2e0?g_st=ic

Regardless of how it fills in, you still NEVER see people on the streets in these pictures in Houston. I don't think it will every have an urban feel. The local populace just isn't very urban minded in nature.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Regardless of how it fills in, you still NEVER see people on the streets in these pictures in Houston. I don't think it will every have an urban feel. The local populace just isn't very urban minded in nature.

Eh. You can throw a lot of adjectives at Houstonians but the city is humongous and generalizations tend to get skewed based off of that. Attitudes depends on neighborhood or setting just like any where else.

[edale]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Regardless of how it fills in, you still NEVER see people on the streets in these pictures in Houston. I don't think it will every have an urban feel. The local populace just isn't very urban minded in nature.

Well to have people on the street they have to have places to walk to. The thing I find most striking about Houston is that I have yet to find a true walkable, urban neighborhood business district. You have some decent residential neighborhoods built in a grid in places like Midtown, but the commercial districts are all auto-oriented which are usually fairly hostile toward pedestrians. Even cities that are derided on places like this forum for not being very walkable or urban, like Dallas and Atlanta, have plenty of examples of urban business districts, while Houston has none. That's just crazy to me.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by Cory

Eh. You can throw a lot of adjectives at Houstonians but the city is humongous and generalizations tend to get skewed based off of that. Attitudes depends on neighborhood or setting just like any where else.

Eh. I've asked people from Houston to tell me the most dense and lively streets before and their examples prove my point. Even in the most "bustling" neighborhoods like Montrose google street view shows virtually no one on foot.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by edale

Well to have people on the street they have to have places to walk to. The thing I find most striking about Houston is that I have yet to find a true walkable, urban neighborhood business district. You have some decent residential neighborhoods built in a grid in places like Midtown, but the commercial districts are all auto-oriented which are usually fairly hostile toward pedestrians. Even cities that are derided on places like this forum for not being very walkable or urban, like Dallas and Atlanta, have plenty of examples of urban business districts, while Houston has none. That's just crazy to me.

Agreed. Atlanta has a bunch of areas and strips where there is consistent foot traffic. It's quite surprising actually. I don't know Dallas enough to have a point of view. Houston is literally zombie land everywhere.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by edale

Well to have people on the street they have to have places to walk to. The thing I find most striking about Houston is that I have yet to find a true walkable, urban neighborhood business district. You have some decent residential neighborhoods built in a grid in places like Midtown, but the commercial districts are all auto-oriented which are usually fairly hostile toward pedestrians. Even cities that are derided on places like this forum for not being very walkable or urban, like Dallas and Atlanta, have plenty of examples of urban business districts, while Houston has none. That's just crazy to me.

I think what makes many cities more walkable and denser is when they have more mixed-used districts rather than purely residential and commercial. Cities that have grocery stores, little shops and restaurants within residential districts, such as on corners of streets or more prominent streets rather than a bunch of shops/restaurants in a few areas separated by purely residential areas. I guess many of you are saying the Houston does not have that, even in places like the Montrose district, which is surprising. But I presume it can change as inner loop land becomes pricier, but the fill-in proposals I see for Houston on this blog seem to favor multistory condos or apartments with limited walkable street access and little ground residential.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by LA21st

Do you know what LA's core density is? From East LA to Century City or so, it's alot for a sun belt/newer city, and it's 12 miles of it. Just the core, anyway.

Outside of Ktown/Westlake, the core of LA isn't that dense.

Iirc, most neighborhoods are between 10k and 20k ppsm. Maybe some reaching 25k.

Based on the pictures shared by dc_denizen, it's conceivable that Houston could reach these density levels in these types of developments.

[SFBruin]

At least from what I recall.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Outside of Ktown/Westlake, the core of LA isn't that dense.

Iirc, most neighborhoods are between 10k and 20k ppsm. Maybe some reaching 25k.

Based on the pictures shared by dc_denizen, it's conceivable that Houston could reach these density levels in these types of developments.

Numerous neighborhoods of 10-20k ppsm for a newer city isn't bad at all.

I don't see it, but lets say it does. As others have said, where's the pedestrian neighborhoods in houston?

Even places in LA that used to be less walkable 10 years ago are changing rapidly like Palms and such.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by LA21st

Numerous neighborhoods of 10-20k ppsm for a newer city isn't bad at all.

I don't see it, but lets say it does. As others have said, where's the pedestrian neighborhoods in houston?

Even places in LA that used to be less walkable 10 years ago are changing rapidly like Palms and such.

Houston’s commercial corridors that are within the innerloop have a hybrid of walkable and car oriented businesses. The walkable destinations are unfortunately very leap frog. There are plenty of mixed use buildings on retail corridors but they are usually broken up by a shopping center for example that might be on the next block. Nothing unique, it just is what it is.

[KevinFromTexas]

I think people forget about the Houston tunnel system and how that has a huge effect on the downtown area's foot traffic (above ground). Even I forget about the tunnels sometimes, and despite visiting Houston fairly often, I've never set foot in the tunnels. I think they're more of a local thing and many non-Houstonians just don't go. Where would you choose to walk if you lived in one of the hottest most humid cities in America, above ground in the heat and humidity, or below ground in the air conditioned air?

[craigs]

Originally Posted by SFBruin

Outside of Ktown/Westlake, the core of LA isn't that dense.

Iirc, most neighborhoods are between 10k and 20k ppsm. Maybe some reaching 25k.

Source?

[homebucket]

SFBruin is pretty much spot on. Outside of Ktown and Westlake at 42.6k and 34.7k ppsm, respectively, most LA neighborhoods are between 10-20k ppsm, with the exception of Hollywood which reaches just under 24k ppsm.



https://statisticalatlas.com/place/C...e/neighborhood

[homebucket]

SFBruin is also correct in that Houston has quite a ways to go to catch up as far as density. It's going to take a lot of development. Basically at least double what's already existing.



https://statisticalatlas.com/place/T...e/neighborhood

[craigs]

Originally Posted by homebucket

SFBruin is pretty much spot on. Outside of Ktown and Westlake at 42.6k and 34.7k ppsm, respectively, most LA neighborhoods are between 10-20k ppsm, with the exception of Hollywood which reaches just under 24k ppsm.

https://statisticalatlas.com/place/C...e/neighborhood

First, thank you for bringing more to the discussion than "If I recall correctly." Do you know what data set Statistical Atlas is using for that graph, and how they are calculating "neighborhoods?" They don't say in either case. They list the "neighborhood" of Hollywood as having 146,510 residents, which to my eyes is actually a district consisting of many neighborhoods--perhaps including sparsely populated hillside areas that might lower the overall density of what they define as Hollywood. It makes me question their list.

In any case, the context here, generally, is Houston's density, and more specifically, a comparison made a while ago with the density of Los Angeles. In that context, there is no question that Los Angeles is much more densely populated than Houston. Many may remember that on this forum, after the 2020 Census data was finally released, we posted nonstop about things like population densities. One such conversation produced, through a group effort, the total population within each MSA living in census tracts with densities at or above 20,000 ppsm; for Houston, that total was 88,080. For Los Angeles, that total was 1,919,006. I like Houston, but it's got a lot of work to do to become notable as 'America's next dense city.'

[craigs]

I figured out why I found the Statistical Atlas list above so questionable--it is of "selected neighborhoods" only. Many of LA's densest areas were not "selected," and it's not clear how to get a straight-up list of all such "neighborhoods."

I went looking for Pico-Union, a dense neighborhood that wasn't included in the first list posted above, and found a fuller list of neighborhoods by density--but fuller doesn't mean full. This, too, is only of "selected neighborhoods". Notice what happens to the ranking after #30--it skips to #35, then to #38, then to 43, 52, 61--I don't like the opacity of Statistical Atlas. Here's a better but very incomplete list of LA areas by density:



Source: Chart #8 at https://statisticalatlas.com/neighbo...ion/Population