Quote:
Originally Posted by bilbao58
I think it depends on the definition of downtown. The same website that lists Houston's DT pop as 15K, lists Dallas's as 11K, Chicago's as 22K, and San Antonio's as 17K (which makes me wonder what they consider downtown).
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What website were you using?
As for Houston not having a ton of residential high rises downtown. Meh. Houston is an odd case since there are high rises all over the city. For whatever it lacks with residential high rises in downtown, there are a ton of them all over the city. It's somewhat easier to plop a residential high rise into a neighborhood in Houston somewhere than it is to do it in downtown. All I mean by that is you can build tall somewhere outside of downtown and still be fairly car oriented and not much different than any other apartment complex. But to build one in downtown where it's expected to be close to things people want that they can walk to because it is in downtown, that can be more difficult to achieve. You have to be able to acquire lots to build on and they have to be close enough to the core of the activity in downtown to be walkable. Building residential in downtown is a lot more organic than it is outside of it. It's something that takes a long time to cultivate. You can't just plop a high rise into downtown and expect it to work right away. Sure, it'll add density, but if it's not close enough to the activity in downtown people likely won't opt to walk.