- Transwestern Sells 4 Houston Multifamily Properties Totaling 704 Units [Realty News Report]
- Hines’s 17-Story River Oaks Office Tower San Felipe Place On Track for ‘Substantial Completion’ in Mid-June, 30% Leased So Far [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Planned Community Developers Acquires 5-Acre Site on Brooks Lake in Sugar Land for New Office Building, Hotel [HBJ]
- Houston Homebuilders Got More Permits in First Quarter of 2015 Than Same Time Last Year, Finds U.S. Commerce Department Data [HBJ]
- The Top 25 Houston Housing Market Areas with the Biggest Price Increases from 2010 to 2014 [Houston Chronicle]
- Kimberly and Beau Harding of the Kimberly Harding Group Open ReMax Franchise in League City [HBJ]
- Bernie’s Backyard Food Truck Park and Entertainment Venue To Open This Summer on I-45 in Tomball [Community Impact Newspaper]
- Gourmet Grocery Concept Planned for 2701 Broadway in Galveston [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- A Jacked-Up Woodlands Heights Bungalow Renovation at 500 Teetshorn [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Places Third on Financial Times’ List of the ‘American Cities of the Future,’ Behind San Francisco and New York [Houston Chronicle]
- National Trust for Historic Preservation’s ‘This Place Matters’ Social Media Campaign Returns [Next City]
- Missed Connection on U.S. 59 Near Texas 242 [Houston Chronicle]
- High-Speed-Rail Opposition Group Says It’s Coordinating Lobbying Efforts with Southwest Airlines, but Southwest Claims It Isn’t [CityLab]
Photo of I-45: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Talk about burying the lede. Apparently Tomball has quietly engaged in a campaign of mass annexation and expansion to the point that I-45 and Old Town Spring are “just outside” city limits, or 45 has had an overnight rerouting up the Aggie Expressway, depending on where you look.
Re: Houston Places Third on Financial Times’ List of the ‘American Cities of the Future,’ Behind San Francisco and New York
The transformation of Houston before our eyes the last 10 years is beyond extraordinary. The city is coasting as it savors the recent boom in which its dynamic diversified economy and population grew exponentially as it reaped zillion$. As well, the city has hit that enviable critical mass, that allows it to continue to grow and thrive in spite of whatever oil does. Bravo Houston for remarkable resilience.
It’s a shame, however, that the decades-long Houston mass transit miasma threatens to choke it to death. The John Culberson anti-rail clowns have f*#ked Houston…a great world class city in desperate need of mass transit (especially to the airports/suburbs/business districts) to compliment the MetroRail. Soon the world will begin to roll its eyes at the embarrassing spectacle of this gigantic city continually grid-locked due to ignorant Culberites and lazy-ass Houstonians who won’t show him the door. Time has run out for the anti-rail Culberite hill-billy bs.
Even the great Gerald Hines (a renowned city father who practically helped build modern Houston) has said mass transit is Houston’s #1 obstacle to continued success. Houston is riding high, but it will choke to death without mass transit.
Houston will be the last major American city to construct/implement mass transit. And it should use this as an opportunity to look at systems developed throughout history, and do what Houston does best: make history…by building the most fabulous sleek efficient mass transit system in America. When it comes to big city mass transit, by being last one in Houston has a chance to build the best system. And instead of embarrassment, it will be said that the best was saved for last. Houston, we have a problem: Mass Transit.
One day Russel is just going to fly his drone into the highway to get some close-up car shots.
Honest,
How about if you want to live in a city like New York, move to New York. If you want to live in a city like San Francisco, then move to San Francisco. I for one, as a born and raised Houstonian who has lived in far away places and visited many, many others don’t want to live in New York or San Francisco. That’s why I live here, as opposed to living there. And your wanting to change it into something it isn’t, or will ever be, is not what the majority of folks living here want, i.e. see the Grand Parkway.
Aw, the sale of one of our apartment buildings is on that report about Transwestern. I’ll miss that one :(
Truthfully Honest, That argument was the same one that the Neanderthals probably used agains Homo Sapiens, the Etruscans against the Romans, and all other groups that have had to change, adapt, and/or die. Would you want a prohibition on people moving into the city? Should we make it like it was when you grew up? What about all the changes that your generation imposed on Houston? You are your grandfather besmirching all the young whippersnappers about changing the city you love. Change is inevitable! 267 people are born every minute on Earth……that changes things.
Truthfully Honest – at some point Houston has to decide whether it wants more sprawl which lowers everyone standards of living – some economically, some through “quality of life”, for people literally in the middle (i.e., not able to afford inside the loop or unwilling to swap an hour or more commute each way to live cheaply near the Grand Parkway) both ways-it can be better. Telling people to move if they don’t like the state of things and where they are going isn’t very constructive. The past two years have added 15 minutes to my commute home, even though I have not changed residence and my job has not changed locations. I would love to be able to take public transportation, but a bus downtown to light rail to Med Center to a bus to SW side would be at least 1.5 hours.
Oh my, “truthfully honest”, born and raised in Houston and, somehow, you cannot see it change before your very eyes. This town hasn’t and won’t stand still, but you continue to work on your observational skills. We can learn much from the efforts of other cities, the High Line might help us advocate for a rethought Pierce Elevated, the Metro is an extraordinary people mover that rejuvenates neighborhoods.
@Truthfully Honest… Get real and I’m a born and raised Houstonian myself. Houstonians wanting a more comprehensive mass transportation system, including forms of light and commuter rail, does not translate that they should go live in New York or San Francisco. A lot of Houstonians would like to see more of it actually and less of these multi-billion dollar boondoggles in the middle of no where, you call the “Grand Parkway”. The way I see it, you don’t want access to mass transportation options, then move out to the ex-urbs or even better, the countryside, because I would like to see this city grow and retain its prosperity and not hand over its economic power to the outer fringes.
That’s funny, Truthfully Honest. I live in Sugar Land and I dream of a day when commuter rail runs up 90/A from a redeveloped Imperial Sugar plant all the way to downtown Houston. I don’t think it’ll ever happen, but it sure would be awesome if it did.
I have to agree with Truthfully Honest. Everyone who loves New York and San Francisco knows where they are located and how to get there. I love San Francisco, and considered moving there in the 1990s, but I’m glad I didn’t. I do not want Houston to turn into San Francisco. I love sprawl. Sprawl raises my standard of living. There should be a place for me, and I nominate Houston as that place.