12 Comment

• Old School February 4, 2015 at 9:34 am

  That might be the best list of good brick award winners I have ever seen. The JW Marriot is amazing. HCC restoration is beautiful. The community center is wonderful. Houston may finally be getting it.
• Ornlu February 4, 2015 at 10:40 am

  Re: “Championing Downtown Houston”
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  They mention in there that Downtown won neighborhood of the year. I really question whether it meets the definition of a neighborhood. I once read a great book about sprawl (ISBN: 0865476063), and it defines a neighborhood as a diverse collection of people and landuses which contain all the necessities of daily life. The trouble with post-automobile “neighborhoods” is that they spread those necessities over so large an area that getting from one necessity to another to another becomes a seriously inefficient problem that leads to very unhappy/stressed residents. Additionally, personal interactions and “tight-knit-edness” increase resident happiness, which are both increased for smaller neighborhoods. Therefore we should seek to minimize neighborhood size to maximize happiness. For example, living in West U and working at Exxon and sending your kids to Strake Jesuit means you’re rich, but it also means your neighborhood is like 80 million acres and more than a million people, which the Congress for the New Urbanism says statistically results in poor quality of life.

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  Living near work and choosing schools and recreational activities that are very close by statistically results in much higher quality of life. But that requires a truly walkable neighborhood. Sure, downtown is walkable and has gyms and jobs and bars and theaters, but does downtown have ample housing & schools? My perception of it as someone who has admittedly have spent very little time there is that it’s only for the uber-rich with no kids. Is that still true?
• commonsense February 4, 2015 at 12:06 pm

  @Ornlu, your premise that a small dense neighborhood translates into quality of life. That is simply not true for majority of people, as market forces show. Vast majority of people (at least in Houston) are much happier to live on larger lots with larger homes, in a community that does not have Through traffic and where stores and businesses are on the periferi. This is why suburbs are still the most popular option and places like Memorial Villages and River Oaks are the most expensive places in town…. you’re not living like sardines in a can and you don’t get the negative effects of density and businesses being directly within the community.
• detroux February 4, 2015 at 12:20 pm

  @Ornlu I’ve been a resident of the downtown neighborhood, the region bounded by Pierce elevated, 59, and 10, for about 7 years now. I’m not uber-rich and have been worried about getting priced-out. While I don’t have kids, I have neighbors who do. I don’t know how they do it. That said, HSPVA is about to break ground… Hope those kiddos are artistically talented.
• toasty February 4, 2015 at 12:21 pm

  lol at HP for their parking lot list. Rice Village doesn’t need to be on that list. Parking is not hard to find, and complaining about having to park in a garage to walk “All the way” to the other side of the village is silly.
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  Get a parking pass for UofH, then try to park anywhere near your class, or just park at all.
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  That is bar none, the worst parking situation in Houston.
• detroux February 4, 2015 at 12:22 pm

  I forgot to mention- downtown is the best neighborhood in the city.
• Cody February 4, 2015 at 1:36 pm

  Ornku: Montrose fits that description for my wife and I perfectly.
• GoogleMaster February 4, 2015 at 3:47 pm

  @Cody … but you sold your house!
• Cody February 4, 2015 at 8:29 pm

  GoogleMaster: eh? No I didnt. I’ve never sold any of the Montrose homes I’ve lived in.
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  I’m curious why you’d assume that I sold my house. That’s nothing I’ve discussed here.
• TheNiche February 5, 2015 at 2:16 am

  @ Ornlu: I’m not sure that I like that definition for the word “neighborhood”, but I would like it better for the word “community”.
• GoogleMaster February 5, 2015 at 9:43 am

  My bad, I remembered it going up for sale recently and then misread a series of listing statuses.
• Cody February 5, 2015 at 12:20 pm

  GoogleMaster: It’s cool. I did list it for sale and for lease. However, since I’d rather lease it then sell it, I listed it for sale for likely more than it was worth. Meanwhile, the listing for lease was more in line with what market rent would be.
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  I figured it someone wanted to buy it enough to pay my list price, I’d part with my house. And if it stayed on the market long enough, that might have happened. However, someone was willing to rent it quite quickly so I still own it.
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  I’d hate to sell anything in Westmoreland. I think it’s the best subdivision in the city to live in. Honestly.