- Homebuilders Started 26,039 Single-Family Homes in Last 12 Months, Down 12% from Previous Year, Finds Metrostudy [Houston Chronicle]
- Francois de Menil Planning ‘Rural,’ 14-Home Artist Enclave in Acres Homes [Houston Chronicle]
- Developers Target Houston Homebuyers 55 and Up Looking to Downsize [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston Renters Least Financially Qualified Nationally To Become Homebuyers, Finds Zillow [HBJ]
- H-E-B Slated To Open Oct. 26 in Main Street Kingwood Shopping Center [Kingwood Observer via HBJ]
- Slideshow: Houston’s Biggest Malls Through the Years [Houston Chronicle]
- An Appreciation of the Houston Townhouse [The Urban Edge]
- Discovery Green Wants All Pokemon Go Stops, Lures and Creatures Removed from Park [Houstonia; previously on Swamplot]
- Flash Flood Watch In Effect for Harris County Until 7 p.m. Tonight [Houston Public Media]
Photo of University of Houston-Downtown: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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The requested Pokemon ban in Discovery Green is a cute demonstration of how our lack of political will to move government to establish common areas and services ends up biting us in the long run. In this case we have an unelected body restricting use of a park because that use doesn’t conform with their intended programming. Because it’s run by a non-governmental non-profit, there’s no official public recourse available.
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In other words, the only thing politically possible these days is to privatize or depend on donors for basic public services like parks and schools. We’re gradually selling off our freedoms in the interest of saving a few bucks.
I agree with the article author from L.A. who likes the Houston townhouses widely scattered around the inner loop. Not so much because they mean more density as the author says but because they’re a dominant architectural style that will have ties to a certain era, sort of like San Fran’s Victorians and NY’s Brownstones.
Re: Discovery Green
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With over 600 events per year, I doubt that Discovery Green is hurting for “business” in terms of visitors. As a private park, I can understand and respect that the Discovery Green’s overlords may want to filter out some visitors at odd hours of the night.
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While a beautiful resource, the park is still private property owned by a non-profit – and, as a free-market capitalist, private property use is subject to the owner’s discretion.
Whatever. It’s because Pokemon Go players were not respecting the closing hours of the park and getting into conflicts with security guards. I doubt a city owned park would have handled it any differently (except maybe for more arrests.)
@Dana-X, the townhouses being built these days won’t last long enough to become a historical element.
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Example: The other day I saw workers on the side of one of a pair of THs on the edge of Upper Kirby, which sold for over a million each 10 years ago, back in the day when townhouses in the area were going for maybe $450K. So they were supposed to be luxury THs, right? Except 10 years later, the workers have had to remove a large swath of stucco so they can replace the severely rotten wood underneath. Even from my car I could see huge holes and rotten sections.
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I’m sure that the THs that were being built even more hastily in the ten years since then are even worse.
Just head on over to Discovery green on a weekend – its like the walking dead. Hundreds of people glued to their phones wandering aimlessly. Great for them, I’m glad they are out enjoying themselves, however, when I begin to have problems with them is when they create negative externalities for others. You step on my child’s foot while visiting a park, it is probably an accident…you step on his foot while playing your silly game and ignoring your surroundings, still an accident? still just as excusable?
The Pokemon solution is simple. After hours, the park should be full of diseased Pikachu. They look like other Pikachu, but once you capture them they infect your other Pokemon. Then they all get sick and die.
Do we really need restrictions for a silly game?
In the traditional Texas/Houston spirit of freedom to live, any legal activities, recreational or political, should be permitted…nay…encouraged, and even rewarded for doing anything outside during the summer in this huge, wet, sweaty-betty city.
Why no fences with gates? Parks everywhere in Europe have really pretty fences and gates that they lock up once the park closes. This also helps keep the homeless from moving in.
@Major Market: “I can understand and respect that the Discovery Green’s overlords may want to filter out some visitors at odd hours of the night”
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I agree – private entities can do what they want with their property. That’s the problem we run into when we turn things over to private entities that normally ought to be publicly owned. We lose the freedom to define as a community how those resources are used.
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@marmer “Pokemon Go players were not respecting the closing hours of the park and getting into conflicts with security guards. I doubt a city owned park would have handled it any differently”
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The thing is, if it were a city run park, the public could help decide how it’s handled. Many cities don’t have closing times for their parks. If enough Pokemon-playing Houstonians wanted late-night park hours they could petition City Hall. That option isn’t available with private parks.
Here’s an idea – turn that freaking albatross of an Astrodome into Pokémon freaking Central. Invite walking dead-like zombies from around the world to scour the concourse for Peek-a-freakin-Chew and his/her nonsensical character friends, and charge them ten freaking dollars to get in. It’ll be like that scene in TWD where the walkers wander aimlessly around the rock quarry, but instead of them being a giant paint in the ass as they meander up and down freaking Heights Blvd around Hamilton Elementary, they’re stuck inside the Eighth Wonder of the World helping Houston solve it’s looming pension problem.
You probably just came up with the greatest idea for the DOME. Augmented reality spot with not just pokemon, but all the revolutionary stuff coming. It could be a great place for virtual reality, too. From off C.L.