- Houston ‘No Longer a Dirty Word’ Thanks to Cosmopolitan Makeover [Houston Chronicle]
- Downtown Houston’s Dramatic Transformation Since the Last Super Bowl [Houstonia]
- Medistar To Add Medical Office Building at Bay Area Regional Medical Center [Houston Chronicle]
- Bobby Heugel Quietly Opens New Formal Cocktail Bar Tongue-Cut Sparrow Downtown [Houstonia]
- Conveyor-Belt-Sushi Restaurant Kula Revolving Sushi Bar Headed to the Westchase District [Eater Houston]
- Fourth Houston-Area Location of Avalon Diner Planned Near the Energy Corridor [HBJ]
- New Schlotzsky’s Sandwich Shop To Open This Week Near Westlake Marketplace Retail Center [Houston Chronicle]
- Harris County Smokehouse Acquires Katy Land for Site of Third Houston-Area Restaurant [Houston Chronicle]
- Bacon Bros. Public House Opening First Houston Location Next Month in Sugar Land Town Square [HBJ]
- A Warmer January Helped Increase Restaurant Traffic in Houston, Says Planalytics [Houston Chronicle]
- Turner, HUD Clash Over Affordable Housing Policies [Houston Chronicle ($); more here; previously on Swamplot]
- Why Does Houston Seem So Young? [The Urban Edge]
- Inside Lucky Land, a Forbidden Gardens-Inspired Chinese Cultural Theme Park on Airline Drive [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- Galveston City Council Approves Trolley Contract [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- The Most Dangerous Intersections in Houston for Drivers [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Midtown’s “Preservons la Creation”: Ruben S. via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
The only thing that could have made the garish, kitschy Jehovah mural more stupid was the addition of a football and a Super Bowl 51 robe. That’s kind of an amazing accomplishment!
WTF? New Schlotzky’s opening? How (and why?) did that indispensable piece of intelligence get characterized as a Headline?
Sorry Schlotzky’s. Your announcement is at least as worthy as those of Bacon Bros. or Lucky Land. I fear the specter of another 207 weeks of der Trumpf has left me a wee bit rattled. Gott im Himmel!
Swamplot, please don’t post a story that links to a paid subscription – Houston Chronicle. I’d love to read the article concerning the latest on the HUD development, but it says I have to be paid subscriber to read the rest of the story. Sorry, I know that sounds lame.
I think we are very self conscious of our city in Houston. I feel like we are an aspirational city. I think the term fits us best. Houston is always looking to better itself. We are always comparing ourselves to other cities. Maybe this is some of the cause of the Dallas/Houston rivalry. Dallas is a more beautiful city to visit.
Houston has changed a lot in the last 20 years. It has been slowly moving towards becoming an international city. That shows up in the demographics and the quality of the art institutions. There is a large draw on people coming here from other countries to work. The density of the city inside the beltway has been increasing.
I feel like this is still mostly true:
“The view is the same in any direction – aimless undifferentiated sprawl interrupted by the beautiful vista of a highway overpass jammed with vehicles, mostly pickups, inching their way around road crews and equipment,” wrote Wallace Matthews. “It is a steamy, bug-infested, nondescript prairie town …”
@Cricketty
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Copy and paste the HC article title into google and click on “cached” under the first link.
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http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r4kfN0idIigJ:www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/houston/article/Turner-feds-clash-over-affordable-housing-10891783.php+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
I think we are very self conscious of our city in Houston. I feel like we are an aspirational city. I think the term fits us best. Houston is always looking to better itself. We are always comparing ourselves to other cities. Maybe this is some of the cause of the Dallas/Houston rivalry. Dallas is a more beautiful city to visit.
Houston has changed a lot in the last 20 years. It has been slowly moving towards becoming an international city. That shows up in the demographics and the quality of the art institutions. There is a large draw on people coming here from other countries to work. The density of the city inside the beltway has been increasing.
I feel like this is still mostly true:
“The view is the same in any direction – aimless undifferentiated sprawl interrupted by the beautiful vista of a highway overpass jammed with vehicles, mostly pickups, inching their way around road crews and equipment,†wrote Wallace Matthews. “It is a steamy, bug-infested, nondescript prairie town …â€
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Lol, don’t even try it…you must be from Dallas and surely you’re joking. Good ‘ole practical Houston, of all places, is not obsessed with always comparing itself to other cities…certainly not Dallas. Unlike Dallas (fakeness and pretension), Houston is real and down-to-earth…we’re not fake and phony, and are happy to be us, like it or not. We are not concerned with anyplace else, but Houston and making it the best it can be. It’s Dallas (and you know it) that’s been jealous of and has hated Houston forever. Why would Houston compare itself to Dallas: the 3rd largest city in Texas, and 9th in the US? With its shitty arrogant hateful culture of $30,000 millionaires hell-bent on dissing Houston at every turn to try to make itself look better and impress outsiders, while big brother Houston continues to rise as it ignores its petty nasty sister.
That Dallas is more beautiful is definitely a matter of opinion, as others will say Houston is much more beautiful of the two, especially much more green and lush. Dallas’ daily wish and nightly dream is, “if only Houston did not exist.” Whereas Houston, is undaunted by Dallas, and proud to share the state with its other great siblings.
Where have you been? Houston has been a MAJOR international city for decades, and is practically global…the most diverse in the USA.
The best thing to do is to not even start with the Dallas/Houston BS, as we see where it always devolves.
I feel like this is still a fact:
Hot, hateful, fake, souless, over-hyped Dallas is, and will forever be jealous of and constantly dissing and comparing itself to Houston. Dallas has always wanted to be the BBB of Texas, but can not, because Houston continues to wear that crown proudly.
I’m with Cricketty. Try going to Chron.com and the ads freeze the browser.
Regarding dangerous intersections. Why are so many associated with Sam Houston Parkway?
@J: My guess is that Sam Houston Parkway intersections are dangerous because the toll exits join the feeder too close to the intersection. I know north bound Hammerly exit does this. EZTag drivers come off the parkway at high speed into slower cars on the feeder. Some of them need to cross all the feeder lanes to make a right turn on Hammerly. I see this same problem at many SHP exits.
@honest truth
lol this is the argument always given. I don’t like people from Dallas as much as those from Houston either. Dallas does look nicer though. Even some of our “nice” areas look trashy compared. I am thinking of the Westminster corridor between downtown and 610.
In my entire driving life, I’ve only been in one collision and it happened while I was waiting at a red light on the Sam Houston Parkway. Our first president of the republic would be so proud that we’ve named the most dangerous roadway in town after him. Its design elicits the worst habits behind the wheel. It’s flat, mostly smooth, featurelessly boring and straight, and when drivers look over at the traffic whizzing by at 65+ on the toll road, they feel compelled to try and keep up. Never mind the posted speed limits or those pesky intersections and driveways that occasionally attempt to interrupt their motoring groove. . . .
@gapa
Beautiful has never been a word I have heard anyone use to describe Dallas! Seriously, were you trying to be sarcastic?
@Andy7063 beautiful for a major Texas city. :-)
I am speaking relatively.
@J: My guess would be red-light runners. The intersections are very wide, the lights are very long, and people have internalized “yellow means go faster”, so they enter on a yellow (never mind a stale green that we were taught in driver’s ed to beware), and of course it turns red long before they get through the whole intersection.