COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: DO NOT DETONATE 
“Sports [and Convention Corp.], Port Authority . . . let’s get rid of them.
The question of what to do with the Dome is a no-brainer. What would you do with your ‘old’ home once you got moved into your new ‘dream home’? Would you sell it? Would you lease it out? Would you donate it to a charity or non-profit? Would you demolish it and get NOTHING from it in return?
It would cost at least 200 million to 300 million dollars to replicate a structure/facility comparable to the Dome and how there could be anyone in Houston in favor of demolition is unimaginable.
In actuality, the referendum on Tuesday’s ballot was for the issuing of bonds totaling $217 million so that the Dome could be physically remodeled into a more versatile facility. Just because the referendum failed does not mean that the Dome will be demolished.
Hopefully, there is a majority of Harris County Commissioners who will not implode $300 million worth of Harris County assets for a new parking lot. If not, then maybe we should get rid of some commissioners also.
Houston, get real. Remember all the stadiums that the Chinese rushed to get completed for the Beijing Olympics? If we already have 2 right near each other why would we want to tear one down?
If Harris County doesn’t want to spend money to repurpose it in 2013 then we should wait . . . maybe in another couple of years — after all, Inner Loop real estate just keeps appreciating.” [joenormal, commenting on New I-45 Billboard Goes Up, Just in Time to Save the Astrodome?] Illustration: Lulu
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Tag: Comments
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MORE LOOPS FOR HOUSTON 
Houston loops, 2113:
1.) 610.
2.) Beltway 8.
3.) 1960/Highway 6.
4.) Grand Parkway.
5.) Uber loop: Angelton to Rosenberg to Fulshear to Katy/Brookshire to Waller to Magnolia to Conroe to Cleveland to Liberty.
6.) Mega loop: Freeport to Bay City to El Campo / Wharton to Columbus to Brenham to Navasota to Huntsville to Liberty to Beaumont.
7.) GIGA LOOP: Port Lavaca to Victoria to Schulenberg to La Grange to Giddings to College Station to Madisonville to Crockett to Lufkin to Jasper to Orange.
8.) I-35. [DNAguy, commenting on Headlines: Astrodome Yard Sale Sellout; St. Thomas Wins Law Enforcement High; previously on Swamplot] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW CROWDFUNDING MIGHT CHANGE THE LOCAL LANDSCAPE 
“I actually really like the idea of crowdsource funding for real estate. The real estate market is too frequently weighed down with the plodding work of the institutional investors and REITs. Anything that steps slightly outside of the box is tossed before renderings are even drawn. While industries like consumer electronics and automobiles race to deliver the next and greatest new thing to customers, the real estate industry seems to be forever stuck in doing the same crap over and over as long as it makes the predicted return. If done well, crowdsourcing could potentially offer up some real innovation in real estate and shake up the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ work of the established actors in the industry. And if people lose their shirts, they will only have themselves to blame and cannot hide behind some big name REIT or investment bank.” [Old School, commenting on Headlines: ’380 Agreements’ for the East End; Real Estate’s Crowdfunded Future] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: FEAR OF CRIME EPIDEMICS “A good friend of mine lived in Third Ward up until about four years ago. Never had a problem with crime. Seriously. I recall stopping at a little convenience store on MacGregor, a bit nervous being the only white guy in the place, but god how stupid I felt when the worst I encountered was a hello, and an enterprising young man selling pirated DVDs out of his car in the parking lot. Meanwhile, up here in Oak Forest, we’ve got residents going positively bananas every time a car gets broken into or a mysterious car is seen driving slowly around the block. Check out the Oak Forest Facebook page. It’s an astonishing epicenter of paranoia. It’s so bad that I think it’s actually hurting efforts to make a good community. We can’t go a week without some poor black guy having his picture plastered on the page with somebody asking if anybody recognizes him. And most of the time, it’s a plumber or an electrician or somebody going about their work. And now we’ve got a group handing out shotguns to everyone in the name of security. I’m sure that’s going to work out just fine. It’s not that I don’t feel safe here; I absolutely do. I just get tired of the gossip passing for actual news. I want to live in a place where people are happy and engaging and hospitable, but I worry that it’s not going that way at all. And as somebody with a mixed-race child, I admit that I do worry about some crazy neighbor calling the cops because she’s out riding an expensive bicycle or something. And that makes me almost as paranoid as some of my neighbors.” [Anse, commenting on Comment of the Day Runner-Up: Splendors of the East]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DOWNTOWN TURNAROUND 
“I’ve always thought it was a little strange that the entire country has adopted a geographic reference specific to Manhattan to refer to the place in a city where the tall buildings are. Elsewhere in the Anglophone world, the terms ‘city center’ or CBD (central business district) are used, which makes a lot more sense.
In Houston we’ve gone a step further: we refer to a place 5 miles WEST of ‘downtown’ as ‘uptown,’ and the place immediately SOUTH (ok, southwest) of ‘downtown’ as ‘midtown.’” [Angostura, commenting on Comment of the Day: Downtown Is on the Edge] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: SPLENDORS OF THE EAST 
“. . . So much of our City and our history lies EAST of downtown but all too often, white people (largely) ignore that entire side of town. I’d argue that the ship channel and the refineries that line it are the backbone of the City. That U of H and TSU shouldn’t be ignored. That there’s hidden treasure to be found in the 3rd and 5th Wards. That Riverside Terrace is amazing. That Hobby Airport is way better than IAH unless you are flying overseas on a carrier not named United. That Clear Lake-NASA-Kemah are better than Greater Katy. That the San Jacinto Monument matters. That unless you’ve visited the original Ninfa’s, eaten at Kanomwan, chugged beer at Moon Tower Inn, or stood in line for fried chicken at 3 a.m. at Frenchy’s, then you need to get out of the City Centre bubble. Oh, and the soul of the ‘old’ Montrose and Heights can be found East of US 59.” [doofus, commenting on Comment of the Day: Downtown Is on the Edge] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENTS OF THE DAY: THE CENTERS OF THE CITY 
“CityCentreâ„¢ is not the center of the city. Not by a long shot.
The center of population for the the city of Houston is at Kirby Drive in River Oaks. This is as close to downtown as it is to Uptown, and it is further east than Greenway Plaza. It makes sense that it’s slightly west because the COH’s annexed land is to the west. Other populated cities to the east — Pasadena, Jacinto City, Deer Park, Channelview, and La Porte — are incorporated separately.
The center of population of Harris County is basically in the Heights. It makes sense that it’s further north since Houston is located in the southern part of the county.
This is all based on 2010 Census data. . . . I just calculated the center of population for the metro area (Greater Houston MSA). It’s . . . in the rail yard just west of TC Jester about 1/3 mile north of I-10.
Interesting how by any measure — COH, Harris County, or metro area –– the population all seems to be centered inside the loop.” [eiioi, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Diluted Center City]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DOWNTOWN IS ON THE EDGE 
“It is a common misconception that downtown Houston is the ‘center’ or ‘core’ of this great City. Downtown is IN the core of the city, but downtown is in fact the farthest east PORTION of the core.
Draw a ring around Downtown, the Med Center, Uptown, Memorial Park and (maybe) the Heights. THIS entire area is the core of Houston. Downtown is the eastern edge of the core. Just like Downtown Manhattan is the southern edge of Manhattan. Downtown is a very important part of the City, but is not the core. It hasn’t been the core for decades. It will not be the core in the future.” [Bernard, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Diluted Center City] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DILUTED CENTER CITY 
“. . . Maybe Houston’s growth seems slower . . . compared to other similar sized cities because Houston is almost unique in that our growth spreads out radially from the downtown core. There’s not a socially defined ‘good’ side of town where 98% of development takes place. In Atlanta, most of the growth is north, with a little bit to the east. In Dallas, the only ‘right’ place to live is north. LA favors its Westside, and most of the high dollar real estate in Chicago marches north up the Lakefront. Houston has long had a bias toward the west side of town, but the Museum District/Med Center to the south has grown, EaDo is moving ahead, and The Heights and The Woodlands are doing just fine. So instead of concentrating the development dollars in only one favored area of the city, growth here happens in all quadrants.” [ShadyHeightster, commenting on Stadium-Side Apartments in EaDo a No-Go] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN TOWNHOMES COME TO LINDALE PARK 
“Most of the best appreciation in the Heights is in sections that are already deed restricted for lot size or have adopted the minimum lot size under chapter 42. Lindale is not like Midtown or parts of Montrose that have already been torn apart by non-residential development or have been chopped up with lots of townhomes. It looks more like Oak Forest did ten years ago. And if comps were a deterrent, no one would be replacing 1200 sq. ft. ranch homes in Oak Forest with 3500 sq. ft. custom homes.
When a neighborhood gets bought out for town homes, the incentive to maintain the existing housing stock is lost. Your house is only worth what the dirt is worth. A foundation that has $5,000 of repairs to get it level looks just the same as one without after an afternoon with back hoe ripping through it. The result is that the existing neighborhood will go way downhill while the new construction takes over.” [Old School, commenting on Headlines: A Giant Kroger for Kingwood; Inn at the Ballpark Rebranding] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A PROPER HOUSTON WELCOME 
“I’d like some of the astroturf to use as a floor mat for my entry.” [toasty, commenting on Great Astrodome Parts Sell-Off Now Scheduled To Begin Before Votes Are Even Counted]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MAKING THE ASTRODOME A TRUE MONUMENT TO OUR ACHIEVEMENTS HERE 
“It can be the Symbol of the City, and it can be torn down. This is Houston, where those two ideas are not opposed to one another.” [luciaphile, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Symbol of the City] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: AFTER THE BAYOU FLOODS 
“I’ve been riding the trail along the Bayou for 6 years and I’d say the flood debris problem has been greatly reduced of late. That might just be a result of the drought, but certainly the city has been quicker to send crews with fire hoses to wash the trail after floods.
Some part of me misses the mess, though . . . I knew where the debris would tend to accumulate after a period of high water and developed affectionate nicknames for each patch.
Why, I’d whistle as I passed through dysentery ditch, and marvel at cholera canyon. But MRSA meadows, now that was some goop, I tell ya . . .” [Patrick, commenting on Lookee What the Kinder Foundation’s $50M Is Gonna Help Build Along the Bayous] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT KEEPING THE DOME MEANS 
“People do not want to save the Astrodome because it is a landmark of National / Worldwide significance. People want to save the Astrodome because it is just about all we have in Houston in terms of somewhat significant landmarks. Blowing up the Astrodome is a concession that we never do anything of any lasting significance in Houston. We are just a very fancy tent city set up to house the oil industry as long as they need us. But, once Elon Musk has us zipping around in pneumatic tubes instead of internal combustion engine vehicles, Houston will just empty out and be forgotten. Keeping the Astrodome is an attempt to make Houston feel permanent and not a temporary boomtown precariously tied to the fate of one sector of the economy.” [Old School, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Symbol of the City] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SYMBOL OF THE CITY 
“I understand that many people in Houston and Harris County have fond childhood memories of attending games in the Astrodome with their families. I too have memories of watching Astros games there, and frankly, I liked the ‘Dome better than Minute Maid Park. That said, no one from out of town EVER has asked me about the Astodome when I tell them I am from Houston. Not a single visitor that I’ve hosted here has EVER asked me to drive them by the Astrodome. The nation, and the world, just aren’t all that interested in a 40+ year old sports venue.” [ShadyHeightster, commenting on It’s Like a Billboard. On Wheels. For the Astrodome.] Illustration: Lulu
