PHOTOGRAPHERS: SHOW US WHAT HOUSTON REALLY LOOKS LIKE 
How tough is it to get your photo featured on Swamplot? Not very: Just submit your pix to the Swamplot Flickr pool. That’s where we’ll be looking for great images to use atop our daily Headlines posts. If we like one of yours, we’ll post it and credit you. Be sure to label every photo you submit so it’s clear where it was taken and what it shows. We already have way too many glowy tall-tower shots and downtown-skyline sunsets to choose from, thanks. What we’re looking for instead: Pix that show the greater Houston landscape as it really is, or as you experience it. Everyday places that maybe haven’t been photographed so much; your little pieces of the city. Photo: Sohail Rizki [license]
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Tag: Notices
Swamplot will be back tomorrow with more regularly scheduled whatchamacallit.
Photo of sculptures at 2500 Summer St.: Candace Garcia
OFF TODAY FOR MLK 
Swamplot will be back with more Houston real estate fun — tomorrow! Photo of Southeast Line Construction on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard: Candace Garcia
Only a few hours are left! The polls for this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate will close soon: today at 5 pm. Is there enough time for a come-from-behind candidate to win? Sure, if enough supporters cast each of their 4 possible votes to sweep it over the top.
Without your votes, will the best candidates win all these categories? We need your help to make the 2011 Swampies the best they can be. Tell us who your favorites are!
- It’s Campaign Time for the 2011 Swamplot Awards [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Awards Ballots 2011 [Swamplot]
DOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 
Best holiday wishes to all! Swamplot will be back on Tuesday, for last-minute Swamplot Award fun. Here’s your link to all the ballots. Time to vote! Photo: Architecture Center Houston
The official nominees for all 9 categories of this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate have been announced, and voting is under way!
There are 4 places you can vote for each category. But you don’t have to choose one of them — vote in all 4 if you like:
- In a comment to the official ballot for the category
- In an email you send to Swamplot
- Using Twitter (it’ll help if you use the format spelled out here)
- In a wall post on Swamplot’s Facebook page
Here, in one convenient place, are links to the official ballots for all 9 categories:
- Favorite Houston Design Cliché
- Best Demolition
- Best Parking Lot Dining Experience
- Most Notable Recycling Effort
- Houston’s “No Zoning†Award
- The Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl
- Best Neighborhood Upgrade
- Neighborhood of the Year
- Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate, 2011
Got a question about voting? You can probably find the answer in this brief voting guide.
Already voted? There’s still time to round up more support for your favorites! Come-from-behind candidates, now’s your chance! All it takes is a little email, Facebook or forum post, or tweet to stir up your friends. Explain your vote clearly when you make it — maybe that’ll inspire a groundswell of support!
Voting in all categories will end at 5 pm next Tuesday, December 27th.
- How To Vote in the 2011 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Awards Ballots 2011 [Swamplot]
How can you make sure your votes count more than other people’s in the 2011 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate? Easy: Vote more often. That’s right: You can vote up to 4 times in each category of this year’s awards. Once in a comment to the official ballot post, once in an email to Swamplot, once from Twitter, and once on the wall of Swamplot’s Facebook page. You’ll find more details on how to do each (and how not to have your votes disqualified) here.
Nominations in all 9 categories are now closed; balloting has begun in 5 of them so far: the “No Zoning” Award, Most Notable Recycling Effort, Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, Best Demolition, and Favorite Houston Design Cliché. Did any of your favorites make it to the ballot? Recruit your friends to vote for them. We’ll continue with the remaining categories next week. All votes for all categories must be in by 5 pm on Tuesday, December 27th.
- How To Vote in the 2011 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Awards Ballots 2011 [Swamplot]
Last night, nominations closed for 2 more categories in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. The ballots in only 3 categories remain open, but they’re biggies: 2011’s Best Neighborhood Upgrade, Neighborhood of the Year, and Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate. If you’ve got a great suggestion for any of these award categories, you have just a short time left to get it to us (until midnight tonight for the first 2 and until midnight Thursday night for Greatest Moment). And here’s a tip: Sure, it’s nice to get all those standard one-word nominations — like, say, “Katy!†But to make it onto the official ballot, a nominee needs something more: Your unique and quotable explanation for why it deserves that particular award.
One by one, we’re now posting the official ballots for the other categories. We’ve got 2 of them available for voting already: Favorite Houston Design Cliché and Best Demolition. Have you voted yet? Next up: Best Parking Lot Dining Experience.
 Last Call for Nominations... "Pin It")
We’re rolling into the second phase in the 2011 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: the balloting. Nominations closed at midnight last night for the first 2 of the 9 categories in this year’s awards: Favorite Houston Design Cliché and Best Teardown. Later today, we’ll announce the official nominees and begin the voting for the first of those categories, and continue with the rest throughout the week.
This means there are now only hours left to make your nominations for the next 2 categories, which are new this year: Best Parking Lot Dining Experience and Most Notable Recycling Effort. Nominations for these 2 categories will close at midnight tonight.
Some terrific nominations have already come in for all our remaining categories, but we still need your help to make sure that all the candidates are the right ones, and that each is presented in the best possible light.
So if you find anything missing from any of the 7 remaining award categories, please add your nominations now! Or if you think you can improve on any of the explanations submitted, feel free to write in with your own better presentation. If you see a nomination without an explanation, please add a good one! Got photos of any of the nominees? Please send them!
(Special note to neighborhoods hoping to make it to the final ballot for 2011 Neighborhood of the Year: A simple mention of your subdivision’s name, combined with descriptions that could be applied to many other parts of the city, won’t necessarily be enough. Instead, tell us what makes the neighborhood you’re nominating special or unique, and worthy of this award this year.)
There’s still plenty of time to contribute. Add your nominations to the comments section below the post that announces each category (you’ll find all the award categories listed together here). Or send them to us in an email. Who are the contenders in Houston real estate this year? What deserves recognition?
We’ve announced 8 categories so far in the 2011 Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, Most Notable Recycling Effort, the “No Zoning†Award, the Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl, Best Neighborhood Upgrade, and Neighborhood of the Year. That’s a lot of ground to cover. What’s left?
Here it is, the 9th and final category. And maybe the biggest of them all: What was the Greatest Moment in Houston Real Estate of 2011?
Covering great moments in Houston real estate is the whole point of Swamplot; it’s why we’re here. Browse through the site if it’ll help you to draw up a list of contenders; or raid your own memory banks. (Did we miss a few this year?) Tell us what moment deserves this recognition — and why.
A great moment is lost if there’s no one there to chronicle it or cherish it. Which is why we need your help. Add your comments or send us an email describing the moments you’d like to nominate. (If you’ve got questions about how to make a nomination, you’ll likely find the answers here.)
- Now Open for Your Nominations: Neighborhood of the Year 2011, What Was the Best Neighborhood Upgrade in the Houston Area in 2011?, Announcing the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl. Your Nominations, Please?, A New Category for the Swampies This Year: The “No Zoning†Award, Nominations Needed for Houston’s Most Notable Recycling Effort, Your Nominations, Please, for Houston’s Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, Best Demolition of 2011: Your Nominations, Please, Houston’s Design Cliché of the Moment: Which Would You Nominate? [Swamplot]
- The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2011: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2011 [Swamplot]
We’re almost to the end of the categories in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. So far, we’ve opened nominations for Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, Most Notable Recycling Effort, the “No Zoning†Award, the Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl, and Best Neighborhood Upgrade. Have you added your own suggestions for each of them?
The next category is Neighborhood of the Year. What qualifications does a neighborhood need to meet in order to be declared Houston Neighborhood of the Year? You tell us — as you make your nomination! Of course, a neighborhood might be considered for Swamplot’s Neighborhood of the Year award for vastly different reasons than another one might be considered for an award of the same name from, say, the GHBA.
Please note that entrants in this category — as well as all the others — need not be located strictly inside Houston’s municipal boundaries. Swamplot tries to track the idea of Houston as it regularly travels outside the city limits. (In fact, the 2009 winner of the Houston Neighborhood of the Year award was . . . yes, Galveston.)
We’re ready to receive your nominations in the comments below, or in an email. If you need more guidance, consult the official rules. This year, who are the contenders for this award?
- What Was the Best Neighborhood Upgrade in the Houston Area in 2011?, Announcing the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl. Your Nominations, Please?, A New Category for the Swampies This Year: The “No Zoning†Award, Nominations Needed for Houston’s Most Notable Recycling Effort, Your Nominations, Please, for Houston’s Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, Best Demolition of 2011: Your Nominations, Please, Houston’s Design Cliché of the Moment: Which Would You Nominate? [Swamplot]
- The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2011: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2011 [Swamplot]
We’re on the home stretch! Yesterday Swamplot opened 2 more categories for nominations in the 4th annual Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. Here’s the list of what we have so far: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, Most Notable Recycling Effort, the “No Zoning†Award, and the Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl.
Already, great suggestions have come in for each of these. But to make these awards as smart and razzle-dazzly as they can be, we still need your help!
The next category up: Best Neighborhood Upgrade. Yes, this category is meant to be just as ambiguous as it sounds. Is it meant to celebrate an upgrade in one of the city’s best neighborhoods? An upgrade that happened to take place in a particular neighborhood? Or a neighborhood that itself has been upgraded? And what exactly is an upgrade, anyway? We hope you’ll take a stab at answering those questions with your own clever nominations and explanations. Look around you: What thing, place, or effort deserves this award?
If you’ve been following the Swampies, you know what to do by now: Add your smartly worded nomination as a comment below — or send it in an email to Swamplot. Be sure to include a convincing explanation for your choice. You’ll find the complete nomination rules here. Who we got this time?
- Announcing the Swamplot Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl. Your Nominations, Please?, A New Category for the Swampies This Year: The “No Zoning†Award, Nominations Needed for Houston’s Most Notable Recycling Effort, Your Nominations, Please, for Houston’s Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, Best Demolition of 2011: Your Nominations, Please, Houston’s Design Cliché of the Moment: Which Would You Nominate? [Swamplot]
- The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2011: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2011 [Swamplot]
The category announcements are rolling here at Swampies central. Earlier today we introduced the 5th category in this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. Here’s the complete list of our categories so far: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, Most Notable Recycling Effort, and the “No Zoning†Award. And already, you’ve identified some terrific potential nominees for all of them. Keep them coming!
Category number 6 is brand new for this year. It’s the Award for Special Achievement in Sprawl. What thing, place, or event from the greater Houston area could be worthy of such an honor this year? That’s what we’re hoping you’ll tell us. Got any potential winners in mind?
Refer to the official nominating rules if you need them. But really: We need your smartly formulated suggestions for this category! Add them and explain them well below — or email them to us privately. You have until midnight next Tuesday, December 13, to suggest nominees for both categories announced today.
- A New Category for the Swampies This Year: The “No Zoning†Award, Nominations Needed for Houston’s Most Notable Recycling Effort, Your Nominations, Please, for Houston’s Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, Best Demolition of 2011: Your Nominations, Please, Houston’s Design Cliché of the Moment: Which Would You Nominate? [Swamplot]
- The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2011: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2011 [Swamplot]
On Tuesday we added a couple more categories to this year’s Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate. That means 4 categories are now open for your nominations: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, Best Parking Lot Dining Experience, and Most Notable Recycling Effort. Keep those great entries coming for all of them!
The next category is the “No Zoning” Award. What does it mean that Houston is a “no zoning” city? Most obviously, the opportunity for residential areas to “go commercial,” or vice versa. Also: scenic and otherwise unusual views that might make for terrific postcards, like an office building going up over someone’s backyard fence. But the “no zoning” label also regularly causes outsiders to suppose Houston has far fewer building regulations than it actually does. And it spurs thoughts of Houston as some sort of untamed urban force.
What development, event, or controversy from this year, then, might deserve Swamplot’s “No Zoning” Award? And why? Yes, this is another brand-new award category for the Swampies, and we’ll obviously need your smart nominations to make it work. Tell us who or what deserves this honor — in a comment below or in a private message. Consult the official nominating rules if you like. What’s your choice?
- Nominations Needed for Houston’s Most Notable Recycling Effort
- Your Nominations, Please, for Houston’s Best Parking Lot Dining Experience
- Best Demolition of 2011: Your Nominations, Please
- Houston’s Design Cliché of the Moment: Which Would You Nominate? [Swamplot]
- The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2011: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2011 [Swamplot]
So far, 3 categories in the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate have been been opened up for your nominations: Favorite Houston Design Cliché, Best Demolition, and Best Parking Lot Dining Experience. Up next: another brand-new category, specially selected for this year’s competition: Most Notable Recycling Effort.
Sure, automated curbside recycling is still only a pilot program in Houston. But developers here have had extensive experience recycling building sites. Which area effort to reuse existing materials, locations, or ideas deserves recognition with this award?
Send us your nominations! As usual, your spin will make the difference between a plain ol’ suggestion and a compelling choice for the award. You’ll find all the rules for the nominating process here.
You have until midnight next Monday, December 12, to suggest nominees for both categories announced today. Throw your ideas into the comments bin below (or the Swamplot inbox); we’ll try to reuse them if possible.
- Your Nominations, Please, for Houston’s Best Parking Lot Dining Experience
- Best Demolition of 2011: Your Nominations, Please
- Houston’s Design Cliché of the Moment: Which Would You Nominate? [Swamplot]
- The Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate 2011: How To Make a Nomination [Swamplot]
- Swamplot Award Nominations 2011 [Swamplot]
