compared to other cities how big is our downtown??

Well, since Houston's downtown has, untilr ecently, benn long since forgotten, and rarely anyone goes there, it's tough to judge.

Obviously, more people are going down there these days, and it is improving quite a bit.

Another reason why youcan't really tell is it's isolated and permanently bordered by the loop. It won't grow much which is interesting, considering how all of Manhattan is pretty much an extended downtown of sorts.

But to answer your question, I don't know.

 

I can tell you that the Galleria area by itself makes Austin's downtown look like a swamp. The real Downtown Houston is very impressive... I think many Houstonians tend to take it for granted. With the increase in nightlife and the large improvements (Minutemaid Park, Toyota Center, etc.) in train, Downtown will someday be 10% of what San Francisco is. In other words, one hell of a place.

 

Depends on how you define the size and how you define "downtown". For example, if you're talking about the size of business districts in square footage, the following link (on page 6 of the PDF) shows the Central Business District to be about 11th in size in terms of square footage. But I think that's office space...

http://www.uptown-houston.com/info/FactBook.pdf

Jeff may know something about stuff like this.

 

I can give some input having never actually been in Houstons downtown.

Nothing compares to NY, that is obvious. Im sure the downtown that is in Brooklyn is more impressive than some places like Austin san antonio and san diego.

Chicago has to be 2nd as it is all about steel.

La is just a giant office park, but pretty tall.

Houston is tall, but small and from what you guys say kinda dead

Most true downtowns are in the NE we build our apartments tall and we dont sprawl

Seattle is western city with one of the best downtowns.

this post makes no sense sorry

 

Houston has an outstanding downtown, from an architechtural and building-height and building number perspective. It is consistently ranked as the #3 skyline in the US based on technical merit alone (behind NYC and Chicago). In terms of which looks the "nicest", that is a very subjective question that you will receive different answers from, no matter who you ask.

Skyscrapers.com ranks us 4th in the US, behind NYC, Chicago and Honolulu. Honolulu is a bit ridiculous due to the fact that they have many, many shorter skyscrapers that are residential condo towers and hotels. They really don't have many tall buildings at all, just lots of shorter 15-30 story buildings. Houston's skyline dwarfs Honolulu's if you put them next to each other.

http://www.skyscrapers.com/re/en/bu/sk/st/sr/

 

The Med Center in Houston dwarfs Austin's skyline.

 

We have a downtown???!!!

 

exactly. San Antonio and Austin's downtown doesn't even compare to H-town's. same with Dallas. Houston is superior to all!!!

and did you know Houston has the tallest buildings outside of NYC and chicago? well it's true, so you betta believe it.

 

i heard Transco (Williams) Tower is the tallest building in the world that isn't in a city's downtown area...

 

Ours is big! The whole city of Houston is big. That's why we are #1 in miles travelled per capita or day or whatever.

But I don't know.....I haven't gone there recently. Is it safe to go at night?

I wish our downtown could be transformed into San Antonio's. Their downtown is very safe and a good place for tourism. And you can walk around at night. Do something Lee Brown!

 

Maybe we should make Buffalo Bayou biggerheheheh, allitaration and make it meander in and out of downtown.

And then we can have boat rides on the bayou.

 

I've heard that too. Interesting fact.

 

Very true. That was one of the areas that ran through my mind to compare to Austin, where I've lived the last 20 years, and just put the Galleria area mainly because of the Transco Tower... one of my favorite skyscrapers.

To tell you the truth, I wish Austin was like it was 20 years ago... although 30-35 years ago it was far better. (sigh) It's getting ****ed up by growth. You can't stop it, of course, and the Legislature keeps gutting the efforts of the city to control where it goes. It's something foreign to Houston, except for a brief period in the '40's, that's called zoning. How I wish Houston had it and had it during all these many years of uncontrolled sprawl.

 

So did any of you guys hear about this thing? I found it while digging around for information on various buildings in Houston :

http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/News/NewsEleven.html

 

I always wanted Houston to have one of these!!!! I've been to CN Tower and Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai and the one in San Antonio and the one in Vancouver and the one in Seattle. They are so cool!!!!!

I wondered why Houston...the best city in Texas...didn't have one!!!!!

I hope we get it!

Forget taxes. I don't live in the city of Houston.

Houston looks so pretty in that picture...too bad now it is all filled with smog and pollution.

 

compare shanghai and houston is like compare yao and steve francis

 

Are you talking to me? I wasn't comparing them......Shanghai is like New York City!!!

when Yao smiles, the world smiles with him
A boy this large, they said, didn't just belong to his little family. He belonged to China.

 

That picture makes the proposed building look very ugly, imo. Still sounds cool, though.