take down all billboards, except the cockroach one, even though i think its been taken down a long time ago. add more trees around the freeways. also, add more baseball fields in the inner city area. a baseball field would be cool in downtown areas. more soccer fields/parks in the east end. more basketball courts everywhere, with good cement, and something to hang overhead.
Here's a picture of Sunset Highway (26) just outside of downtown Portland. Houston should add trees as well.
I don't think those trees, or most of them anyways, were planted by the city. Portland, and the Northwest Pacific area, have some of the prettiest forest and natural surroundings in the country. Plant all the trees you want in Houston, but it's not going to be Banff Canada all of a sudden. At the strip clubs, duh...
I used to live in Portland and it was pretty damn nice aside from all the rain. Although Houston is at a disadvantage, it should try to spruce up the city with trees.
Zoning!!!!! or at least some sort of zoning inside the loop. Better arcitecture. Especially if your going to tear down some of our older homes that could easily be salvaged. Put up something nicer instead of those cheap cookie cutter townhomes. I would allow for afterhours a liquor liscense. It would be available to bars/clubs inside the loop @ five times the cost. Elevated Train system.
Hmm that's a tough one.... I'm going to have to choose between... mosquitoes temperature humidity lack of snow crappy beach (Galveston) toll roads smog politics flat terrain flooding bayous crime illegal immigrants Astros' inability to win championships few public parks poor public transportation ... the list goes on and on
Main problem. Build up, not out, and half the traffic problems will go away. Remove sprawl. Zoning/traffic/sprawl are all connected.
Sprawl is the reason we have the Galleria out on 610/Westheimer instead of in Downtown. It's also why we have these huge Medical buildings going up at Bwy 8 and I-10. Sprawl is *not* a bad thing. It makes this city unique. If you crammed all of our high rises together, our downtown skyline would rival that of Chicago's. But we're gonna have to settle for having one being the nicest ritzy area in the city (Galleria) the other being the largest medical complex in the world (Med Center) and the other being the central hub of the entire city (Downtown). Houston is exploding. We may not have the history and architecture to bring tourism here ala Chicago and New York....but as far as a place to live and enjoy living....in 5-10 years Houston will destroy both.
Get rid of 281ers. Just kidding... Change all the Public Transportation, trees, make Houston more beautiful.
Again....we have trees EVERYWHERE. Where did this myth about Houston not having enough trees come from?
A month long August holiday where everyone leaves town...like France. Or just eliminate August all together; we go straight from the Astro's being mathematically eliminated to the Texans final preseason game against Dallas. (I know they aren't eliminated till September)
Mass transport in Houston is a waste of money. Houston is just too big; it's the epitome of urban sprawl. What would I change? It would require moving Texas 1500 miles north. And I also wouldn't give so many Rockets tickets to oil barons. Screw them.
People want trees around the freeways. Have you ever driven anywhere else in the US? If you have, you would know that we have one of the ugliest cities anywhere. Seriously we do. I agree in areas outside of major transportation routes, we have a lot of trees but that isn't what people that are not from Houston see and that is what we need to change. Houston is a great place to live for a variety of reasons but that doesn't make it pretty. No more billboards and more trees where we need them most will help with that.
