Why City Design is Important (and why I hate Houston)

Video Description

Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/not-just-bikes-why-city-design-is-important-and-why-i-hate-houston I'm not an urban planner, so you might ask, why do I run a YouTube channel about urban planning and walkable cities? It all comes down to a life of travel, and a terrible walk in the suburbs of Houston. Sign up to Nebula and watch ad-free and sponsor-free: https://go.nebula.tv/notjustbikes Patreon: https://patreon.com/notjustbikes Twitter: https://twitter.com/notjustbikes Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/notjustbikes One-time donations: https://notjustbikes.com/donate NJB Live (my bicycle livestream channel): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9v57F4xz46KaDsvWfCv8yw --- References and Related Reading Federal Highway Association National Household Travel Survey https://nhts.ornl.gov/vehicle-trips What's wrong with comparing Seattle to Houston? https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/11/1/whats-wrong-with-comparing-seattle-to-houston Out of Control - Houston’s roads, drivers are country’s most deadly Houston Chronical https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Houston-s-roads-drivers-are-nation-s-most-12865072.php Eerste van der Helststraat Stadsarchief Amsterdam https://archief.amsterdam/beeldbank/detail/0aad26fc-e9bf-e57e-55a5-602f535594d3 Historical Photos of London, Ontario https://images.ourontario.ca/london/70147/image/168885 https://images.ourontario.ca/london/70144/image/168864 https://images.ourontario.ca/london/2416638/image/1231809 https://images.ourontario.ca/london/2416643/image/1231822 https://images.ourontario.ca/london/2416632/image/1231791 Historic Photos of Houston https://digitalcollections.lib.uh.edu/concern/images/v692t673c?locale=en#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-2574%2C-326%2C13507%2C6475 https://digitalcollections.lib.uh.edu/concern/images/t722h945k?locale=en#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1597%2C-187%2C7702%2C3693 Giant Brontosaurus Rib: 5 Must-Try BBQ Dishes at Mighty Quinn's Tasty (YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ed0qZHdNI High Frequency: Why Houston is Back on the Bus Streetfilms (YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYc9T6Nxh4w A Year After Bus Redesign, METRO Houston Ridership is Up https://kinder.rice.edu/2016/08/16/a-year-after-redesign-metro-ridership-is-up Houston just dramatically improved its mass transit system without spending a dime https://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8056039/houston-transit-reimagining Houston Rolling Back Parking Requirements https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/07/19/houston-rolling-back-parking-requirements/ How does Houston plan without zoning? City Beautiful (YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaU1UH_3B5k The Energy Corridor District unveils west Houston's first protected intersection https://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/katy/news/article/The-Energy-Corridor-District-unveils-west-15884757.php More performative pedestrian infrastructure https://cityobservatory.org/more_mythical_performative/ No, Houston isn’t a walkable city, but you have to start somewhere https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2021/03/08/houston-is-not-walkable-city-yet-pedestrian Katy Freeway by Aliciak3yz - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40222519 Katy Freeway by Socrate76 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7444029 Reducing congestion: Katy didn’t City Commentary https://cityobservatory.org/reducing-congestion-katy-didnt/ What Dallas, Houston, Louisville & Rochester can teach us about widening freeways: Don’t! https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/8/23/what-dallas-houston-louisville-rochester-can-teach-us-about-widening-freeways-dont Houston commute times quickly increasing https://www.click2houston.com/news/2014/02/04/houston-commute-times-quickly-increasing/ Houston’s $7 billion solution to gridlock is more highways Curbed.com https://archive.curbed.com/2019/8/5/20754435/houston-traffic-highway-i-45-north-txdot North Houston Highway Improvement Project http://www.ih45northandmore.com/pub_hear_doc.aspx The big picture for a big plan https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2019/06/24/houston-i-45-expansion-txdot-NHHIP “The truth about a city's aspirations isn't found in its vision. It's found in its budget.” - Brent Toderian --- Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:05 A Brief History 1:19 Living car-free when unemployed 2:23 Insane amounts of travel 3:42 A fateful trip to Houston 4:25 The walk in Houston (Willowbrook) 7:26 Urban planning and history 9:00 Forgetting those who don't drive 11:13 Houston: sprawl and average BBQ 11:51 What Houston is doing right 13:12 There's still a long ways to go 15:19 Conclusion 16:29 Patreon shout-out 16:40 Outro