• BigFig@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Tell me you don’t know how a metropolis works without telling me.

    That is an interstate highway running through the city of Katy. The Houston Metro area is made up of over 100 cities and 40 unincorporated towns.

    • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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      5 months ago

      Houston has soent the last 40 years paving over the Katy prairie and are shocked that they keep getting floods and heat waves

      • BigFig@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        No shit, do I look like the city planner? I’m saying that people need to look at these large cities with more nuance than “Big City Bad” and realize that things are more complicated than one singular governmental body. In the case of Houston and more specifically this stretch of highway, You have the state government with an overarching control of I-10 through Texas, then this particular stretch of it goes through the cities of Katy and Houston, connecting dozens of other smaller towns and cities with in the metro area.

        To look at one single stretch of highway and pretend it is emblematic of the entire state/city is idiotic and shows a bad faith attempt to paint the populace with as wide a brush as possible.

        I am only pushing back on this because I am just so damn tired of the constant “Texas Bad” posts comments that are unwilling to engage in a meaningful conversation about the topic and pretend like my state is full of the dumbest most right wing shit heels, while we also have some of the largest left leaning cities in the country.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I am only pushing back on this because I am just so damn tired of the constant “Texas Bad” posts comments that are unwilling to engage in a meaningful conversation about the topic and pretend like my state is full of the dumbest most right wing shit heels, while we also have some of the largest left leaning cities in the country.

          Believe it or not, I’m a bike/ped/transit activist in Atlanta. I understand both “how a metropolis works,” and your sentiment, better than you realize.

          Having said that, I still stand behind my cynical comment. Let’s not pretend the Houston city government hasn’t been largely complicit with this shit for decades, regardless of how “blue” their constituents are. Frankly, even some of the most bleeding-heart liberals here throughout America get real mad, real fast, the instant anybody makes even the meekest suggestion that maybe they should try getting out of their cars. (Or, very relatedly, suggesting that maybe we should allow more housing density anywhere near their single-family homes, for that matter.) That laziness and NIMBY sense of entitlement (for a lifestyle built on redlining and Ponzi schemes, no less) is emblematic of how even the the “bluest” American cities are run, across the board.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        5 months ago

        It’s starting to move in that direction, but extremely slowly over the decades. Think more a park & ride (i.e. drive to parking lot then ride a light rail the rest of the way to work) vs. a subway system the whole way. It’s only liberal-ish in relation to the rest of Texas.

      • Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Tell me you listen to the propaganda about induced demand without… there are ways to add lanes without making it worse. But they don’t want to pay for it.