I don’t think mode is a good metric to determine what value something brings in terms of campus infrastructure.
While the stadium isn’t used as often as a McDonald’s drive-thru, it’s still an essential part of a campus presentation and adds value to the campus more than an additional classroom would. Same with the baseball stadium. Even if you aren’t a baseball fan or never attend games, the mere sight of the field adds to the campus allure. It adds credibility.
For example, UTSA does not have an on-campus football stadium, and that probably impacts the feel of the overall campus.
That’s because there are so many people commuting from suburbs ouside the loop (and probably even more so from outside the beltway).
I assume the universities you mentioned have large amounts of students that are riding shuttles that run through various off-campus housing apartments/locations to get students on campus, which helps alleviate the large parking lots (if not walking/biking, etc.)
I was a student at UH from 2014-2018, and i do recall riding on-campus shuttles from the parking lot to campus, but that still doesn’t alleviate the parking problem.
It’s interesting that there is a demographic of people who hate Houston traffic and want public rail/train transit built all over the city (which is virtually impossible logistically), but nobody wants to pay for it or ride alongside the demographic of people who would likely use it the most.
OK, that is your opinion and you are entitled to it. But I have yet to see in the US slums, families living in a box with their children standing on the street stark naked because they have absolutely no clothes or shoes.
I’m sure UH has thought about or perhaps came close to purchasing land around campus for decades. The UH admins knows the reality of where they’re located. They aren’t ignorant to the fact that the surrounding neighborhood plays a role in its overall reputation.
However, there are, as you said it yourself, lots of politics at play.
University of Houston primarily serves the City of Houston, but the City of Houston does not serve the University of Houston → UH cannot actively engage in gentrification, promote gentrification, or develop any plan that directly causes gentrification even if they wanted said gentrification to happen discretely.
That would cause public backlash and bad press (and there’s already press about this very thing happening as we speak, but it’s not loud because UH hasn’t outwardly admitted to playing a role).
UH cannot “solve” revitilizing Third Ward, because that’s directly interferes with why Third Ward is in the state that is has been for most of its history → Black people faced significant barriers for economic advancement systematically, so they couldn’t improve their neighborhoods nor did the people that did NOT face those significant barriers want to help improve a neighborhood of people that do not look like them. Obviously racism today is not anything of what it used to be, but the “system” has too much inertia where the status quo essentially re-enforces Third Ward to remain bad naturally.
Since WW2 up until probably late 90s, the Houston Suburbs (especially outside the Beltway) is where most people wanted to be. However, over the last 2 decades there’s been a shift where younger generations want to live closer to city centers. Not all of them, but a good amount of them → It’s not fair that people (systematically) got to benefit living in a place where black people historically never had the opportunity to even reach, to now where the same black people are being forced out of their neighborhood because people that don’t look like them all of sudden value this very land.
The thread is about UH becoming a more traditional campus. Moving the football games to campus was step one.
Houston has always had some of the most creative real estate developers known to man. If there was a profit to be made building near campus, development would have occurred. I suggest that the developers are well aware of all the issues associated with the third ward. So look elsewhere.
If you built a baseball stadium on the site of the old Houston Buff’s stadium (Fingers Furniture) the first time you flipped on the lights, developers would be taking a hard look at the area.
I am a native Houstonian and an old fart. I know the history of the third ward. It does have a rich tradition. The Black social clubs started in the early 1900s. They had huge events. However do not be mislead. The community has a fragmented leadership. It doesn’t share a unified vision of the ward’s future. Judge Andrew Jefferson explained that to me in great detail some years ago.
So I repeat. The developers know there are almost 50,000 customers sitting out on Cullen Boulevard. But the focus has been on the wrong side of the freeway.
I wish someone with the planning department would educate us on what they think. The East End CofC has a UH rep on their board. Cross the freeway.
again - y’all don’t know what slums are - just cut the grass in some areas off 3rd ward and it improves
the 3rd ward of yesteryear is long and gone - we’re putting too much emphasis on an area where people have fled en masse - just drive by TSU after 5 p.m. and on the ennis side and you’ll see more non-blacks outside than blacks
those folks who may have fought it are long gone and in the burbs
There is profit to be made for Third Ward, LOTS of profit. In fact, I would probably say Greater Third Ward is the 2nd most valuable plot of land in the entire city behind River Oaks.
But the people that “look elsewhere” are a part of the problem - they don’t want to invest money into the current community and help said community progress as a community. They want to wait for the big spenders to change the neighborhood, AND THEN they will start to invest the money. But don’t get it twisted, there is money waiting like sharks as we speak. They are just waiting for the right moment.
Mike, I have been to several large cities in India, as well as Dhaka, Bangladesh, Kathmandu, Nepal, and Kabul, Afghanistan, and nothing in Houston or Chicago can compare to the slums you see in places like that. I’m with you and against @Kyle_Be_Coogin in that regard.
Huge collections/complexes of shanty-towns, large masses of people living in the streets or out of boxes and containers with no money or essentials, almost no clothing, etc.
US cities and slums may have more crime, but those South Asian slums have more SQUALOR.
Worth noting that in absolute terms, violent crimes are pretty rare everywhere in the US. If you lived in Birmingham, AL, the city with the highest murder rate in the US, at average crime rates it would take about 115 years to expect to be murdered. If you want to go with aggravated assault instead, if you lived in Memphis (the worst city for that particular crime) you’d take probably 35 years to get assaulted. (Not to downplay that, of course – if you have any social circle at all you probably know a couple hundred people and seeing people get murdered and assaulted every year is horrifying.)
Also, these crimes aren’t usually random acts of violence! If you mind your own damn business and don’t make yourself a target, you’ll be mostly safe. Basically all of us on this board have probably walked through the Third Ward and most of us have been fine. It’s not Peyton Place but it’s closer to that than to Mogadishu.
No is the answer. If you drive around Rice Village and look at the type of businesses operating there, you will see that its “target audience” is women. Women with cars, which is a problem because Rice Village is part of West Houston addition, a once upon a time (more than a century ago) town of its own that was laid out in 1893, which is before there were any cars in Texas. Parking has been and continues to be a major drawback to doing business in Rice Village.
Now the good news. The women who can find a parking space in Rice Village typically live in Southhampton, Montrose, West U, Southside Place, Braes Heights, and Bellaire, which means they have plenty of disposable income to spend in Rice Village.
A few Rice students may wander into Rice village; and Rice is getting ready to spend lots of money to better connect their campus with Rice Village. But, even so, Rice Village isn’t going to become a student-oriented place like the Drag in Austin or Dinkytown in Minneapolis.
If UH wants a student village type of place, it is going to have to be located between Scott, the Gulf Freeway, Cullen, and Elgin, not on the north side of Scott. Something to consider: UH already owns many small lots in that area and could in theory acquire the rest through condemnation if there was a demonstrative public need (and not a public want) to do so. However, the area would be public (state) property, and getting private businesses to invest in their resources there would be tricky.
People act like Third Ward is some kind of war zone.
I’ve walked through Third Ward alone many miles on many nights, and never had a single incident. Of course, if you’re looking for trouble, you can certainly find it. Maybe I’m just lucky, maybe it’s because I look homeless and penniless, or maybe it’s really not that unsafe.
I think people should spend more time with “boots on the ground” before making pronouncements about the area based on rumor.
Yes, there’s crime. There’s crime in my neighborhood too. But it’s generally perpetrated between people who have a problem with each other, not on random strangers.
Maybe I’m underestimating the risk and should be more scared. I think lots of others overestimate the risk and are living in baseless fear. The truth may be somewhere in the middle. I still believe my eyes and ears though.
By and large, it just isn’t that bad. It’s filled with people, and some people suck. That’s true no matter where you are.
And my buddy that lived just a few blocks into the 3rd Ward and used to walk to campus every day got mugged walking from campus to his house our last semester on campus.
One day we were driving from campus through the 3rd Ward to midtown (can’t remember the exact street)…
And my buddy, who moved here during high school from Pakistan (we were both in our late 20s/early 30s at the time), was in the car with us as we saw what looked like a crackhead woman yelling at the top of her lungs at a man that was out cold on the ground as she started to rifle through his pockets while another dude was just posted up against a light pole like there was nothing going on out of the usual at all…
My Paki-American buddy said “OMFG where are we buddy!?”
