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Old 03-22-2011, 12:04 PM
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i am from the east coast. i have lived in baltimore, md and washington, dc. both cities have populations of around 600k+. both cities are less than 100 square miles. why is houston so geographically large? both washington and baltimore are legally and geographically bound from expansion. Has Houston's population growth come on the heels of outward expansion and annexation? It seems that what you guys would call a city is what most folks on the east coast would equate to a city and it's surrounding counties. i guess that's because east coast cities tend to be smaller geographically with the one exception being new york.
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Old 03-22-2011, 12:06 PM
 
Location: Houston, TX
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no zoning.
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Old 03-22-2011, 12:09 PM
 
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Houston is a southern city. In the South, cities aren't as dense as northern cities.
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Old 03-22-2011, 12:13 PM
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Originally Posted by TXRyan23 View Post
no zoning.
are you serious? they don't have zoning laws in houston? wow
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Old 03-22-2011, 12:15 PM
 
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Originally Posted by (-) View Post
are you serious? they don't have zoning laws in houston? wow
I heard that was a good thing.
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Old 03-22-2011, 12:16 PM
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Originally Posted by A&M Bulldawg View Post
Houston is a southern city. In the South, cities aren't as dense as northern cities.
i kind of figured that. i had went on vacation one year to jacksonville, fl. the only reason i went is because it was marketed as "florida's largest city". while i had a good time there, it struck me that i had no idea of where jacksonville began and where it ended. we literally drove through "the city" for like an hour and a half...on the highway lol! it just seemed odd that they would call an area like that a city, especially when the downtown area seemed rather empty.
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Old 03-22-2011, 12:18 PM
 
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Well, Houstonians will tell you that it will take longer to drive through their city.
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Old 03-22-2011, 12:18 PM
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Originally Posted by A&M Bulldawg View Post
I heard that was a good thing.
i guess it depends on who you are asking. some like zoning, some don't. i think i fall in the middle. i don't think anything is a good idea when you have no rules to follow or obey. unchecked building probably doesn't help ones real estate investment since you can keep clearing and building as you please.
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Old 03-22-2011, 12:26 PM
 
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Well, I wish a lot of cities could have no zoning laws.
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Old 03-22-2011, 12:30 PM
 
Location: ✶✶✶✶
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The same way NYC did. Annexing outlying land/other cities. Brooklyn was its own town at one point and New York, New York was just Manhattan. And back then, Houston wasn't much bigger than the area around modern-day downtown. Permissive annexation laws in Texas, a relative lack of natural boundaries and the age of the automobile and freeways just led to it getting bigger.

City limits should not be confused with anything besides a political boundary and jurisdiction. When you go out on I-10 toward Katy, you'll see a sign that informs you you're "Leaving Houston." Not that you can really tell on one side or the other of that line which would be "the city" and which would be "not the city." It's all pretty much the same out there.

Zoning affects a lot of things, but not this. There is no zoning by default in unincorporated areas, because in Texas only municipalities can have zoning ordinances. Houston only annexed these places after their development, per the state's laws on annexation.
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