Closing Bell: Welcome to Brooklyn
This afternoon Marty Markowitz will be given the highway sign debatably featured in Welcome Back, Kotter, which says ‘Welcome to Brooklyn, 4th Largest City in America.’ It will be on permanent display at Borough Hall, but City Room wonders how much longer Brooklyn will actually be the 4th largest city in America. They say Brooklyn…
This afternoon Marty Markowitz will be given the highway sign debatably featured in Welcome Back, Kotter, which says ‘Welcome to Brooklyn, 4th Largest City in America.’ It will be on permanent display at Borough Hall, but City Room wonders how much longer Brooklyn will actually be the 4th largest city in America. They say Brooklyn can maintain its status until 2030, when it is expected to be succeeded by Houston. By then Houston is expected to grow to 2.8 million, with Brooklyn’s projected population lagging behind at 2.72 million.
Photo by Nick at Night via City Room
Well, there’s gotta be at least two of those signs, because I’ve got one!
Having been born and raised in Houston, and then living there again for a few years after college, I am allowed to say that it is a stinking, humid oven comprised of highways, topless bars, and soul-sucking suburbs. Blech.
I think people who choose to live in Brooklyn wouldn’t never ever want to live in a place like Houston. Much of the growth in Houston is coming from areas of the city that are not even in Harris County (Fort Bend and Montgomery counties). The city is a sprawling suburban mess. They can’t eat up farmland fast enough to satisfy their appetite for growth.
Downtown is nothing but office buildings, parking garages, and lunch restaurants. Just outside of the city is sub-divisions, strip malls and freeways. No thanks.
Once we get the fortitude to become less dependent on carbon energy, Houston will lose it’s luster.
I lived in Houston for two years, and it’s not a totally bad place.
The main driver of its growth is it’s ability to annex surrounding suburbs without a vote of the people being annexed.
Secondary to that it its lack of zoning laws which is allowing areas closer to downtown to be redeveloped from single family and commercial to townhouses with a few taller condo buildings (8-30 stories) sprinkled in.
Sorry, Johnny, it was “Off my case, toilet face.”
I wonder, if Brooklyn were still an independent city, would it likewise vie with Houston for the title of “fattest city in America”…
And I think it was a keg of beer that was supposed to go in your ear.
Don’t be silly, DIBS. The only thing NYC needs from Houston is BBQ and Tex-Mex.
In your ear with . . . . something . . . a pint of beer?
Gonorrhea?
In one episode a hot new student joins the class, and the principal says, “At the end of the day, I’m having her dusted for fingerprints.”