Posted on 08/26/2010 10:45:30 AM PDT by dragnet2
Plus there is not enough space to stack all those containers and cars that go up to Houston. And the majority of cargo is oil which goes directly to refineries which are in Texas City and Passastinkingdena since Galveston is a narrow barrier island.
When I went to school there, the slogan was Detroit is the *sshole of America, and Flint is 60 miles up it.
Back in the 60s the license plates used to say “winter wonderland” one year alternating with “water wonderland” the next.
We called it the winter water welfare wonderland.
“I live in CA and have never been to the Houston area. I have been to Dallas and have always admired the the pro-business attitude and environment of the Metroplex.”
Texas has always welcomed pro-business types, especially those living in anti-business states or places. I moved to Texas from Michigan 30+ years back, and have never regretted the move. So when ya get tired enough of California, move on down here. If you like the water and fresh seafood, Galveston County’s a great place to live. And there are plenty of nice places in the county.
Somebody please shoot Las Vegas and put it out of it’s misery. Las Vegas might not be dead yet, but it is in the ICU.
Galveston ain’t dead yet. UTMB is hiring, and rebuilding from Ike. With property prices so low, and interest rates, many are buying, building, and moving back, increasing tax revenue.
Of course, with the economy in shambles, many Houston area families couldn’t afford a full/real vacation, so they went to Galveston instead this summer - which lead to a banner year in the old Bender household.
Smoke up Johnny!
/may have confused an old movie with the last sentiment or two.
It sure would be nice to live in a practical, sane, pro-business state like Texas. Thanks for the warm welcome. But with my wife’s family all here in Southern CA, I think that is easier said than done. I personally am very sick of the socialists who have run this state into the ground and are drowning it in an ocean of red ink.
Or to the Indian Casinos in OK. Ever been by WinStar on the weekends?
All from Texas.
No, I’ve only seen pictures. I have friends who go often...one there today who goes to a pulmonary doc...and goes early to eat sea food.
Or, as I prefer to call them Dhimmi-crats.
“Plus there is not enough space to stack all those containers and cars that go up to Houston. And the majority of cargo is oil which goes directly to refineries which are in Texas City and Passastinkingdena since Galveston is a narrow barrier island.”
While a common belief, the storage space issue is mostly a myth. Containerization encourages just-in-time. A ship can unload containers and reload new ones in hours — two, three day max. A container just sitting around acting as a portable warehouse is costing someone money. They tend not to sit at port storage yards for weeks like cargo did back in the 1950s. They are put on railroad cars and shipped out in a day or two.
Ditto all the cars that get unloaded. If Galveston has space for all of the cars of people driving there to board cruise ships (it does), it has space to hold unloaded cars from car carriers bringing them from overseas until they get loaded up.
A better case might be made that Galveston lacks the rail capacity, but while that may be true today, it wasn’t in the 1960s. I believe that at least two sets of railroad mainlines going to Galveston Island in the 1930s have been removed. I know that there used to be a rail line paralleling 146 that isn’t there today — removed sometime in the 1980s.
The real reason all the port facilities were built in Houston was that the land on which they were built (mostly in the 1960s through 1980s was cheaper than land in Galveston and that Houston was more business-friendly to new shippers because it was hungrier than Galveston for that type of business back in the day.
Nowadays? I suspect that Houston is still more business-friendly, but I suspect that Galveston land (with deep-water access) is now cheaper than Houston land (with deep-water access). Certainly the cruise ship industry found Galveston a better buy than Houston back in the 1990s.
As for petroleum products, I think Freeport is where the bulk of those go in. With pipelines it doesn’t really matter where the refinery is relative to the port.
Younger freepers might find it hard to believe that Detroit was once a vibrant, industrious American city.
Video #1: Detroit 1965
http://www.archive.org/details/DetroitC1965
After 55 years of solid blue Democrat leadership, Detroit fundamentally changed.
Video #2: Detroit 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw
It is truly shocking to compare the Detroits depicted in these two videos.
There really are two Americas: socialist, welfare-state hellholes like Detroit that are utterly dependent upon the federal government and the American civil society comprised of productive business, professions, families, and other voluntary civic, social, and religious organizations. The Democrat dream is to eliminate the latter to unify America in the former ... just like they’ve done in Detroit.
Remember the Hudson’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, going downtown to see all the animations for Christmas the Hudson’s had in it’s windows, and standing in line for hours just to talk to Santa then go through Hudson’s Toyland?
I call BS on the inclusion of Galveston. They just had to stick in a city in Texas to try to make it look “fair”.
Found is strange that Galveston wound up on this list. I would think with its close proximity to Houston’s thriving economy and busy port, it would be thriving as well.
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It is geographically close, but is out of the way. The Port of Houston - which was created because constructing the artificial port was cheaper than paying New Orleans longshoremen - receives the trade.
Galveston has been bypassed commercially, and barely staggers along on tourism.
Galveston is barely a city - and the 1900 Hurricane pretty much ended any hope of growth it ever had.
And it’s been bypassed ever since 1900. The cargoes went to Houston after the hurricane of that year and they never came back.
Mostly Galveston exists for tourism and Spring Break.
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