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Comment by bhewes | Hacker News Reader

The Woodlands, TX is the closest thing in the US. 2,500 people/sqmi 100k town outside of Houston. Started in 1974. At least as far as large scale current corporate city developments.

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I was there recently, I don't think it hits the mark. Way too corporate, too expensive, something about it is fake or trying too hard or something. It's also just a few islands of walkable spots interspersed with 4 lane divided roads. I felt like it was Exxon trying to impress business travelers, not something we can really replicate everywhere.

I agree. Exxon came late to the game think more Chevron and Anadarko. And the city is straight out of the 1970's Texas developer thought process. And yeah it is a new money striver town. I know one person who built a 14k sqft house only to build later the largest house in the Woodlands at something like 30k sqft. Then the weird lake front new urbanism project. Where you can live in a high rise.

Yeah I was running down that walk during construction, very odd area but I guess cool if you work at one of those corpos, dig whole foods, and don't mind a lack of local character. That walk would be beautiful to run on if it weren't Houston, I am not used to that humidity!

I should have listed the urban development in Oklahoma City happening. It is just small 3k people urban district near downtown. https://www.wheelerdistrict.com

But it is basically a town built by a rich family right next to the river and five minutes from downtown OKC and the rest of the metro.

The Woodlands has 1.5 dwellings per acre. Urbanity begins at 20 dwellings per acre, and even that isn’t particularly dense and may not enable walking as the primary mode.

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