Houston population stats?

[Slick Vik]

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, gains in the west side of the loop were offset by losses in the east side. As far as I know, that data is pulled from the official census data so please provide a source stating different data for comparison.

In terms of the suburbs being cheaper than closer in properties, that's pretty much inherent in the concept of a suburb.

"Cheap" is a hilarious term when it comes to suburbs. Suburbs were built on heavy subsidies by the federal government in coordination with developers. Also there to this day is a tremendous bias when it comes to urban vs suburban school funding.

[Ross]

"Cheap" is a hilarious term when it comes to suburbs. Suburbs were built on heavy subsidies by the federal government in coordination with developers. Also there to this day is a tremendous bias when it comes to urban vs suburban school funding.

 

What heavy subsidies

 

What bias in funding? Are non-local entities giving more per student to suburban districts?

[august948]

What heavy subsidies

 

What bias in funding? Are non-local entities giving more per student to suburban districts?

Why the interstate highway system, of course, plus all those other evil roads that allow people to not have to live squashed like sardines in concrete highrises like they do in enlightened societies like, say, North Korea. Come on, comrade, get with the program!

As for the funding bias, your guess is as good as mine. Slick, can you provide us with some outdated partisan sources, please?

[livincinco]

So let's talk about the widening of I-10 as an example of a government subsidy. A large amount of government money was spent on that project and the result has been - an explosion of growth along that corridor. There's currently at least 3 million sq feet of office space under construction along with the construction of City Centre, the Memorial Hermann complex and a number of other projects that have already been completed.

Compare that to the growth that has occurred along the Metrorail line and tell me which one has had more of an impact.

[samagon]

So let's talk about the widening of I-10 as an example of a government subsidy. A large amount of government money was spent on that project and the result has been - an explosion of growth along that corridor. There's currently at least 3 million sq feet of office space under construction along with the construction of City Centre, the Memorial Hermann complex and a number of other projects that have already been completed.

Compare that to the growth that has occurred along the Metrorail line and tell me which one has had more of an impact.

 

Daily ridership totals of Katy Freeway? (280,000 per day)

 

Daily ridership totals of Red Line? (40,000 per day)

 

Obviously the one with higher volume is going to have a higher impact.

 

But once you get into total costs? I mean, total costs, not just the most recent rebuilding of Katy Freeway, but the total cost since inception, including ROW, and maintenance, and rebuilding costs.

 

Compare that to the cost of the red line, including ROW and maintenance.

 

Sure, the red line has the advantage in that it hasn't been rebuilt and resurfaced, and maintained for over 50 years, but then the katy freeway has had 50 years worth of growth targeted to the banks of the feeders to call growth as well, so it's a mixed bag I think.

[livincinco]

Even if you consider the difference in ridership, I would argue that there has been far more than seven times the growth along the Katy Freeway as has occurred along the Red Line during a shorter timeframe. Additionally, I would respectfully disagree with you regarding comparative advantages of the prior growth along the Katy Freeway. The Red Line was placed in an urbanized area that had a longer time to develop than the area surrounding the Katy Freeway, but either way its slightly off point.

My intent is that the expenditure on that particular freeway has been well repaid by the development that it generated.

[jgriff]

The train just moves a few people around. I-10 is used for that plus a lot more important things. Look at all the 18 wheelers hauling heavy equipment built by small businesses in Houston, plus countless other cargoes that make Houston possible.

[brian0123]

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Poverty-on-the-rise-in-Houston-suburbs-4529783.php Link specifically for Houston.

 

Thanks, this illustrates my point from earlier. You all can argue all you want about how the burbs are growing and feel great about how you escaped the big city... but the long term reality is that suburban growth will be increasingly from poorer and immigrant demographics (esp here in Houston). The suburbanites will gradually be confronted with the fact that their neighborhoods (or ones nearby) are changing. School resources will become more strained (i.e. the inc in school enrollment #'s seen earlier in this thread), servicing those that need the help will grow more challenging (esp as they spread out further), and transportation and growing crime issues will only increase. Again, there is nothing entirely wrong with this because it's just the reality of the world we live in. I deal with this stuff in the city and am fine with it... the difference is that you can only run from reality (and build fake suburban eutopian cities) for so long.

[livincinco]

I didn't click thru to the full article yet, but a statement that the number of poor people doubled isn't exactly surprising given the overall population growth outside the loop. I'll see if I can find percentages, but I doubt it's a major shift.

For the record, I have no issue with those who are less fortunate. I moved to the burbs because I preferred the quiet, the schools, and the general sense that I didn't have to worry about getting mugged. If that means that my experience is fake and yours is authentic so be it, although I'm not sure why city dwellers get to arbitrarily decide what's real. Given that the vast majority of the world lives under a significantly higher poverty rate than the US, I'm sure that they would find all of us to be living a fake lifestyle.

I'm going to guess that you don't have kids because you might find that your willingness to deal with certain aspects of urban life changes dramatically if or when that occurs.

[brian0123]

For the record, I have no issue with those who are less fortunate. I moved to the burbs because I preferred the quiet, the schools, and the general sense that I didn't have to worry about getting mugged. If that means that my experience is fake and yours is authentic so be it, although I'm not sure why city dwellers get to arbitrarily decide what's real. Given that the vast majority of the world lives under a significantly higher poverty rate than the US, I'm sure that they would find all of us to be living a fake lifestyle.

I'm going to guess that you don't have kids because you might find that your willingness to deal with certain aspects of urban life changes dramatically if or when that occurs.

 

By fake, I meant the "town center" type places that attempt to call a large shopping mall something else. I also meant the illusion that the burbs are safer than the city. I didn't mean to imply that you have issues with those less fortunate... I was just alluding to typical "white flight" whether it applies to you personally or not.

 

Also, I do have a kid w/ another one on the way. I walk to Reliant Stadium, my street has tons of kids on it who ride scooters and play tag up and down it (even afer dark), and during Halloween we have a group of about 50 kids where we all walk door to door. Yes, having a kid sort of forced me out of Midtown (more so for the housing stock), but my "urban suburb" is probably a very good example of the trends in Houston population stats (and will only continue as more families move back to the older, now urban suburbs).

[kbates2]

By the numbers, from 2000 to 2011:

102.9 percent, the increase in the number of poor in Houston suburbs,

36.6 percent, the increase in the number of poor within Houston's city limits,

40.1 percent, overall suburban population growth,

6.5 percent, overall population growth in the city,

Source: Data from 2000 to 2011 in Confronting Suburban Poverty

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Poverty-on-the-rise-in-Houston-suburbs-4529783.php#ixzz2TxkVa2l2

Edited May 21, 2013 by kbates2

[livincinco]

Glad you are in a community that suits your needs, however there's still a value judgement that I object to. You are deciding that a series of shops that serve as a suburban town center is fake and that's a completely arbitrary judgement. If it had a tattoo parlour and a check cashing place would that make it authentic?

The numbers just don't support your comment that people are moving back into the city in any meaningful way. The vast majority of population growth is still occurring outside the loop.

[KinkaidAlum]

According to Zip Data Maps, here's the population growth of what I would consider "Central Houston" from 2000 to 2010. These numbers seem to match what my eyes on the ground guess would be.

 

77010- +290 population gain. Makes complete sense since  this is where One Park Place rose

 

77002- +3,504 This is most of downtown and far Northern Midtown (where all the apartments rose)

 

77003- +1,313 Includes Eastern Midtown, 288 corridor, 3rd Ward

 

77004- +2,313 EaDo (tons of new development here on once industrial land)

 

77006- +789 Greater Montrose (small figure comes from displacement of poor and was mostly built out already)

 

77005- +2,190 West U, Southampton, Rice Village area 

 

77098- +897 Upper Kirby (this # is pre West Avenue so well over 1,000 gain now)

 

77019- +3,303 River Oaks, 4th Ward, Allen Parkway 

 

77027- +114 Afton Oaks, Post Oak inside the Loop

 

77025- +2,556 Braeswood, South Loop area

 

77007- +8,356 Memorial Heights (massive complexes and condos all over the place)

 

77008- +1,821 Greater Heights, Timbergrove, Shady Acres

 

77024- +2,209 Memorial part of Houston and Southern Memorial Villages

 

77056- +4,642 Uptown Galleria area

 

77057- +3,717 Western Tanglewood, Briargrove

 

That's an increase of 37,835 stretching from UH/TSU to the East to Voss Road to the West, and between the North and South Loop roughly West of I-45. This seem pretty right on and much more useful than using Census numbers for the Inner Loop. It shows where the growth has occurred and anyone living here (myself included) could tell you that things are definitely more crowded than they were in 2000.

 

 

[livincinco]

That's great. I'm happy that there's growth inside the loop, but even that 37k number means that 5% of the overall population growth in the area during that period occurred inside the loop and that's without considering decreases that occurred on the east side.

I'm not denying that there's growth happening. My point is just that the rapid development that we're seeing there is the result of the overall growth rate of the city and not because of any trend for people to move away from suburbs and into the urban center. There's a semi-recurring theme to this forum of the "death of the suburbs", but none of the data that I've seen seems to support it.

If anything, it seems like a continuation of past trends as the urban area extends further out as the city continues to expand. You could pretty accurately say at this point that the urban area really comprises everything inside the Beltway with growth in job centers even beyond that point. Wouldn't surprise me at all if 20 years from now, we're having the same conversation about whether the urban area extends all the way to Grand Parkway.

[KinkaidAlum]

How do you know why the city center is growing? And, more importantly, why does it matter if it's a trend of people desiring an urban oasis type of lifestyle or just an overall reflection of growth in the entire region? The fact of the matter is that over a 10 year space, 37,000+ more people moved into an area that was largely already built out. That's impressive no matter how you spin it.

 

 

[august948]

How do you know why the city center is growing? And, more importantly, why does it matter if it's a trend of people desiring an urban oasis type of lifestyle or just an overall reflection of growth in the entire region? The fact of the matter is that over a 10 year space, 37,000+ more people moved into an area that was largely already built out. That's impressive no matter how you spin it.

How impressive it was depends on what the existing population was at the beginning of the 10 year period. I'll take a ballpark guess at 600k or so. That makes for about a 6% growth rate over 10 years. I'd bet you could trace most of that back to mid and high rise developments put up in the last 10 years.

[Slick Vik]

What heavy subsidies

 

What bias in funding? Are non-local entities giving more per student to suburban districts?

 

The federal government subsidized everything about the building of suburbs, from interestate highways to housing.

 

And yes there is a tremendous bias in school funding when urban schools are compared to suburban.

 

This suburban life was methodically built it didn't show up out of nowhere, and a lot of people got rich out of it.

[RedScare]

And yes there is a tremendous bias in school funding when urban schools are compared to suburban.

 

Hmm, you are backwards on that. Inner city HISD gets the benefit of all of the downtown tax base, as well as much of the industrial base by the Ship Channel. Most suburban districts only have low value residential tax bases. This is why my HISD tax rate is so much lower than suburban ones.

 

The tremendous bias is in favor of HISD, not the burbs.

[august948]

The federal government subsidized everything about the building of suburbs, from interestate highways to housing.

 

And yes there is a tremendous bias in school funding when urban schools are compared to suburban.

 

This suburban life was methodically built it didn't show up out of nowhere, and a lot of people got rich out of it.

 

The federal government also subsidized everything about building our cities and infrastructure to foster economic development to a point where you don't have to farm for a living like 80% of the population of pre-automobile America did.

 

Sources please for the "tremendous" bias in school funding.

 

The very word suburb comes from the latin word "suburbium" and comes directly to us from the Old French word "suburbe" meaning a residential area outside a city or town.  Usage of that word comes from the mid-14th century.  Are you telling us that the ancient Romans and the medeval French created a word for something that didn't exist until the US Government colluded with Big Oil and GM in the mid-20th century?

[samagon]

I didn't click thru to the full article yet, but a statement that the number of poor people doubled isn't exactly surprising given the overall population growth outside the loop. I'll see if I can find percentages, but I doubt it's a major shift.

For the record, I have no issue with those who are less fortunate. I moved to the burbs because I preferred the quiet, the schools, and the general sense that I didn't have to worry about getting mugged. If that means that my experience is fake and yours is authentic so be it, although I'm not sure why city dwellers get to arbitrarily decide what's real. Given that the vast majority of the world lives under a significantly higher poverty rate than the US, I'm sure that they would find all of us to be living a fake lifestyle.

I'm going to guess that you don't have kids because you might find that your willingness to deal with certain aspects of urban life changes dramatically if or when that occurs.

 

Would you have chosen Sharpstown or Alief as suitable suburbs for your kids to go to school?

 

Back when my parents were buying their house, they chose Alief, I lived at the corner of Bellaire and Kirkwood and went from elementary through highschool in AISD.

 

When my parents chose that area, Alief was the premier school district in Houston, and I'm sure Sharpstown still had good schools as well. Now though?

 

As the suburbs age they age quickly, hell, when I was a senior at Elsik I saw guns being brought to basketball games, there were metal detectors and drug dogs patrolling the parking lots and sniffing at lockers.

 

If my parents knew in 1973 when they bought the house that I would be going to high school in that environment would they have chosen to live there? Likely not. I personally think that thanks to the diversity of the schools I am a better person for it, at least culturally. 

 

Anyway, your suburb might not change like Alief (and other suburbs) changed, but I think inside the city is as favorable a place to raise a child as any suburb, especially if you can trade the cost incurred for maintaining a car for the long commute for a private school. I can't find a more recent article, but if the prices for private school are still close to this, that's the cost of gasoline for one car a year...

 

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/private-schools-cost-less-you-may-think

[august948]

Would you have chosen Sharpstown or Alief as suitable suburbs for your kids to go to school?

 

Back when my parents were buying their house, they chose Alief, I lived at the corner of Bellaire and Kirkwood and went from elementary through highschool in AISD.

 

When my parents chose that area, Alief was the premier school district in Houston, and I'm sure Sharpstown still had good schools as well. Now though?

 

As the suburbs age they age quickly, hell, when I was a senior at Elsik I saw guns being brought to basketball games, there were metal detectors and drug dogs patrolling the parking lots and sniffing at lockers.

 

If my parents knew in 1973 when they bought the house that I would be going to high school in that environment would they have chosen to live there? Likely not. I personally think that thanks to the diversity of the schools I am a better person for it, at least culturally. 

 

Anyway, your suburb might not change like Alief (and other suburbs) changed, but I think inside the city is as favorable a place to raise a child as any suburb, especially if you can trade the cost incurred for maintaining a car for the long commute for a private school. I can't find a more recent article, but if the prices for private school are still close to this, that's the cost of gasoline for one car a year...

 

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/private-schools-cost-less-you-may-think

 

I think that the development of master planned communities like Cinco Ranch and First Colony are in part a response to what happened to Sharpstown and Alief.  In the end we may end up with a city with a wealthy core surronded by older suburbs where the urban poor live surrounded by wealthier master planned suburbs.  At least that appears to be where we are now.

[Houston19514]

New estimated population numbers for metropolitan areas released today:

 

Houston metro popultation as of July 1, 2013:  6,313,158

 

Increase over July 1, 2012:  137,692

 

Annual growth rate:  2.2%

 

The largest numerical growth of all metro areas.  The 16th fastest rate of growth among all metro areas.  The only metro area of any substantial size that grew at a faster percentage rate than Houston, was Austin, which grew at a 2.6% rate.

 

Houston's growth 2012-2013 population increase was comprised of:

Natural increase (births exceeding deaths):  56,334

International net migration:  25,504

Domestic net migration:  55,620

Edited March 27, 2014 by Houston19514

[august948]

New estimated population numbers for metropolitan areas released today:

 

Houston metro popultation as of July 1, 2013:  6,313,158

 

Increase over July 1, 2012:  137,692

 

Annual growth rate:  2.2%

 

The largest numerical growth of all metro areas.  The 16th fastest rate of growth among all metro areas.  The only metro area of any substantial size that grew at a faster percentage rate than Houston, was Austin, which grew at a 2.6% rate.

 

Houston's growth 2012-2013 population increase was comprised of:

Natural increase (births exceeding deaths):  56,334

International net migration:  25,504

Domestic net migration:  55,620

 

Heard on the radio today that Harris county is the fastest growing county in the country right now.

[Subdude]

I think in absolute numbers, but not on a percentage basis.  Some of those boom towns in North Dakota started out as nothing and are growing at an insane rate.

 

 

 

[Houston19514]

^^  Correct.  Harris County had the country's largest numeric increase in population -- 82,890 from July 1, 2012 to July 1, 2013.   1.9%  That rate of growth is not even the fastest in the Houston metropolitan area.  In fact, Harris County's rate of growth was in a 4-way tie for 3rd fastest growth rate in the Houston metro area.

 

(Ft. Bend experienced 4.2% growth and Montgomery experienced 2.9% growth.)

Edited March 27, 2014 by Houston19514

[ClutchCity]

Thanks for putting those stats together! 25,000 international immigrants seems like a lot. Is that normal growth for a year? I don't have the last 10+ years but it would be interesting to see how that number has grown as Houston becomes recognized more internationally.

[Houston19514]

Thanks for putting those stats together! 25,000 international immigrants seems like a lot. Is that normal growth for a year? I don't have the last 10+ years but it would be interesting to see how that number has grown as Houston becomes recognized more internationally.

 

Very quickly, I see that for the 3.25 years since the 2010 census, Houston's total net international migration was 80,394.

[Trae]

Thanks for putting those stats together! 25,000 international immigrants seems like a lot. Is that normal growth for a year? I don't have the last 10+ years but it would be interesting to see how that number has grown as Houston becomes recognized more internationally.

Here you go: http://recenter.tamu.edu/data/pop/popm/cbsa26420.asp

The new numbers aren't posted yet, but give it a couple of weeks.

[Sky-guy]

"The latest data shows an extra 138,000 people in the Houston metro area, meaning Houston beat out New York (an increase of 112,000), Dallas-Fort Worth (108,000) and Los Angeles (94,000)."

http://m.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Census-reveals-more-new-people-in-Houston-region-5354288.php

[Marcus Allen]

Check out the Galveston-Houston Regional Forecast 2025. HTown is divided into zones. Zone 1 is DT and inner loop. Z2 is 610 to SH Tollway. Z3 is SH to GP. Z4 is GP to areas I am not familiar with. Z5 is even beyond that. According to projections, Z1 gains 200k, Z2 almost a million. Z3 1.3 mil. Z4 almost another million. Z5 like 200k. Thats a LOT more people in just 11 years. Is this a credible summation?