Houston: The Surprising Contender in America’s Urban Revival

[nolaboy]

This is a neat article that I found linked in Swamplot. It discusses Houston's growth and development. I'm not sure which category this falls into so forgive me if I chose the wrong one.

 

http://www.governing.com/topics/urban/gov-houston-urban-revival.html#next

 

I don't know much about Governing magazine, but being that its contact info is Washington DC, I am assuming this article is from an outsider/national perspective. This article talks about developing the urber core (i.e., Inner Loop) and the problems with sprawl -- issues that many other major cities deal with as well as feelings and beliefs of many HAIFers.

 

I agree that a strong urban core is necessary, as well as less dense sprawl is bad for any metro area therefore needs to be reduced. This formula sounds good for cities that have physical growth constraints (mountains, rivers, lakes, etc) as well as zoning, but Houston is not one of those cities as it has room to grow in all directions. I think it is a healthy for the entire Houston metro area to sprawl beyond its boundaries while taking advantage of its lack of zoning to allow every major surrounding area in each direction to develop its own form of an independent urban core (as we already have in the development of the Woodlands, Galleria, Greenway, Energy Corridor, Sugar Land, TMC, etc).

 

This would imply that the Houston CBD / inner loop would not develop into a larger denser city that many of us (including me) desire, which would compete against the likes of Chicago, L.A., DFW, SF Bay Area, Philly, etc. But given that Houston has always been an automobile/highway dependent city, we would have to go through a drastic overhaul of our transportation system and "mentality" in order to be a city that has one central urban core.

 

So thinking about the future growth of the entire Houston metro area, I feel that it would be better for Houston to use a different formula from what other cities are using, given that the entire area does not share the constraints that other cities have to deal with. By further developing this nodal network of smaller urban cores, I believe that Houston will be able to fill in the sprawl and have the benefits of urbanism on a more local level. This can allow less commuting and movement throughout the metro area, therefore reducing traffic in the inner core, which is only going to get worse as the inner loop continues to develop and grow.

 

I don't intend to be a downer, but my realistic assumption is that a city-wide network of a rail system will not be feasible due to cost (as coverage distance/area would require several spurs of rails in all directions to make it convenient enough to use the rail system) and the stigmas against public transit of the people in the Houston Metro (being unsafe, NIMBYs, increasing crime in surrounding areas, or wanting to drive ones own car, just to name a few). With this assumption I feel that focusing more on growing the inner loop rather than a nodal network of smaller cores will make traffic in as well as to/from the inner loop a nightmare, which will degrade the quality of life for inner loopers.

 

I see alot of pride especially from inner loopers on this forum for the growth and development of the inner loop, and I absolutely respect that. I do not by any means intend for the inner loop to be neglected for the beneift of developing surrounding local cores, so I apologzie in advance if anyone is offended. But just as many of us on this forum, I am trying to think of ways for the overall city to grow and prosper by leveraging the lack of constraints that other cities have to deal with, and to mitigate the problems that we already have and will potentially have with growth/prosperity. I feel that we can grow in a way that only we can and that we can form our own unique city that is far more successful that any other city in the world.

 

I grew up just down the street in New Orleans and have always been facinated/jealous of the success of Houston in the past 50 years. As much as I love NOLA, I had the opportunity to be transplanted to Houston about 2 years ago and have been proud to call it home ever since. So unfortunately I have only really studied the growth and history of Houston for about 2 years and may be a bit naive when giving and forming my own opinion. So please take what I say with a grain of salt, as I am trying to offer an outside perspective with good wishes and intents. But feel free to correct me and educate me where I am wrong, without being offensive.

[Naviguessor]

Another good artical about Buffalo Bayou and Houston on ArchPaper.com.  Even got the cover shot!

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http://archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=6875&utm_campaign=oct_03_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cityterrain&utm_content=banner%20link

[livincinco]

Interesting analysis and I tend to agree with a lot of your points, especially your thinking that the city will continue to develop into a number of smaller cores rather than a single urban/suburban circle like many cities have been in the past.  There's a lot of understandable excitement about the residential development that's occurring inside the loop, but I think that it is interesting to look at how much of the office development is occurring on the periphery.   Even though the growth rate has clearly increased inside the loop, most of the population growth is still occurring in the suburban/exurban areas of the MSA and there does seem to be a strong trend of office development accommodating this.

 

I do expect that there will be a continuing evolution of suburban communities to provide what consumers want.

[Slick Vik]

Interesting analysis and I tend to agree with a lot of your points, especially your thinking that the city will continue to develop into a number of smaller cores rather than a single urban/suburban circle like many cities have been in the past.  There's a lot of understandable excitement about the residential development that's occurring inside the loop, but I think that it is interesting to look at how much of the office development is occurring on the periphery.   Even though the growth rate has clearly increased inside the loop, most of the population growth is still occurring in the suburban/exurban areas of the MSA and there does seem to be a strong trend of office development accommodating this.

 

I do expect that there will be a continuing evolution of suburban communities to provide what consumers want.

 

The demand of the younger crowd is to move, and stay, inside the loop. There has been a dramatic shift in mindset recently. I myself am a convert, I grew up in the suburbs, but now I would never in my life move back.

[livincinco]

The demand of the younger crowd is to move, and stay, inside the loop. There has been a dramatic shift in mindset recently. I myself am a convert, I grew up in the suburbs, but now I would never in my life move back.

 

I know that you feel very passionately about that and I'm sure that's true with your set of friends, however let's compare inside the loop with Ft. Bend county.  It's hard to find exact statistics on inside the loop, but it seems like the population of inside the loop was about 400k in 2010 and that it had probably increased by 10k-20k by 2012.  The historical high looks like the population inside the loop was about 500k during the 60s and it would be great progress if the population gets back to that level in the next 4-5 years.

 

On the other hand, Ft. Bend county had a population 585k in 2010 and was estimated at 627k in 2012.  It was just names one of the fastest growing counties in the country by Forbes and had the largest percentage increase in jobs in the last 12 months.

 

http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/fortbend/news/article/Houston-county-is-one-of-the-nation-s-fastest-4849985.php

http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/fortbend/news/article/Fort-Bend-wins-national-recognition-gains-in-4865961.php

 

The projected growth in the next 15 years (est. 2.6 million people) just isn't going to get absorbed inside the loop.  An increase in population to 600k would give everyone the density and urban environment that they crave and would be great for the Houston area, but this isn't an either/or.  That would still account for only 10% of the projected growth and would require an additional 2.4 million people to live elsewhere.

[infinite_jim]

Ft Bend county compared to the inner loop? lol... wut?

Why not compare the know universe to to our solar system or a putting green to a blade of grass.