por favor gracias

I made a generic comment that you have chosen to take personal offense to.  That was not my intent and I apologize if it was taken that way.

 

BTW, my comment is not meant to be mockery.  It's completely serious.  Why is voluntary population reduction such a horrible suggestion?  I can't think of a better way for an individual to express a serious commitment to that issue if they feel that it is the most pressing issue humanity.

If anyone is thinking along those lines, why wouldn't they just commit suicide however they see fit? Why would they need the assistance of a "population reduction center?"

Actually there are a number of people in this forum that do argue that very point.  I'm not minimizing the importance of the area inside the loop, however I also believe that it's importance is frequently overstated.  Let's remember what triggered this discussion - the access to job centers via transit in Chicago, specifically related to the question of more rail and the original topic of this thread, the widening of the Katy Freeway.  Arguing about whether the investment in the Katy Freeway was a better investment than rail is a false equivalency.  Whether the full original rail plan got built as projected or not, you still have to expand the Katy Freeway because of the number of businesses and people that are choosing to locate in that area.  Light rail does nothing to alleviate that need.  Even commuter rail doesn't do a lot because it doesn't address the last mile.

 

Look at the example of Chicago (or for that matter Dallas), both have built extensive rail systems, but the development patterns have not conformed to the rail routes in any significant way.  The same is true with Houston.  There's really no evidence that office construction is consolidating back to the urban core and no evidence to support that would change if rail development was significantly more advanced.

 

I have no problem with rail where ridership justifies the costs incurred. I benefit in no way from rail, but I recognize that there is a segment of the population that might.  Just don't expect it to drive a wave of 'urbanization' or impact the growth rates of the suburbs.

 

Again, Chicago's and other cities' "job center accessibility via mass transit" says more about how our cities (even Chicago) have been planned and built more around automobile use than rail. It's all about planning. If Chicago's or Dallas' or Houston's rail maps looked anything like their road maps, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

There are several high speed subways/trains around the world that have been built for a fraction of what our light rail costed us. What would you think of a roughly 100 mile subway network connecting Hobby Airport, U of H on Wheeler, downtown, the med center, Hermann Park/Rice U, Rice Village, GWP, Upper Kirby, the Galleria area, Westchase, Enclave Pkwy/Energy Corridor areas, City Centre/Memorial City area, Memorial Park, Greenspoint, IAH and The Woodlands for about the same price as 3 or 4 Katy Freeways? What do you think of covered moving walkways to help pedestrian traffic in certain parts of town (along Post Oak and parts of Westheimer come to mind)?

I don't even like the design of our light rail line (and I think most people would agree), but Main Street is getting more and more activity in the immediate vicinity. It took a while, but development of all sorts does seem to be coming to fruition there. If we do one day get a real mass transit system here, I agree with you at least initially that it wouldn't in itself "drive a wave of urbanization"...but over time, that would most likely become inevitable as long as we continue to grow. If we build it and build it right, people will use it like they do in "world class" cities.

If not, we may end up like Los Angeles (which is absolutely a world class city, and I think we're well on our way...certainly America's "next up"). But LA's traffic SUCKS.

Sitting in traffic for hours every day? I don't do that. I do like that better than being jammed into a stinking train for 40 minutes with the unwashed masses, holding on for dear life, though.

 

Expensive? Who are you kidding? We live in one of the most affordable economies in the world.

 

Pollution? I like what I breathe now better than what I breathed 40 years ago.

 

Destroying natural habitats? Depends on what lives in said habitat.

 

Bureaucracy? You get that wherever more than three people are gathered.

 

Privacy? Unclear what you're asking with this one. I don't have curtains on my bedroom window, so take that however you like.

 

Oh, I get that you're super-emo-concerned about the teeming masses. And you're fine with telling people how many kids they can have. I'm not.

 

And this is now WAYYYYYY off-topic.

1) You may not personally sit in traffic for hours every day, but we all know a lot of us do. Were you not JUST trying to marginalize my last point by being "personally affected?" How do like sitting in long lines at stop lights? Why would you have to "hold on for dear life" on a train? I've never done that on any train I've been on. Are "unwashed masses" only on trains, and not on streets/freeways?

2) Who are you kidding? What makes you think I'm limiting this issue to Houston? I'm talking about the U.S. and the rest of the world. Of course, we all know what home prices are doing in Houston with this ongoing influx of people, but it shouldn't take an MIT grad to know that more people = more consumption of resources and less quality of service over time. Funny side note...as I was typing this, there was a glitch in my power supply (and probably some of my neighbors, too). Look at prices for food, water, gas, utilities, etc. over the last 10 to 20 years and tell me I'm pulling this out of my a__.

3) Again, this topic isn't limited to Houston...and the reasons why our air quality has improved have nothing to do with the fact that more of us live here now. Fail.

4) So "some" habitats and species matter, but others don't? Fail.

5) You get a lot more bureaucracy when there are 300 million of us.

6) To each his own...a lot of people enjoy their privacy though. Remember the "personally affected" thing?

7) Wow...something we can finally agree on. Touche.

Okay thanks! I remember thinking it was probably going to be about as tall as Sage Plaza...maybe a LITTLE shorter.

The going theory is that we will be a world of old people as the great demographic transition takes place (mainly, I think, the Arab world and parts of sub-Saharan Africa not yet having gotten the memo).

Of course, we could easily stack the world's entire population in a cube inside Houston's loop -- but only a third-rate mind would still raise such a hoary canard, right, as if we were talking about a game of musical chairs?

Concern about population may be as much about how it falls, as how it rises.

Plagues and famine and war, those constants, become even more horrific to contemplate, in a world of seven billion.

I think I come by my population worries honestly, livincinco. I'm descended from people who left Europe because it got crowded, not because they were yearning for freedom. The population of Texas has more than doubled in my lifetime, there are houses in the fields and all that. Because I'm a child of the seventies, I was inculcated with the idea that there were two groups we had wronged, blacks and American Indians, and I should care about them. Yet the result has been endless empty professions of empathy for the plight of the underclass, while our politicians and business leaders ensure that an ever-replenishing supply of newcomers makes their chances harder, or nil. Dismay at these changes doesn't have much to do with favoring death. I liked the fields and the creatures in them. I like the rivers and not the dams. We all have our preferences, I think you'll agree.

But then it's a third-rate mind's habit of making the political personal, so I'll not describe how I came to have an education on what it means to favor life. All of life, not merely human life, which decidedly means favoring restraints on population growth.

For now. Should we ever return to an agrarian society, it may well be a different story.

It is deeply unfashionable to question growth, obviously. Thanks to the green revolution, and only thanks to it, we've added billions of people to the planet since the last time anyone seriously discussed population. Yet the mention of it strikes people as an existential threat, which is kind of funny.

And with apologies for oversimplifying the composition of HAIF, I'm afraid this problem really isn't a few gay men and a woman speeding toward menopause. It is other people.

I could not have said that better myself in a million years. Thank you!

Wow...great pics infinite_jim!

When I drove by yesterday, it appeared that Hanover has topped out. Does anyone know for sure?

Have you ever noticed who people who talk about the population problem always talk about it as if all those other people are the problem?  I suggest voluntary "population reduction centers" where people who are concerned about overpopulation can make a personal and immediate contribution by voluntarily removing themselves and therefore become part of the solution.

Have you ever noticed how so many people resort to putting words in other people's mouths, mocking them and making bad jokes when they are simply presented with an alternate point of view?

I "suggest" you stop acting like you know me well enough to make a comment like that if you care at all about the accuracy of your posts.

Actually, come to think of it. I think that it would be pretty cool if the entire population of the city of Houston moved inside the loop. The additional 1.6 million that moved in (only about a 400% increase from the current population) would give you guys exactly what you want, right? I don't see any problems at all that could arise out of that. Just add a couple more rail lines and everything will be perfect.

Nothing like waking up to hyperbole in your cup.

Actually there isn't a ton going up in the areas you mentioned.  The overwhelming amount of square footage is going up outside the loop and really the only hot spot that's close to the loop is the Galleria area.  There's a fair amount on the drawing board for downtown, but you can't count things that are on the drawing board in the same context as things that are under construction.  Far too many projects that are on the drawing board never come to fruition.

 

I repeat this statistic frequently, but it always seems to get ignored.  Only 7% of the population of the Houston metro lives inside the loop.  Let's assume the population of the Houston metro increases to 8 million as many project and the percentage that live inside the loop was to increase to even 10%.  That would mean that the population inside the loop would increase by about 70% (about 300,000 people) and it would still absorb only about 15% of the total population increase.  The only way that everyone lives inside the loop is if 90% of the people move away.

I'm not really arguing that there's more going on as far as office space is concerned in the suburbs than in town right now. I'm just saying that there's a lot going on in town as well (and I'm including the Galleria area as "in town"). Again, I don't really mind the office development out there at this point. I just don't us to continue building further out than we already have.

7% of Houston may live inside the loop, but like Slick Vik was saying...a lot more than that work inside the loop. I don't think you're considering that the 96 square miles that make up our inner loop only accounts for .954% of the metro area's land area. So even if it's "only 20% or 25%" of the metro area that travels through there every day...when you consider the activity/density, it paints a different picture.

Nobody has suggested moving everyone outside the loop to the inside.

You can only stop growth by preventing people from moving to cities that are, to them, more attractive, or by forcing people to stop having children in excess of replacement and stopping immigration. None of those options are viable in any way, shape, or form.

 

The US is in no way overpopulated. It is number 180 on the list of density by country on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density

A country's population density isn't much of a factor when it comes to determining whether or not they should consider population control. China is number 83 on that list.

por favor gracias, you're waging a lonely vigil. I will come away from the internet rabbit hole that is epoxy versus cementitious grout (and within that sanded v. unsanded, and additive or not, and Mapei or Laticrete, help me, legendary tile forum guy bill v ...) to join you off-topic.

 

One of the few pundits still interested in population once observed that while people feign indignation at China's population policy, at the very idea of a population policy, America has one too.

He pointed out that in the seventies, in poll after poll, Americans expressed concern about population and a desire that population growth should stabilize.

More signally, Americans made their overwhelming reproductive preferences clear as well, by limiting family size.

So in support of the will of the people,&etc. the U.S. government took steps to carefully limit immigration. Our population has thus scarcely increased since that time.

Wait a second, rewind. That's not what happened!

The exact opposite.

And that, friends, is our population policy, brought to you by the people who knew better, than you did, what you wanted.

Some of you will thank them, some of you will not, but it's a shame that there's not more recognition of their achievement, as it was quite fundamental.

luciaphile, I love reading your posts. You're a freaking poet!

Limit the number of children how? Who decides? How many? Do you or your siblings have any children? If so, let's sterilize them first and get this party started. Or are you only worried about other people's children?

 

Why not just kill off people who can't make it on their own, stop them sucking up valuable resources?

 

Are you seriously saying that the U.S. has an overpopulation problem? And do you understand that Houston is growing while some other major urban centers in the country are shrinking?

There are a number of things we can do to slow down the number of children we're having. Family planning with incentives and penalties has worked in China. When their one-child (which isn't really "one child" cut and dry) policy started in the 70's, women in the Henan Province (which has over 100 million people) gave birth to an average of 5.8 children in their lifetimes. Today, the number is less than 1.7. That comes out to 30 million fewer births in about 3 decades just in Henan. Across all of China, there are now about 300 million fewer births than there would have been otherwise. Of course I'm not suggesting practicing some of their more extreme measures, but it's clear that we can do a lot to limit the number of children we have without having to resort to anything you "suggested." According to a recent PEW poll, 76% of the Chinese population supports their actions.

I look at it globally, regionally and locally. The U.S. population as a whole was about 281,000,000 in 2000. In 2010, it was about 308,000,000...and now it's about 320 million. It's growing by about 3 million every year. In response to your question whether or not I think we have an overpopulation problem, I'll ask you...do you "like" sitting in traffic for hours every day? Do you "like" expensive gas, food, water, utilities, etc.? Do you "like" pollution? Do you "like" destroying natural habitats or their inhabitants? Do you "like" bureaucracy? Do you "like" privacy? I know I'd "like" an answer to that.

I did an informal survey at work a while back of suburb dwellers. Not one of them expressed any interest whatsoever in moving to town. None. They love their lives in the suburbs.

 

Developers make lots of money in the suburbs because of volume. You can't hope to build 1500 homes insde th eLoop, ther'es not enough open land to do that. That's why many of the single family builders that operate inside the Loop are small.

 

I've known people who lived in the suburbs who complained about it, but more who loved it. Some who do like it have also expressed interest in moving back into town, but they prefer their space, their school districts and their pocket change.

I agree 100% on your second point.

I had the impression that you were actually advocating eliminating excess population. What did you think you were saying? You also left out some basic details, like how, who decides, etc.

There are a number of ways to handle population control. The least painful way to do it is to limit the number of children.

You shouldn't assume that someone "means" eliminating excess population when they talk about population control. A statement like that leads me to believe that you either haven't give it more thought than a jelly donut or you're trolling.

So, Vik, if that really is your name, where would you have the millions of people who live in suburbs move to? 100 story buildings in the center of town?

 

If you think overpopulation is our biggest national problem, you haven't been paying attention. It is way down the list of things we need to address.

 

I don't think anyone is suggesting to "move" to buildings that don't exist. I can only speak for myself, but I would like to see us stop building further and further out and start considering how much more growth we can handle. Why do we "need" to grow anymore? All that's going to come out of it is more traffic, more pollution, longer lines, higher prices, fewer resources, abandoned habitats and millions of other issues. We can't physically continue to do this over time.

Overpopulation is at the root of a lot of our problems.

Emporis says it will be 346 feet tall.

http://www.emporis.com/city/houston-tx-usa/all-buildings/5

Take the total costs of initial construction plus all maintenance and expansion costs of the freeways.

Also add in the cost of all the car payments, gas, insurance, accidents, repairs/maintenance, environmental and health costs, etc.

How many people use Houston's freeway system every day?

I know that the intersection at 59 and 610 is one of the busiest intersections in the world with somewhere around 400,000 cars per day. I don't know about Houston as a whole, but I'd be willing to venture in the millions. I've often wondered that myself.

I haven't checked, but I'll accept your comment that Chicago jobs are more decentralized than Houston.  So what does that tell us?  In spite of an extensive rail system, Chicago's job market has decentralized and is heavily located in areas that are not served by transit.  There's a frequent assumption made on this site, that decentralization in Houston has been caused by the lack of transit, but Chicago seems to be experiencing the same problem even though transit exists.  That leads me to question the validity of that assumption.

 

I really don't see any evidence that Houston is centralizing jobs at the moment.  If you look at the most Collier's report on office construction, you'll find that there's virtually no office construction occurring inside the loop at the moment.  There's over 10m sq ft of construction occurring in the metro and it's pretty widely dispersed with a large percentage of it occurring on the Katy Freeway corridor, in Westchase, and in the far Northwest.

 

That indicates to me that developers still value suburban locations and the lower construction costs involved in building that type of facility more than the idea of being in a centralized downtown.

I mentioned earlier that I think Chicago's poor percentage has more to do with their planning than anything. If their rail map looked anything like their road map, that percentage would naturally go way up.

Houston is both centralizing and decentralizing. There are several office towers either on the drawing boards or going up in the downtown, GWP, River Oaks and Galleria areas. I refer to all of that as "central Houston." That said, there is a ton of office development outside those areas, too. I'm kind of indifferent to the skylines on the outskirts of town. At this point, there are so many people living within 10 miles of those areas...as long as we adapt and move closer to our jobs, it can actually be more efficient this way than by situating basically EVERYTHING being inside the loop (and galleria area). I just don't want to see any more development past our current boundaries. There is so much more space within the metro area as it is.

You don't think that developers pay very close attention to where people want to live?  Their business is selling houses to people, so understanding their target market is arguably the most important thing for them to know.  The developer that doesn't understand that is probably going to go out of business pretty quickly.

 

Let me give you a little basic economics here.  Land costs on the perimeter are lower than land costs in the loop.  No question about that and that's due to the fact that there is an abundance of available land.  So let's take a hypothetical buyer, they may want to live inside the loop, but they want a house with a yard in a nice neighborhood with good schools which outside the loop is going to cost X and inside the loop is going to cost 3X.  There are some people that are going to choose to pay 3X, but the majority of the people are going to pay X and live further away.  The market has shown us that.  Since the area inside the loop is a defined area, it is much more sensitive to price pressure if demand increases.  We've seen that in the last year, prices have gone up significantly due to increased demand in that area.

 

On the perimeter, prices are much more elastic because of the ability to increase supply to match increased demand.  As a result, with increased prices, the house inside the loop now becomes 4X instead of 3X.  That probably causes a smaller percentage of people to buy inside the loop and a higher percentage to move outside.  Where people "want" to live is irrelevant, because "want" doesn't consider costs.  Many people "want" to live inside the loop, but choose not to because, at the end of the day, the "want" isn't strong enough to pay the higher housing costs.

 

That's not a conspiracy, that's just basic economics.

I agree with some of what you're saying here...I just took issue with the use of the words "overwhelming demand" (from your post #129) to describe the movement to the suburbs. For some, that's absolutely the case. For others, it's more like "what they're settling for because of economic reasons." I'm not at all "opposed to the suburbs"...I grew up in Kingwood, and I had a blast there for the first 15 years of my life. I wish every human being had a chance to grow up in a place like that (at least like Kingwood was in the 80's and 90's...it's completely different now).

Most of the home developers are public companies so their financials are listed on their websites.  I looked at Pulte for example and they had about a 4.5% operating profit. 

 

You can choose to believe the conspiracy theories or you can believe that there are a lot more builders working on lower margins to build suburban homes, because historically the demand for suburban houses has been much higher than the demand for luxury urban apartments.

 

That's the problem with all the suburban conspiracy theories.  People opposed to suburbs need to create an excuse for the reason that the overwhelming demand is in the suburbs, so they come up with all kinds of conspiracies.  Maybe people move there because that's how they want to live.

There are more homes being built in the suburbs than in town, but it's not like the developers ask or poll people where they want to live. They are practically giving away homes and land in the suburbs compared to the price of living in town...I think THAT is the "driving" factor for "demand," and that a lot of "suburbanites" would rather live in the city, but can't afford to.

If developers make so much more money by building inside the loop, then why are so many of them building outside of town and selling bigger homes for a fraction of the money?

Oh wow, I just re-read gmac's post...I thought you were saying I would be "the" first to bring it up, when you were actually saying "why don't I GO first."

Well, you may wanna put on your seat belt for this...but I never said or suggested killing anyone.

How does that sound?

You've heard of population pyramids, right, and how developing countries start making a "square" base on the bottom? Eventually, it will even out and the Earth's population will max out. It won't reach "trillions" and when it does, we will be so far out of touch that roads and rails as we see them today will be obsolete.

I don't know...both developing countries and developed countries are increasing the world's population. There were 3 billion of us in 1960, now there's already over 7 billion. If there was truly a "pyramid" pattern, I hope that doesn't mean there will just be one of us left at the top.

It's not just about population numbers anyways...it's also about resource consumption and quality of life.

please pardon me...   but am i the only one, that thinks that this incognito activity is a bit weird...    just saying.

Bigfoot.

 

Now you just sound like a nut.

Population control? You're first, how does that sound?

Not so good, I bet.

 

por favor gracias, on 07 Feb 2014 - said:

At some point, we are going to have to consider population control. The way I see it, it's much easier asking 7 billion of us to "cooperate" than 10, 20 or 50 billion of us.

 

"Sounds like" you like talking smack to people you label "nuts."

I think I can handle "being the first" to bring up population control. There's a first time for everything, right?

Assuming you realize we physically can't populate the Earth to a certain point, why wait until there are billions or trillions more of us?