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H-Town Man

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Everything posted by H-Town Man

  1. H-Town Man
    I've already given you a link, not sure what the point would be in digging up more. Klineberg's been saying for a decade that the white population effectively stopped growing after the 80's oil bust. It's supported by the drop in % from 60% to 40% in 30 years. Why don't you go tell Klineberg that his own research disproves his theory? This could be a dream moment for you. For years you've been arguing with everything anyone posts on an internet forum that can be remotely construed as negative about Houston... take it to the big stage!
  2. H-Town Man
    Too many issues at this point. I said "slow-moving white flight," not "significant white flight." I said that the white population "barely moved" from 2010-2015, not that there was a decline. If you don't think there has been a stagnation, take it up with Klineberg, since he has been saying this pretty consistently for a decade. I think most of your calculations probably have the same errors due to "varying methods of categorization and survey questioning." And lastly... as always with you... why so contentious? No one's "clinging" to any idea. Notice I said, "I still think" there's slow-moving white flight, not that it's a thesis I'm swearing by. You've already spent more time on this with all your internet searching and extra calculations than I ever have.
  3. H-Town Man
    Fair enough that there's not more leaving than arriving. Like you said, there has been slight overall growth in the Anglo population from 2010 to 2020. But while many arrived due to job transfers and jobs created (Exxon relocating its Virginia campus, Chevron moving almost 2,000 jobs from California, XTO moving 500 or so jobs from Fort Worth), almost as many departed. I do not see in your links where a million Anglos were added since 1990. Here is a link for what I said about Klineberg. https://houston.culturemap.com/news/city-life/04-26-12-kinder-surveys-chart-three-decades-of-change-in-houston/ "All the growth in the last 30 years has been non-Anglo growth." - Klineberg If you compare this with substantial Anglo growth in Austin over the past 30 years, a large number of which are from Houston (Astros stickers on cars everywhere), it looks like a slow-moving white flight. Note that this is merely an observation, not an academic paper or dissertation thesis. If you don't agree, then don't agree. I don't think it really matters. There is some correlation with loss in investment in cities that have experienced white flight (St. Louis, etc.), but L.A. has seen a similar change that exceeds ours and they haven't lost investment. It's more a test case of to what extent whites flee diversity. One could argue that many whites who have moved from Houston to Austin have fled diversity, consciously or unconsciously.
  4. H-Town Man
    All of that is true. But consider... we had a massive oil boom between 2010 and 2015, thousands of high-paying jobs were transferred or created here, we were consistently at the top of "best places to invest" surveys, houses and highrises were constructed right and left faster than any other city... and the white population barely moved. In fact, according to Stephen Klineberg, it's barely moved since the early 80's. That's not just lack of natural growth. And there are plenty of whites moving here. But plenty are leaving meanwhile. I think it is a slow-moving white flight, with Austin as the biggest beneficiary. Think of Austin as that really pretty suburb with lakes and hills and master-planning, and it is your classic flight to the suburbs.
  5. H-Town Man
    When you read in the news that Toyota or Charles Schwab relocates to Dallas, do you think that most of the workers are black and Hispanic? Most of these companies are landing in west Plano and Frisco, which has remained a pretty white area. I don't have demographic data on the corporate relocations, but I do think there is "reason to think" they are largely non-Hispanic white, given that's how the white collar world generally looks, for better or for worse. For whites drifting out of Texas, I am thinking that natural increase should bring a certain amount of population growth, so if the white population is barely growing, I think there is some outward drift. But you make a good point in that the national white population has declined, so maybe whites have just opted out of natural increase? I do think there is movement from Houston to Austin; the white population in Austin (unlike Houston) has consistently grown over the past few decades, and every other person you meet here is from Houston. I read an article a few years ago, think it was on Swamplot, about how one of the home realty sites (Zillow or Trulia) said their most popular search for Houston residents aside from Houston was Austin, and chalked it up to "lots of daydreaming."
  6. H-Town Man
    Statewide, 95% of the population growth from the past 10 years was non-white. This compares with 89% of the population growth in the ten years prior to that. The Houston area more or less tracks this. Which means that Texas' big population boom has pretty much been a non-white phenomenon. Strange when you think of all those corporate relocations to Texas of largely white workforces. Who is leaving to counterbalance it? College students who never come back? My theory is that there has been a slow white flight from Houston to Austin, and a similar trend is happening from Texas as a whole to more scenic/hip places. That being said, I don't think there will be a difference between white and Hispanic in 30 years, not in Texas anyway. It's like the difference between British and Irish in a state like Massachusetts. A hundred years ago it was a big deal. Now there is no difference, except maybe on St. Patrick's Day.
  7. H-Town Man
    Ah! I was thinking it was named for St. Thomas the Apostle. So much for the East/West theory. Yes, perhaps this was their intent - to unite the two greatest doctors of the Latin church. A more Neo-Platonic complement to the university's Scholasticism.
  8. H-Town Man
    I wonder how they chose Saint Augustine as the name. He is one of my favorite saints, but was this decision based on any specific aspect of his life or theology? Surely some thought went into it. Perhaps they wanted to show their separation from (and yet collegiality with) the University of St. Thomas by picking a Western saint as opposed to the Eastern saints the university is associated with (St. Thomas and St. Basil)? Perhaps they wanted to endorse St. Augustine's teachings on original sin, the need for grace, the City of God vs. the City of Man? Or, on the other hand, perhaps it is a nod to the St. Augustine grass which grows so abundantly in the area?
  9. H-Town Man
    Yes, many companies routinely protest every year no matter what. But no worries. Residential homeowners are here to take up the slack.
  10. H-Town Man
    A fine example of HCAD notoriously undervaluing commercial property.
  11. H-Town Man
    So where did the posts about the substation go?
  12. H-Town Man
    This goes back to economics. You're not going to pay $30 million to create a block of land when a block of land is only worth $20 million. (Much less than that when Toyota Center was built.)
  13. H-Town Man
    I was using the term loosely. "Urban core" or "expanded CBD" would be better. This would include Downtown and Midtown for NYC, and for Chicago, the Loop, River North, Greektown, etc.
  14. H-Town Man
    Good post but a slight quibble... I read something awhile back that compared American cities by how concentrated their office space was downtown, and Houston was actually the third or fourth most concentrated. Interestingly, the cities with the largest downtowns were also the ones that were most concentrated in downtown (New York the most, then Chicago...), even though they still would have been the largest if all of them had the same level of concentration. Also, NY and Chicago were the only cities where downtown was more than a small fraction of the total office market.
  15. H-Town Man
    I don't think it will be Centerpoint being clever enough, it will be a developer pushing the whole thing and Centerpoint going along if the costs work out for them. I'm sure the location matters, but that is part of the relocation cost. Anything can be made to work, it's just a question of cost.
  16. H-Town Man
    Now that's interesting. So assuming it costs the same to move a substation here as it does there, the differential in land value would have to be at least $30 million for it to be feasible. So what is the land worth now? We have a pretty good recent comp in Skanska's purchase of 3.5 acres nearby for $55 million, or $360/SF. That value has probably gone down since the pandemic but value for a smaller parcel (with a premium for a full contiguous block) would raise it, so we'll call it a wash. At 62,500 SF, that puts the value of this block at $22.5 million. Now then, what is the cheapest land within a half mile? Just picking one off the map, HCAD values the block at Pease/Dowling/Bastrop/Leeland at just over $3 million. So your difference is $19.5 million. That's a long way from $30 million, but when might we get to a difference of $30 million? Hmmm... maybe if Skanska completely develops all of the 3.5 acres that they purchased and it becomes a busy little area of downtown, the value of this block doubles and a developer is willing to take this project on. It could happen in ten years. It could be 30 years. Or it might never happen. If downtown makes another giant leap forward like it did this past decade, it will happen.
  17. H-Town Man
    If so then probably a multi-story building with other uses and I doubt they would use the first floor unless it's in a very out-of-the-way location. Think about it... if they could pay to put all the railroads underground in Manhattan, they probably put all the electrical stuff down there as well.
  18. H-Town Man
    In places where visitors like you or me would not be likely to see them. A google search shows some stations scattered alongside a railyard in Queens, one on the water near some industrial stuff, one in an industrial part of the Bronx, nothing in Manhattan. Maybe they are underground in Manhattan?
  19. H-Town Man
    Yeah, the WPA built some great stuff. But there were great public works before. Look at all the nice courthouses across Texas. Anything can happen. It's a question of cost. When the value of the land is high enough, it will happen. Not sure how high that needs to be. There's a reason you don't see electric substations walking around Manhattan or downtown Chicago. The land value is too high. Austin has relocated a lot of its Seaholm plant to create some high value land, but some of it is still there.
  20. H-Town Man
    They probably paid about $10 million and it's probably now worth about $30 million, higher if not for the pandemic and oil collapse. But if they could sell the block for $30 million, that's the opportunity cost for developing it. So whatever they build there is going to have to be worth enough to pay for the cost of construction as well as the land and a suitable profit of 15%-25%. So it's going to be tall.
  21. H-Town Man
    It used to be called the Texas Highway Department and was changed to Texas Department of Transportation sometime in the 80's, IIRC. Was a publicity move.
  22. H-Town Man
    This was the county's excuse for not considering any of the ideas submitted. But the financing plan for any of these ideas could have been the same as the county used for their own ideas: use county general fund and/or sell bonds.
  23. H-Town Man
    Large-scale science and technology museum. That would do justice to the space and draw people.
  24. H-Town Man
    As much as I like Hines, I'm not sure we need more blue glass in this neighborhood. Not that I trust Linbeck to do better.
  25. H-Town Man
    Nice to hit a half-court shot every once in awhile. Of course, Memphis and St. Louis also made it, so they are probably trying to mix in some "cities you wouldn't have thought of."
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