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.

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.

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.

I understand your enthusiasm and I agree that there is some trend in Gen Y towards urbanizatioon, but I'm not sure its as significant as many people on this forum would like to believe. Young professionals have been drawn to urban areas for several generations. Once they have kids they migrate to the suburbs. I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe that trend has changed. What has changed is that Houston has become a more attractive destination for young professionals which has increased the population in areas that they would traditionally settle. Overall though, its still a reasonably small percentage of the overall growth in the city.

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.

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.

I still don't see that as a significant statistical difference. My point was that the data doesn't show a significant trend towards urbanization. Even if you accept the additional 42k and assume that they were all inside the loop (and I don't know how safe an assumption that is), I don't see that changing the overall trend.

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.

Nice, I've really been surprised that it's taken so long for an Italian restaurant to go in there.

Newsweek has Houston as #2 on a list of cities "Where the cool kids live" http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/05/15/the-metropolitan-revolution-young-adults-flock-to-houston-denver.html

Can't wait to see a mockup of the skyline with this!

How about if Halliburton is the lead tenant and it has the eye of Cheney?

Kind of amazed that no one has asked this question yet, but...details?

We actually had some discussion about that already on another thread. Absolutely agree with your idea of creating dual level plazas. I did hear that suggested at one point. http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/27906-what-is-holding-downtown-down/

That reminds me. I should go take some pictures of the Grand Parkway construction and post them.

I reserve the right to bend the truth as necessary to make my point.

That's an amazing large amount of bias without any supporting reasons. I'm particularly impressed that you can dismiss The Woodlands, with a 99.6% class A occupancy rate as a "fake city" with a "handful of businesses"...one of which happens to be the corporate headquarters of the second largest company in the world. There's absolutely no reason that supporting industries would continue to cluster in that immediate region or that anyone would fill the approx. 1.5 million sq ft of office space (not including the 1.7 million sq ft that Exxon is building) that's currently under construction there. Understand your viewpoint completely, because there is clearly every sign that Houston is going to contract over the next 20 years because the 2.5 million people that are projected to be added to the population during that time are going to live...somewhere...

Thank you. I was struggling for that term and not coming up with it...

Fair enough, but I think that it's also reasonable to consider that the growth inside the west part of the loop is potentially due to some people from the east side moving to the west side. That would potentially reflect the upturn in the economy as well as being a reasonably logical migration and would reflect why the overall growth rate was so low. I think that it's also fair to point out that the subject period includes arguably the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression (even though the effects were not felt as strongly in Houston as in other areas) and that does not seem to have adversely affected suburb growth. I would additionally say that the explosive growth of office development along the I-10 corridor and in The Woodlands is likely to soften any future impact on the suburbs of a future economic downturn. I think that there's also legitimate room for discussion about what exactly a suburb is in the context of Houston today. Is The Woodlands area really a suburb? It certainly bears no resemblence to suburbia of the 1950's. It has it's own thriving job base, restaurants, entertainment venues, and recreation options. I'll bet that there's an increasing number of residents that rarely travel inside the loop. The same question applies to Sugarland and other rapidly developing areas. My expectation is that we'll continue to see job development reflect the population numbers. An increasing number of companies will locate outside the loop to be closer to where the majority of people live and we'll continue to see an increasing degree of urbanization that occurs in the "suburban" nexus areas. Inside the loop will continue to be the cultural center of Houston, but will continue to decrease as a percentage of the population of the MSA.

I absolutely question your statement that there is a movement of higher income people to move inside the loop and lower income people outside the loop. I don't have stats to support this, but overall income in Houston has increased during the discussed period, so I would argue that the gentrification that you're seeing in the urban core is related to overall growth in the region. If anything, the continuing development of high paying jobs in areas such as the Energy Corridor and The Woodlands would indicate that migration in those areas is being driven by higher income levels. Additionally, home prices continue to increase in the suburbs which is the exact opposite of what you would expect to see based on your statement. Understand your point that there are a lot of apartments being built inside the loop right now, but don't forget that (as is frequently noted in this forum), many of those apartments are being built in locations that require existing apartments to be torn down, so I don't think that the net gain will end up being as high as you might think. I also understand that the area inside the loop is a small area in terms of size, but the ratios don't hold up if you look at those numbers. The area inside the loop is approx. 96 sq miles while the size of Harris County is 1,778 sq miles. That means that inside the loop is 5.3% of the total area inside Harris County and that it had 1.8% of the total population growth from 2000 - 2010. I'm all in favor of continued development of the urban core, but let's be realistic about what it is. It's a sign of the general improvement in the overall Houston economy, not any kind of demographic change.

Just happened upon this report. It only breaks down Harris county, but it shows the following based on 2010 census data: Inside 610 loop - 469,051 Loop to Beltway - 1,597,326 Outside the Beltway - 2,026,082 If my math is correct, there's an additional 1,994,079 in the MSA that live outside of Harris County. The report also shows the growth since the 2000 census as 12,402 inside the loop out of a population increase of 691,881 in Harris County. I've linked to the full report below. http://www.allianceportregion.com/PressReleases/Harris_County_PopulationMarch2011final.pdf I'd love to hear someone explain this data in the context of the common perception that people are moving out of the suburbs and into the urban core.

By my calculation, there's at least 2.8 million sq ft of office construction underway on the I-10 corridor between Memorial City and Katy at the moment and I'm pretty sure that number is conservative. The addition of Energy Tower 4 and Energy Center 4 would be another 1.2 million sq ft. Wow.

Found the EC3 thread. http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2013/05/report-conocophillips-to-lease-new-building/?cmpid=businesshcat

Darn - I guess I'll have to call off that Navasota/Montgomery cage match that was about to start.

There really aren't a lot of cases where those kind of rivalries don't exist when you have two major cities that are that close to each other. Look at LA-SF, Portland/Seattle, NY/Boston, etc. A lot of the ways that Houston and Dallas are alike though are the same ways that the other growth cities in the sunbelt are. I grew up in Los Angeles and there's a lot about Houston that reminds me of LA of that time period.