mikehouston

Some progress from today - sorry for the terrible photo quality.

Picture from this morning.

Activity has started up on site.

This Target in Washington's Mosaic District would be more appropriate here now - not sure if it is a city target seems like a full-blown Target to me - but it is inside a parking garage on the 3rd or 4th floor with special escalators for the shopping carts. http://mosaicdistrict.com/shop/target/

Site is pretty busy.

Isn't this where the AD Players new theater is supposed to go? No idea what is going on with that (guessing they don't have enough donations to go forward yet), but here is the link: http://adplayers.org/capitalcampaign.html

Hate it. Some form of zoning is going to happen - the only question is when, and what name other than "zoning" it will have since that is like a 4 letter word to some people in Houston. There are too many major fights like Ashby and it is only going to continue as highrise gets built next to highrise ruining someone's view, towering over someone's backyard, etc. Better to have at least some forms-based zoning that says for instance that high-rises belong on Kirby or in the Village or something, not Bissonnet. Of course nothing is perfect but it seems like you could end up with fewer major fights this way and still be pro-growth and pro-development. Also if you plan out which areas are going to be high density then you can also serve them better with high quality public transit / complete streets etc.

Downtown Houston now has Discovery Green and Market Square Park, and soon will have a re-developed Buffalo Bayou. Not to mention 3 light rail lines while Austin has some sort of commuter rail that doesn't seem like it would serve any purpose if you were living downtown other than to reverse commute. Or all the pro sports and world class cultural things Houston has to offer downtown. I think what has held downtown Houston back has been the lack of grocery stores and green space, and now that is changing... lack of good public schools is still going to be a drawback for any families looking to move downtown. I don't think downtown Houston is "surrounded" by freeways any more than Austin is surrounded by I-35, MoPac, etc... certainly not something that is preventing people from living downtown. Although I suppose I could understand your perspective if you rode the ferris wheel at the Aquarium, which provides a lovely view of... I-45.

Any guesses as to how this plays out? Culberson still represents a significant portion of this line, correct? And he just introduced this amendment in June. How does this amendment realistically get removed if Culberson sticks to his position?

I am not sure about traditional zoning, but I think Houston could benefit from having forms-based zoning. That is - regulate the height of buildings or form of them, and tie this to the planned infrastructure for an area. We would have no Ashby high-rise in such a situation, but more development along roads like Kirby, and possibly more emphasis on providing high-quality mass transit in the corridors that should support it. Also we could require more minimal setbacks etc. Also - probably we shouldn't call it zoning, as this is equivalent to calling something a "tax" to Republicans - it is Dead on Arrival. Just call it "form-based code" and leave it at that. Regardless of whether we end up with form-based code or not, I think the lack of zoning in Houston has been over-hyped and largely does not have that much to do with our success or the uniqueness of Houston - there are plenty of other regulations that take its place here. So I am fine with replacing current regulations with something that makes more sense.

It took me about an hour to get from Beechnut and Chimney Rock to Westheimer and Chimney Rock (a trip that normally takes about 15-20 minutes, even with "rush hour" traffic). I think there were about 50 concerts scheduled for that night in the Galleria area, and everybody and their grandma was trying to turn into a parking lot somewhere on the Richmond strip. Even shopping centers in the Galleria are that are normally not crowded like the SW corner of Fountain View and Westheimer were tough to find a parking space in - I'm still not sure why exactly. I used the surface roads thinking they would not be crowded since my wife had told me that 610 was a mess. Didn't help. They definitely could have been helped by some sort of shuttle down Richmond / Galleria area and some off-site parking. I don't know that anybody realized it was going to get that bad. I didn't even realize that area was still that popular .

According to Wikipedia: A relatively small building may be considered a skyscraper if it protrudes well above its built environment and changes the overall skyline. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper But perhaps high-rise is more appropriate in this case. In any case, if this POS was being built next to my house I'd probably refer to it as a skyscraper too. Or maybe even a supertall.

I think it is totally legitimate to ask if "your culture", whatever that culture is, has a decent presence in another city. It does not mean you are not also open to experiencing other things and cultures. I actually hear this all the time from Hispanic people who are not so keen on moving to places in the North that are otherwise big / diverse cities - like Seattle / Minneapolis / Detroit - because they are used to having the plethora of options for Hispanic culture, food, etc. that they have here in Houston - cities like LA / Miami with the established Hispanic cultures are much more appealing to them - and I don't blame them. The fact is Houston is a top US city for Hispanic culture (and have you tried the Mexican food in Seattle? It is terrible). Also - I think this comes into play for religious groups - since for many religions being able to experience their celebrations / rituals / foods as part of the larger community is important to them. This is especially true for religious minorities in the US - who do not want to go live in some place like Fargo ND if that means giving up their religious community. Also - they've done studies on racism, and one interesting finding I've seen is that although most people are not what we would consider racists, most people do have a strong preference to live in a neighborhood where there is at least one other member of that neighborhood that is like them - whether that is black / white / hispanic / or some religious minority. So - some diversity is actually something we are wired for. But living in an area where we are basically "sticking out" is not something most people look for. You can see this in Houston - we have historically black areas, white areas, Chinatown, etc - even though these areas still tend to be pretty diverse as well. That said, I agree with previous posters that ATL is pretty much in a league by itself when it comes to AA culture. But Houston does have a large AA community so if that is what you are seeking you should be able to find that culture here as well. Of the "black" places I know around town, Etta's (http://www.29-95.com...ts-ettas-lounge) used to be a blast. And the Breakfast Klub is supposed to be awesome though I haven't been yet: http://www.youtube.c...?v=ekAupa6_jQA. Third Ward is the historic black area: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Ward,_Houston. We also have a black theater - the Ensemble - http://www.ensemblehouston.com/. They put on some great shows. We have great jazz clubs etc. I say all of this as a non AA who just likes to try various cultures out. Doesn't compare to ATL but pretty good compared to a lot of other places.

Well - I don't for one second believe that only 50k people in Houston aged 16 and above is our target demographic - and I don't buy that only that number of people does not own an automobile either. If you believe that Houston metro is designed to serve only 50k people, sure - focus on buses. But if you believe that the purpose of transportation policy is to provide efficient transportation options for all citizens, then you need to consider rail. People in Houston often use cars because we do not have such widespread options today. I also maintain that LA / Dallas are not significantly different from Houston overall in their system build out at this point. From what I understand of Dallas's system, it does not serve the core very well, whereas Houston's approach is focused on providing starter lines within the core. Bottom line - I don't think there is a successful sun-belt transit city in the US today. But I don't think there is any inherent reason for that - just poor timing - the growth of many of these cities coincided with the era of cheap energy and a cultural love of personal automobiles. Now things seem to be trending towards more transit investment / more density / higher energy costs. As far as Houston being able to grow without sprawl, I don't dispute that sprawl will play a role. But I don't think any of us has a crystal ball and can see into the future. To expect the next 50 years to play out exactly as the previous 50 in terms of energy costs, public preferences, work / telecommute, demographic changes, etc - is silly. I tend to think sprawl is not going to be as much of a factor for various reasons.

I don't think miles of rail in this case is a good metric for how well built out a system is. By this metric, Austin has 4-5x the amount of rail as Houston. But it is a terrible line. I don't honestly know enough about LA's recent light rail efforts to know whether they were well thought out or not. The point is Houston needs to build a good core of rail lines / express bus service before we will begin to see a greater percentage of transit ridership. Plus, new residential / commerical needs to start happening around the stations - all of this takes time - in some cases decades. LA has always been the best example in the country to me of a city that did not *get it*, and let sprawl and freeways take themselves to the limits. Now they are suffering the consequences and doing what they should have been doing in the first place - building more transit. I am fine with ALSO doing more buses like the Quickline, and more jitneys as well - as you suggest. But if building rail lines is going to take ~15 years then we may as well start building a whole bunch of rail lines and commuter rail lines as well. If we don't have the money for the best solutions I am fine with incremental solutions. Or raising my taxes and building the best solutions. I favor an "all of the above" transportation policy, within reason.

I think LA is in the process of building out their system and finally building a subway line. But otherwise, I don't think their system is much more extensive than Houston's at this point - sure they may have a few more lines, but they also have 3-4 times more people. And Houston could learn from LA's mistakes by going ahead and building our extensive / grade-separated system NOW while we can still do so relatively cheaply, as opposed to waiting for the cluster**** that is LA traffic and 10 million + people to happen here.

Well I also think that: 1) We can (already) afford quality grade-separated public transit, even if it is a matter of increasing funding. And the longer we wait, the more likely it is that costs will outpace inflation. 2) Light rail is an unfortunate but necessary evil. It will help convince the necessary political majorities, in time, that #1 is in fact true, even though it is already true, and has been true for 30+ years. Therefore I support the light rail even though we both agree that grade-separated rail is the ultimate outcome. If we could just skip that step, then sure I am all for it. I think 90% of light rail supporters would agree. But I do not see how you get to grade-separated rail outcome without this step in a city like Houston that is historically car-centric and anti-rail. The past 30 years of local political history, congressional shenanigans, etc. only serve to prove this point. The pattern seems fairly clear to me from looking at other cities. The city starts off as staunchly opposed to rail, then the starter line goes in and everyone wants an extension built to their neighborhood (except Afton Oaks, apparently). Eventually someone finally puts together a more ambitious plan like LA's 30/10 which is now http://americafastforward.org/ which begins to include subway components, etc. IMHO we should skip most of the light rail and simply go ahead and build the elevated / subway rail in places like the Red Line / University Line where it seems fairly obvious that it will be necessary at some point. Yes, also I think the question is not how Midtown compares to River Oaks, but how sections of Midtown near the rail perform relative to other sections of Midtown that are further from the rail - but otherwise have the same qualities / proximity to positive features, etc. Comparing River Oaks and Midtown real estate does not seem helpful.

Shouldn't we be able to look at something like rents along the Red line, adjusted for the class of the apartment building and base land value? Not saying I have that information....

Indeed. To me all this debate over cost effectiveness and maximum headways is just silliness. I would gladly pay much more in taxes to extend our rail service right now - or if there was a way to donate to metro for specific lines, I would do that, in exchange for ridership privileges in the future. Perhaps there is an idea for a startup there - like a massive Groupon for building infrastructure projects. That is actually how Groupon started - as a political project - but then they found that couponing was much easier to make money at, and quickly. And the supposedly "ineffective" Southeast line etc? Supported by the voters. Rail critics fail to understand that which forms of transportation we build is a political battle, not a battle over libertarian measures of cost-effectiveness - and they continue to insult the voters of East / North Houston who overwhelmingly supported these projects at the polls by insinuating that these Houstonians do not deserve the same level of transportation that the Galleria or Med Center areas are going to receive. I wonder how cost-effective libertarians find other public services to be, such as sidewalks, libraries, etc? If they could, they would privatize everything, but that's never going to happen, so why try to measure cost-effectiveness by their silly standards? In my view nearly everything that the government provides would fail if we put it through some arbitrary measure of cost effectiveness - the military, schools, transportation, mail service, roads, etc. Yet all are valuable services that we should continue to provide - rail is no different. As for rail interfering with traffic - we already know the long term solution - which will eventually happen here: grade separated rail. Might take 50 years, but if Houston is going to have 10 million+ people, it will also have grade-separated transportation. Should have probably started down this path in the 1980's, but sometimes progress take a long, long time.

I've never once decided to take or not take public transportation based on the weather - it is more a function of where I am going, parking costs, etc, so I can't imagine that average temps in the upper 50s versus average temps in the upper 60s make a very big difference. Houston in January is generally pretty mild. Even last January when it dipped into the 30s I can't imagine not taking the rail into work if that was my normal routine. Throw on a sweater or a coat and problem solved. It is not as if we have major ice storms or a foot of snow that keep people away from work as in some cities.

I wouldn't be surprised if 50-70k of that was for the Texans games, but so what? I would expect us to be hosting more January playoff games in the coming years. It is nice to have the rail as an option for major events like NFL / college football games or the Rodeo, even if it is just as a parking shuttle. It helps alleviate congestion around the stadium, and helps some of us avoid paying $20 or whatever for parking. As Houston continues to grow, aside from our playoff appearances, I'd only expect us to be landing more major events where rail might help - like the NBA All-Star game, the Superbowl, NCAA tournament, major rock concerts, and on and on. I'd argue rail has helped us land some of these major events in the first place since people can stay anywhere along the line now and not have to worry with driving / parking, and some of our major hotels like the Hilton downtown were certainly designed with this in mind.

1) Fine. Let's look at the present. 40% of the Houston population lives within Beltway 8 according to my source. And 50% of the jobs are within the Beltway. 2) I said from the start that I consider the Beltway to be a better metric for Houston's core than the loop. The loop is just a random area - and then it ignores a good chunk of the core that is growing that is west of the city center. 3) Fine. Niche was correct that only ~5% of new population growth is expected to occur within Loop 610 - as of the latest projections the HGAC has made available. I still think this is mostly meaningless as far as where it makes sense to locate huge corporations, as the larger talent pool will always be more accessible closer to the center of the geographic area - at least in Houston where we have few natural limits to our growth. And I think the Beltway is a better measure of our urban growth, as I've stated again... I still think if you build an office campus in one of our exurbs you are basically hoping to get people to move to that exurb, or you already have a large talent pool out there, and then you hope to get some reverse commuters. Overall it does not make as much sense to me as locating near the center of the population / jobs, but perhaps in certain cases it makes sense. Exxon is also moving a large number of people in from out of town right (?), so they should be able to influence where those people choose to live through their site selection. But I think in the long run, it is probably not the best strategy for them.

See page 11: http://www.h-gac.com/community/socioeconomic/forecasts/archive/documents/2035_regional_growth_forecast.pdf The areas inside Beltway 8 account for 16% of our expected population growth and 44% of our expected employment growth. Yes, if you look at just the loop, it accounts for 5% of our expected population growth, but areas like the Galleria, CityCentre, Chinatown, and even Gulfton which are urban but are not inside the loop should be included if we want a better picture of the growth of the urban parts of Houston. Even Beltway 8 does not encompass all of Chinatown. The point being - building something 45 miles out from the city center is still not necessarily the best strategy if you want to appeal to the largest labor pool. I'm sure Exxon has done their homework, and I'm sure they understand they are going to lose some folks during their move - and they are OK with that.

OK - thanks. Is there something online? I still think that this 4% figure may have been accurate in the past as Houston built outward, but since the recession and going forward it just does not appear to be the case. There is plenty of infill development and densification going on all around town. And anecdotally I have heard that certain exurban neighborhoods in the Sugar Land area are not doing so hot these days. Of course Exxon will create a healthy demand for housing in Spring or wherever they are locating, and reverse-commuting is way better than commuting - at least if you are driving solo - so maybe corporations moving out to Energy Corridor and such is not a big deal. I do think this also reflects a failure of mass transit successfully getting people downtown, because otherwise downtown makes more sense for corporate locations in terms of being able to draw talent from all parts of the metro area.

Stat / link for the 22 built elsewhere? There are a whole bunch of huge multi-family projects being built either inside the loop or in the Galleria areas - so I'd be surprised if only 4% of new residents are expected to be within the loop or near it. Personally I consider the entire West side from downtown to Beltway 8 to be "urban" versus the exurban communities that you are discussing. I'd be curious what the residential / business center of the city is - but I would think that both are somewhat west of downtown - maybe near the Galleria area. Personally, I would not work for Exxon without moving to the Woodlands as well, and I know others who do work for Exxon who are contemplating just such a move. And if given a choice, I would prefer to work for someone else that is located closer to the city. Most of those people that I have talked to hate their commute still - and do things like go to work at 5 in the morning to avoid rush hour.