Suburban Houston Has Jumped the Shark. Welcome to the Loop!

[editor]

A noted by the Houston Press, the new Houston-Area Survey is out and proclaims thusly:

"In 1999, 52 percent of Anglos living in the city of Houston said they would someday like to move to suburbs, compared with 26 percent of those in the suburbs who were interested in moving to the city," the survey found. "This year, the figures are reversed: Just 28 percent of city residents said they want to live in the suburbs, but 33 percent of suburbanites are now interested in someday moving to the city."

Linky: http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2012/04/houston_suburbs_vs_inner_loop.php

[TheNiche]

The quote that was cited from the study isn't very precise. Its hard to tell whether comparisons are made between the same population subsets. Even the Press reporter acknowledges the "rosy spin" in his article.

There's an article like this every year and the lesson is that lots of people throughout our metro area would like to trade places. What the survey doesn't ask is why or what's preventing them, probably because it'd reveal the obvious pitfalls regarding affordability, the physical characteristics of a home, and the quality of schools...or the less obvious pitfalls such as what the definition is of "the city" and its "suburbs" to the individual.

There's a big gap between what people would like to do and what is practical. Nevertheless, Kleinberg generates lots of good press for Rice University, so nobody has the guts to hold his feet to the fire on any sort of professional level.

[crunchtastic]

It seems to me Klineberg now has this celebrity rather like Richard Murray from UH had with politics and elections. He's 'the guy.' And in a city like Houston that has a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to academics, every little bit helps.

[woolie]

Not surprising. People are having children later, and the quality of city amenities and safety has been increasing all over the country for the past decade. Sprinkle in some awful traffic and growing awareness of climate change, and you get most young people wanting to live where all the fun stuff is.

[Pleak]

Cool. Maybe all my neighbors will want to move into the big city and I can buy their places cheap and tear them down and have me a proper spread.