How Will Gas Prices Affect Our City's Future?

[Guest danax]

The radical, permanent rise in gasoline is something major that will start to trickle down into our lives in many ways over time. Assuming that we stay at $2.50+ a gallon, give or take, from here on out, in what ways will this change the course of Houston's development?

Some thoughts;

1) More people start hunting down inner-city properties. This demand will fuel faster developments "inside the loop", and give some of us who moan about how slow everything seems to be going some gratification.

2) More mixed-use projects. People will want to live near where they shop, dine, play and work. Making the most out of a piece of land will be even more important.

3) More transit riders, more chance for additional funding for rail. Hey, we might even actually get enough riders to dump the BRTs and get real-live choo-choos.

4) Less suburban sprawl. Well, maybe slow it down a tad and give our freeways a few extra years before they crawl at all hours. Less driving means less money for Federal Highways. Will the Grand Parkway ever get finished now?

5) Less driving, cleaner air.

On the down side;

1) More costly housing due to transportation costs. Builder's will eventually pass on higher costs to the consumer either by charging more or building a lower quality product or possibly just a denser product, meaning squeezing more units into a piece of land, leaving less yard space.

2) If our overall drop in consumption hurts the economy, development might slow too as people stay put.

3) Less demand by buyers for the older suburbs could hasten "reverse ghettoization" in those areas as the added cost of commuting will cause more stress and less home upkeep. Just a theory.

While it hurts to pay more, I don't feel so bad now as I realize that I have other options if I simply adapt. Houston's adaptation could cause the permanent shift away from sprawling, car culture to something more along the lines of the urban fantasies we like to entertain here.

[MidtownCoog]

Inner city schools are the deal breaker.

Print It

But my bus is packed lately.

[Guest danax]

Inner city schools are the deal breaker.

Print It

But my bus is packed lately.

School districts are huge. Look at how the inner-loop is undergoing redevelopment;

McMansions, which, I believe, typically represent nuclear families, are going up in West U and Bellaire, Memorial, all with good schools. Older HISD neighborhoods are being converted to townhouses or are having older homes restored, both typically represented by childless homeowners. High and midrise condos would also be mostly childless.

So, the hated McMansions areas are really our urban suburbs. So can we predict then that older HISD neighborhoods will either get saved by restorationists, razed and reinvented with townhousing or, if neighbors fight the replatting that allows townhouse construction to be profitable, remain in limbo?

[largeTEXAS]

Inner city schools are the deal breaker.

Print It

One by one people take the leap to buy inside the loop, demographics start to change, parents get involved, schools get more money, quality rises. Before you know it we have a bunch of West U. Elementary-s all over the inner loop.

Xerox It

Edited October 13, 2005 by largeTEXAS

[RedScare]

I don't see gas prices stopping suburban growth as much as changing how it occurs. You may see better plans that shorten trips by clustering stores nearer the homes. You might see more developments that utilize mass transit or even donate land to Metro for transit stops. I believe you will see mass transit bashers like John Culberson get hounded by his constituents to get more transit alternatives into the suburbs. Commuter rail doesn't stop suburban growth. It encourages it, by allowing transit without a vehicle.

[HeightsGuy]

Inner city schools are the deal breaker.

Print It

Midtown, I think you've stated in the past that you live in Fall Creek. Isn't that zoned to Humble High School? If so, I can think of a number of HISD schools I'd rather send my kids to than that.

[sevfiv]

i had a great time in my inner city schools

[HeightsGuy]

Danax, I think you're missing a very important item. We can debate all day over the economic diversification that has occured in Houston over the past few decades, but in the end this city still lives and dies by oil, and when oil hits $60 Houston will feel far more positive effects than negative effects. Due to that I can agree with 1-3 on your positives, but not 4&5. If $60 oil is here to stay, you can count on the city and area to grow faster than any projections currently out there.

[MidtownCoog]

Me too, Heights.

Students will attend the new Atascocita High School with 9th and 10th grade classes when it opens in August 2006.

Our kiddo is only 2, so no worries.

I think we'll be back into the city by then. We are hoping to go the prep-school route, anway.

Just needed a few quiet years near the golf course while they are young. Midtown was not baby-friendly.

Edited October 13, 2005 by MidtownCoog

[HeightsGuy]

Oh, good, sounds like Fall Creek won that battle. I thought I remembered hearing that originally Fall Creek was going to stay zoned to HHS.

Anyway, I think the point you just made is a point others are making, that currently they wouldn't think of putting their kids into HISD schools, but in the next 10 years that will change. In my area, I don't see established families moving in, inner-loop just isn't an area that currently caters to families with teens and pre-teens. However, there are tons of couples and young families moving in that will demand better schools in the coming years. I fully intend on having my kids go to public schools, and there is a whole body of research out there that shows schools (good and bad) are only a small part of the equation in raising smart kids. Besides, HISD's magnet programs rank just as high as any of the area's school districts honor programs.

[MidtownCoog]

Yes, there was a near riot at the school board meeting a month or so before we moved in. HISD is getting some nice property tax from Fall Creek, and the least they could do is let us to to the new school

But the new high schools seems kinda out of the way.

I am hoping Fall Creek gets annexed by the city one day. All the infrastructure already is labeld COH and the back of the subdivision borders Houston.

We have not rulled out any of the good HouustonISD programs, either. Who knows what the market inside the loop will look like in 8 years or so.

[zaphod]

3) Less demand by buyers for the older suburbs could hasten "reverse ghettoization" in those areas as the added cost of commuting will cause more stress and less home upkeep. Just a theory.

The 1960 seems to be a prime candidate for that, with houses getting be that age where everything is crapping out and needs fixing, and its a zoo getting to the freeways...people will probably just say, forget this, and get a brand new shiny house elsewhere.

Anyways, sprawl can really vary, i mean, some places are nice, but all that back by magnolia is just disgusting, i mean, all those trees where nice, and your out without good highways, that area is going to be so miserably congested soon

Edited October 14, 2005 by zaphod

[VicMan]

One by one people take the leap to buy inside the loop, demographics start to change, parents get involved, schools get more money, quality rises. Before you know it we have a bunch of West U. Elementary-s all over the inner loop.

Xerox It

That's already beginning to happen in the Western part of the inner loop. Twain, Roberts, and River Oaks got IB approval. West University and River Oaks Elementary schools are exemplary as of 2005.

Poe got unacceptable this year; I think it was because one segment of the school's population did bad on the science test, and that got the school a bad rating. I do not know why Longfellow got unacceptable.

Edited October 28, 2005 by VicMan

[gnu]

That's already beginning to happen in the Western part of the inner loop. Twain, Roberts, and River Oaks got IB approval. West University and River Oaks Elementary schools are exemplary as of 2005.

Poe got unacceptable this year; I think it was because one segment of the school's population did bad on the science test, and that got the school a bad rating. I do not know why Longfellow got unacceptable.

Okay so this may not be on topic...HISD has open enrollment and a magnet school program. How does HISD determine who gets to go to a school when they do not live in that school's attendance zone. Is it by racial demographics? by grades? by the family's standard of living? by occupation (i.e. if the parents are musicians and the kid wants to go to a music magnet school, etc)?

Seems like if anyone could go to any school they wanted then West U Elem (or whatever the good schools are) would be overcrowded to the gills.

I just posted this question as a new topic...here.

http://www.houstonarchitecture.info/haif/i...wtopic=4172&hl=

Edited October 28, 2005 by gnu