Is houston a bully? (Dallas, Austin: buying, inspections, living in)

[blkgiraffe]

Originally Posted by Newsboy

No, I didn't misread the article. It said that Houston could annex the "Katy Area" which I assume to be the unincorporated areas around the city of Katy, at will, but that Katy had no authority to annex adjoining areas itself without getting special dispensation from Houston. That to me makes Houston out to be like, I said, a "bully." I'm sure that's not the case, but why should Houston have so much more authority over an area that's not even within its corporate limits? Does Harris County not have any constitutional authority to manage unincorporated areas, or do only cities provide those type services in Texas? This is what I'm trying to understand. In Georgia, counties function exactly the same way as cities, except with certain greater responsibilities (like maintaining courts, jails, tax collections, etc.). There's very little incentive for existing areas to be annexed by a municipality because there's really no great benefit, service wise. Instead, the newly annexed area just becomes more tax revenue for a city.

Maybe that's different in Houston? I'd never even heard the term extraterritorial jurisdiction until today.

Now, incorporation -- not annexation --- is a totally different issue. It's very easy now in Georgia for unincorporated areas to IN-corporate and form their own city government. This has happened a dozen times in the Atlanta metro in the past 10 years, oftentimes by areas that for years had fought off attempts by the city to annex it, and finally just formed their own city government to prevent it from ever happening.

The Buckhead section of Atlanta was unincorporated until it was annexed by the city in the 1950s. Since then, only two other successful annexations by Atlanta have taken place, both small tracts on the city's southwest side that were predominantly black and very affluent and where residents felt they weren't being properly serviced. But otherwise it's very rare here. As I said before, about the only way Georgia cities can grow their corporate boundaries is by annexing UNDEVELOPED (raw) land at the request of a developer, usually to get more favorable zoning for it. Here in the Savannah area, there is an upscale golf course community with about 10,000 residents that's in the unincorporated county, and Savannah and Garden City, an adjacent suburb, are fighting to convince the residents to let them annex. But the decision is up to the residents themselves, and many of them don't want to be in EITHER city. The cities can't just make a claim and take control without voter approval.

As this map shows, the vast majority of Metro Atlanta is not part of any city. But the City of Atlanta has no jurisdiction whatsoever over these or even adjacent areas. Atlanta's corporate limits are pretty much prevented from expanding any further because it's surrounded on all sides by other municipalities or other counties.

Pfft....looks like Atlanta is missing out than.

[HtownLove]

Originally Posted by Newsboy

I think Houston is unique in the entire country because it's a very large and powerful central city with relatively weak suburbs. There isn't another American city where the percent of city populations vs. suburban population is so stark, except NYC, but NYC's suburbs are so huge there's really no comparison to Houston.

[/b]Houston dominates Greater Houston. Atlanta, on the other hand, is a small central city surrounded by very powerful suburbs. Three of the largest suburban counties in Atlanta all have more than 750,000 people -- making them formidable urban areas in their own right. And about half of the Fortune 500 HQs that Atlanta is known for -- including Home Depot, Newell Rubbermaid, UPS, NCR -- are in the suburbs, not the central city. Delta Air Lines is technically HQ'd in the town of Hapeville but is considered in the city because it's adjacent to the airport, which is owned by the city. But the airport itself is in Clayton County. Confusing?
Well, when they expanded the airport to build a 5th runway about 10 years ago, the city had to buy out huge chunks of Clayton County neighborhoods to make room for it. And for years, the city has bought out and cleared large residential tracts of land within the landing and takeoff paths of the runway for noise abatement. Much of that has now been converted to industrial use. But none of those areas are within the city proper, so it's kinda a sticky thing.

And the city of Atlanta owns 10,000 acres of forests in the far suburbs of both Paulding and Pickens counties for planned future construction of a new airport or likely reservoir. But the city would have to cooperate with those county governments to make those projects happen. It can't just go in there, condemn land and do what it wants. It's outside the city's jurisdiction.

Overall, people in Metro Atlanta identify much more with whatever suburb they live in, rather than with the city of Atlanta or the metro as a whole -- like people out in L.A. do. When they travel, they might say, "Oh, I'm from Atlanta" but otherwise, they are very proud and defensive to say, "I live in Gwinnett, or East Cobb, or Roswell, or Peachtree City ..." NOT Atlanta.

from a Texan view this sounds very restrictive to me.

[ATLnSAV]

From a Georgia perspective, the kind of power and influence that the city of Houston has over the entire region seems very aggressive and frightening. Smaller local governments in Houston's shadow are under constant threat of encroachment by the big, bad city. There seems to be a real threat to loss of local control, and local representation. Houston sounds like a city state.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by HtownLove

and people ran away with it saying things like we had oil refineries in our backyards.

We don't?

I have like four or five oil refineries in my backyard. I'll show y'all sometime.

[HtownLove]

Originally Posted by jfre81

We don't?

I have like four or five oil refineries in my backyard. I'll show y'all sometime.

ha ha. you have been holding out on us. how many billions do you have?

[DrLizardo]

Originally Posted by ATLnSAV

From a Georgia perspective, the kind of power and influence that the city of Houston has over the entire region seems very aggressive and frightening. Smaller local governments in Houston's shadow are under constant threat of encroachment by the big, bad city. There seems to be a real threat to loss of local control, and local representation. Houston sounds like a city state.

I guess things have changed in Georgia since I lived there. I recall in the 1960's that people in Marietta were so afraid of Atlanta's attempts to annex across the river and into Cobb County that they finagled the creation of a city called Chattahoochee Plantation that was just a few feet wide and ran the length of the river across from Atlanta.

[HtownLove]

Originally Posted by DrLizardo

I guess things have changed in Georgia since I lived there. I recall in the 1960's that people in Marietta were so afraid of Atlanta's attempts to annex across the river and into Cobb County that they finagled the creation of a city called Chattahoochee Plantation that was just a few feet wide and ran the length of the river across from Atlanta.

lol, so you are saying that ATLnSAV /newsboy have been lying to us?

[Trae713]

Originally Posted by HtownLove

I think Dallas F'ed up biiiig time. Boxed in with super suburbs.

When I am tracking my packages online it should say Dallas Texas not mesquite texas.

It should be the Dallas Championship rodeo not the mesquite championship rodeo.

id software should be located in Dallas not Mesquite.

The Microsoft center should be in Dallas not Mesquite.

Raytheon should be a Dallas company, not a Garland company.

St microelectronics, Halliburton and Hilton Reservations should be in Dallas not Carrollton.

And lets not get started on Irving.

Haliburton is HQ in Houston.

Originally Posted by ATLnSAV

From a Georgia perspective, the kind of power and influence that the city of Houston has over the entire region seems very aggressive and frightening. Smaller local governments in Houston's shadow are under constant threat of encroachment by the big, bad city. There seems to be a real threat to loss of local control, and local representation. Houston sounds like a city state.

Well, it's not like that. Houston hasn't annexed in well over a decade and has been releasing land it can annex to its suburbs since the last time it did annex.

[bamba_boy]

[quote=Scarface713;16250749]Haliburton is HQ in Houston.]

Actually, the "official" HQ (mainly for tax purposes) is in Dubai (but most of the execs, most of the time, and nearly all the worker bees are still in Houston).

[Trae713]

Originally Posted by bamba_boy

Actually, the "official" HQ (mainly for tax purposes) is in Dubai (but most of the execs, most of the time, and nearly all the worker bees are still in Houston).

Well, Fortune has the HQ as being in Houston. It's more of a dual-HQ thing.