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I do comprehend growth. And first come, first served. And people should have a right to do what they please with their own property. Try living in a state that only considers the property taxes when the property is sold. Most of the property remains in a family for 2 or 3 generations. The taxpayers with the biggest tax bills are newcomers. Makes it hard for builders to sell new houses. I could buy the same value house brand new or 100 years old. The well cared for older house yields much lower property taxes. Been there, done that.
The state along with others decides the property value of each district. They declare that the district must tax to raise that amount. Then the fun begins. If my district were to increase their tax rates up to the state limit and collect more than the state thinks it should, Texas will confiscate the money. It is a convoluted system. I'm may be wrong, but that was the deal when my kids were in school.
The PTA was a lobby organization that intended to raise awareness. They would never fund raise for an individual school. If the PTA decided something was needed, they got the districts to fund that thing for all schools. In the 70's, superintendents thought PTA's had too much power and got their schools to withdraw and form PTO's. They are nothing but fund raisers for individual schools. The moms play 'can you top this' with other schools in the districts. Looks like the school who is the best at fund raising must be the best parents. This is nationwide. That's why some schools in a district have all kinds of goodies and the schools who have the working poor parents don't.
HISD needs to learn a thing or 2 from some of the cohorts in north Texas. Many giving districts grant tax abatements to their large industries, thus lowering the tax bill. The business then gifts the district things they can't buy, but less cost to the business than the taxes would be. The amount of taxes available is colored by the abatement, thus the district does not have to give as much back to the state. If someone grants abatement, all taxing authorities are in the mix. The CoH is very good at it.
In the greater urban planning world, often more attuned to life on the east or west coast than a place like Houston, there's a lot of discussion about how to get upwardly mobile households, especially families, to choose to live "in the city." The standard stereotype is that there's a core city and inner suburbs full of high-density, often deteriorated yet expensive, pre-WWII housing, surrounded by single family-dominated suburbs that are cheaper. People choose to live far out because it's the only way they can afford to have a detached house with a yard - that's the primary motivator.
That's not really the case in Houston. Even much of our urban core inside Loop 610 was built as suburban single family homes after WWII, on spacious lots. Some areas have become fairly pricey, but a vast belt stretches between these expensive areas and the areas where upwardly mobile, educated families choose to live (apart from a narrow corridor along Buffalo Bayou). This middle belt is dominated by single family detached homes on typical suburban lots (and occasionally much bigger). Some areas are older, pre-1970s, but then there's also many areas less than 40 years old. Most importantly, these areas are generally more affordably priced than the newer areas in the outer suburbs - it's easy to find detached homes under $175,000. Yet these areas aren't considered "family-friendly" or "desirable" - buyers skip over them to live in a more expensive house and pay more to commute, assuming they work in the central city or middle suburbs. This runs counter to what standard planning models would suggest.
So my question to this forum is, why is that? A very large stock of spacious suburban housing (or suburban lots, once you factor tear-downs into the equation) that somehow doesn't suit the needs of the upwardly mobile, college-educated homebuyer. Is it just that too many buyers want "brand new"? Is it the schools? What does the continually increasing physical distance between the urban core employment - Downtown, Uptown, Upper Kirby, Texas Medical Center - and where educated households are choosing to live mean for the future of the urban core? I've got my own ideas (I ought to, it's sort of my job) but I want to hear from you too.
Let's be honest. The answer is simple. I wish this weren't true but to most people, an address inside a major city means one of three things: latee liberal yuppies, gays and ghettos, not things that people consider "family friendly". People perceive a suburban address as having better schools, which they usually do, and less crime. Again, I wish this were not true, and I wish there were a more technical answer I could provide. People want The Woodlands, Katy, Sugar Land, etc., and this mentality exists in most major cities. Fragile egos mean larger commutes. People are willing to pay for it, though.
Location: The land of sugar... previously Houston and Austin
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Good schools, reasonable housing prices (to my knowledge anything close-in with good schools has very, very high housing prices by Houston standards), reasonable safety, decent convenience/amenities (grocery stores nearby, youth activities like sports, community pools, sidewalks.)
I read this entire thread and discussed it the whole way with my husband. Such an interesting discussion.
To give you my background: I was from a very poor, white town somewhere in the United States. My education was not stellar, mainly because my own family was not concerned or involved. As a youngster, I now realize I needed much more parental involvement/encouragement. My peer group was low class with a few students who stood out academically. As an adult I did the hard work to make up for the education and made it into a top Texas college and the rest is history.
Some obstacles I had to work through, which I do not want my children to experience, were bad habits my adolescent education did not prevent. These "habits" I am referring to are ones learned in my community and from my family: poor grammar and word choices, incorrect word use and limited vocabulary exposure. Concepts usually picked up from people's social group(s) and thought of as acceptable. The ignorant user of these concepts would usually be looked down upon by an educated person and not realize it. I'm sure my vernacular is still peppered with this sort of language use, despite trying to get rid of it. These are some of the things I want my own children to not struggle against.
A few points brought up in the forum that were compelling to me are:
1. The amount of money put into a school per child doesn't have tremendous impact on the student's performance in low-income areas
2. HISD schools with more affluent parents often have supplemental fund raisers for their schools. (So tax distribution still does not create equal financial base for schools).
My personal conclusion is that I want my children to be around other children who are encouraged to perform well in school. Those children tend to be from affluent families. I believe this is because the parents in affluent families tend to have more involvement, and more solid values about education. I think my children would perform well and be well educated no matter what school I put them in because of my personal involvement. However, I do realize they will also be effected by their peers. I want their peers to have strong ethics and educational values. The parents of these peers would not be criminals (so I would not choose a high or even moderate crime area). The parents of these peers would be also be college educated. I would also hope the parents would come from affluent areas in order to limit the poor vernacular passed from one generation to the next.
I read this entire thread and discussed it the whole way with my husband. Such an interesting discussion.
To give you my background: I was from a very poor, white town somewhere in the United States. My education was not stellar, mainly because my own family was not concerned or involved. As a youngster, I now realize I needed much more parental involvement/encouragement. My peer group was low class with a few students who stood out academically. As an adult I did the hard work to make up for the education and made it into a top Texas college and the rest is history.
Some obstacles I had to work through, which I do not want my children to experience, were bad habits my adolescent education did not prevent. These "habits" I am referring to are ones learned in my community and from my family: poor grammar and word choices, incorrect word use and limited vocabulary exposure. Concepts usually picked up from people's social group(s) and thought of as acceptable. The ignorant user of these concepts would usually be looked down upon by an educated person and not realize it. I'm sure my vernacular is still peppered with this sort of language use, despite trying to get rid of it. These are some of the things I want my own children to not struggle against.
A few points brought up in the forum that were compelling to me are:
1. The amount of money put into a school per child doesn't have tremendous impact on the student's performance in low-income areas
2. HISD schools with more affluent parents often have supplemental fund raisers for their schools. (So tax distribution still does not create equal financial base for schools).
My personal conclusion is that I want my children to be around other children who are encouraged to perform well in school. Those children tend to be from affluent families. I believe this is because the parents in affluent families tend to have more involvement, and more solid values about education. I think my children would perform well and be well educated no matter what school I put them in because of my personal involvement. However, I do realize they will also be effected by their peers. I want their peers to have strong ethics and educational values. The parents of these peers would not be criminals (so I would not choose a high or even moderate crime area). The parents of these peers would be also be college educated. I would also hope the parents would come from affluent areas in order to limit the poor vernacular passed from one generation to the next.
Your final paragraph in particular expresses the conclusion that I have been coming to as being the dominant sentiment that drives home purchase for educated, upwardly mobile families. I know there's some buyers that don't think that deeply about it and just use income or ethnicity as a proxy, but deep down this is what most are thinking. To put it in a more negative fashion, such buyers don't trust that families from the lower half (maybe even the lower 2/3) of the income spectrum will share their values with regard to educational attainment, character and behavior, and they fear what would happen to their child if they share physical space and social interaction with children from lower income families. (Recent studies regarding propensity to marry and stay married in upper income vs. lower income families only serve to bolster this sentiment, beyond the traditional stereotypical relationship between economic level and school performance statistics.)
This sentiment, because it drives the home buying decision for households with disposable income and education, has huge ripple effects through the rest of the rest estate market - and not just housing but also retail and office locations.
If you think I'm off base with this, feel free to let me know...
Local Planner - No, unfortunately I do not feel that you are off base with this at all and it took a lot of thinking and soul searching to come to this conclusion. It's a hard topic to be truthful about because I am undeniably sounding like a snob. This sentence says it all: "To put it in a more negative fashion, such buyers don't trust that families from the lower half (maybe even the lower 2/3) of the income spectrum will share their values with regard to educational attainment, character and behavior, and they fear what would happen to their child if they share physical space and social interaction with children from lower income families."
It has been the experience of myself and my husband that the lower 2/3 (or perhaps higher percent of the lower incomes) will as a whole (despite the varied values of the individual families) be compromised in values in regard to educational attainment, character and behavior. As two people from low-income backgrounds, we feel that this is real and not just perceived.
Yes, you are much closer with the lower 2/3 statement, but I would actually say that it is a higher percentage than even the lower 2/3 of the income spectrum. Having a degree does not mean someone has characteristics that I want my children to learn. While that also goes for money, many characteristics I desire for my children to learn are more likely to be found amongst affluent peers and usually a second-generation affluent peer.
Concerning this statement "This sentiment, because it drives the home buying decision for households with disposable income and education, has huge ripple effects through the rest of the real estate market - and not just housing but also retail and office locations," I empathize with and am troubled by the problem but as I think you truly have found the reasoning behind it, perhaps you are closer to understanding a solution. I'm interested in the ripple effect it has on the real estate market as well as the effect it has on the children left behind in the low-income areas while the great income segregation continues.
One of the things I looked at when researching neighborhoods was the 2010 census. Our neighborhood has a median household income of $158k, 37% of households make over $200k and trending up, 5% make less than 30k. Education wise 100% of adults are high school grads and 80% have an undergraduate degree. The 'less desirable' apartments and condos north zoned to the same schools- 92% are high school graduates, 45% have a bachelors degree, median household income $59k trending upwards.
Not a big input but a certainly information to consider when buying.
One of the things I looked at when researching neighborhoods was the 2010 census. Our neighborhood has a median household income of $158k, 37% of households make over $200k and trending up, 5% make less than 30k. Education wise 100% of adults are high school grads and 80% have an undergraduate degree. The 'less desirable' apartments and condos north zoned to the same schools- 92% are high school graduates, 45% have a bachelors degree, median household income $59k trending upwards.
Not a big input but a certainly information to consider when buying.
So, you felt comfortable enough with the education and income levels in the apartments zoned to your schools to buy the home - perhaps to put words in your mouth, the stats were "pretty good for apartments in Houston."
Not really, I didn't compare the stats with other areas in Houston but it more or less correlated with other research into the area. You're really looking for indicators of some of the issues houston lover outlined.
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My gut feeling is that this is the key
