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As much as we have a head-in-the-sand attitude about this, we cannot sustain our huge growth with just more roads.
Simple urban planning math tells you that at a certain point, you have to pave so much road just to have a useable car network that you end up sprawling beyond where it's convenient. In other words, you cannot pave your way out of a problem - you end up in a situation where the only way you could pave more would entail people living much farther away, which defeats the whole purpose.
Los Angeles learned this lesson the hard way, and businesses/people have fled the city as a result. Its industrial base is eviscerated.
Buses are good - but young professionals need and want options. High-speed mass transit allows people to go basically uninterrupted, without dealing with accidents/traffic congestion, from point A to point B. You can get a start on your work on the train, relax, listen to music, etc. It's much more comfortable than a long traffic jam commute or riding on a smelly bus.
To get the most out of a mass transit network we must do much more zoning - making sure there are concentrated business centers instead of more sprawl.
The young professional demographic is who we want to be attracting too, because that is what will fuel our cities future. We need to offer benefits to gay families, because young professionals see this as a mark of sophistication. They also like mass transit, and want compact walkable neighborhoods to live and play in.
We are growing at a phenomenal rate. We MUST plan for the future, and not be in denial. Let's not repeat L.A.'s mistakes. Lets get ready for the future now, when its cheapest in both relative and absolute terms, instead of waiting until its too late. And let's learn from the success of cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Portland, Seattle, NYC, in luring young professionals by creating a socially liberal, dense, fun place that young people can see themselves living in long-term, not just as a first job out of college and escaping as soon as possible.
People fled Los Angeles due to high taxes and high cost of living and real estate and anti corporate government policies. Young professionals go to where the professional jobs are. The professional jobs are where the corporations set up business. The corporations set up business where they get the best return on investment and have the most business friendly economic policy. Houston and Texas in general has a friendly corporate policy. Thus: most job creation lately has been in Texas. If there are jobs, people will move to the city, whether they have to drive a car or ride a bus.
Also on zoning: It is insanely hard to go back into a city and zone from scratch. All of that property is owned by someone, and telling them how to use their property when they already own it is sticky business. What if I invested in a peice of property that can be used for anything. All of a sudden its zoned for only industrial use. The govermnent has effectively told me that I have to sell to a company that will use it for undustry. I can't build my home on it. I can't sell it to a residential developer. I can't put my restaurant or store on it. My land use opportunities are 1% of what they were. The value has plummeted. Thanks government! You have to zone when a city is new or an area is up and coming.
All of the main Texas cities: Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin created a LOT of jobs in the last years.
People fled Los Angeles due to high taxes and high cost of living and real estate and anti corporate government policies. Young professionals go to where the professional jobs are. The professional jobs are where the corporations set up business. The corporations set up business where they get the best return on investment and have the most business friendly economic policy. Houston and Texas in general has a friendly corporate policy. Thus: most job creation lately has been in Texas. If there are jobs, people will move to the city, whether they have to drive a car or ride a bus.
Also on zoning: It is insanely hard to go back into a city and zone from scratch. All of that property is owned by someone, and telling them how to use their property when they already own it is sticky business. What if I invested in a peice of property that can be used for anything. All of a sudden its zoned for only industrial use. The govermnent has effectively told me that I have to sell to a company that will use it for undustry. I can't build my home on it. I can't sell it to a residential developer. I can't put my restaurant or store on it. My land use opportunities are 1% of what they were. The value has plummeted. Thanks government! You have to zone when a city is new or an area is up and coming.
All of the main Texas cities: Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin created a LOT of jobs in the last years.
You cannot rezone a person's property significantly without compensating under the 5th amendment. But that doesn't mean we can't direct NEW development to focus around areas that are already commerical areas.
Yes, they come here for low taxes etc. But a lot of people are deterred by what they perceive to be a lack of quality of life in TX cities. Don't cite Austin - Austin is a prime example of a GOOD city. I'm talking about Houston. Houston needs to get more "fun" stuff to lure in young professionals for the long term.
I agree that now people will come here despite lack of public transit. But it WILL GET RIDICULOUSLY BAD sooner than we think. We cannot pave our way out of it. We need to set up the infrastructure for the FUTURE - what you're talking about has to do with now. It's not a matter of "they'll do it whether its bus/car or rail" - no - you physically/logically/mathematically cannot do car indefinitely. You literally run out of ground to pave, and people end up moving so far out it defeats the purpose.
not to mention, the price of oil in the long term will keep going up, notwithstanding short term recessions. If you think we'll invent our way out of it fast enough with things like electric or hydrogen cars, keep dreaming. And as said above, in the end it doesn't matter since you run out of road to pave to keep infrastructure working (see: L.A.).
You cannot rezone a person's property significantly without compensating under the 5th amendment. But that doesn't mean we can't direct NEW development to focus around areas that are already commerical areas.
Yes, they come here for low taxes etc. But a lot of people are deterred by what they perceive to be a lack of quality of life in TX cities. Don't cite Austin - Austin is a prime example of a GOOD city. I'm talking about Houston. Houston needs to get more "fun" stuff to lure in young professionals for the long term.
I agree that now people will come here despite lack of public transit. But it WILL GET RIDICULOUSLY BAD sooner than we think. We cannot pave our way out of it. We need to set up the infrastructure for the FUTURE - what you're talking about has to do with now. It's not a matter of "they'll do it whether its bus/car or rail" - no - you physically/logically/mathematically cannot do car indefinitely. You literally run out of ground to pave, and people end up moving so far out it defeats the purpose.
not to mention, the price of oil in the long term will keep going up, notwithstanding short term recessions. If you think we'll invent our way out of it fast enough with things like electric or hydrogen cars, keep dreaming. And as said above, in the end it doesn't matter since you run out of road to pave to keep infrastructure working (see: L.A.).
Oh, good lord, Austin is a college town. Houston has plenty of "fun stuff" for young professionals, dramatically more than Austin could ever hope to have. You think its a coincidence the inner loop is constantly getting more dense and that's where all of the action is? If you don't think the urban core of Houston is liberal, I don't know what to tell you but you definitely should have driven through Montrose, Heights, Midtown, West University, etc before the election and saw which candidate the yard signs clearly supported. People will continue to come to Houston for great jobs. While I agree with you that we definitely need mass transit to speed up, Austin does not have a rail line, Seattle is in the baby stages of implementing theirs, and I doubt we will see an efficient system like Chicago or NYC in our lifetime. But seriously, comparing Austin to Houston is like comparing Madison, Wisconsin to Chicago. It only works if you live in Madison, otherwise it just sounds silly.
As much as we have a head-in-the-sand attitude about this, we cannot sustain our huge growth with just more roads.
Simple urban planning math tells you that at a certain point, you have to pave so much road just to have a useable car network that you end up sprawling beyond where it's convenient. In other words, you cannot pave your way out of a problem - you end up in a situation where the only way you could pave more would entail people living much farther away, which defeats the whole purpose.
Los Angeles learned this lesson the hard way, and businesses/people have fled the city as a result. Its industrial base is eviscerated.
Buses are good - but young professionals need and want options. High-speed mass transit allows people to go basically uninterrupted, without dealing with accidents/traffic congestion, from point A to point B. You can get a start on your work on the train, relax, listen to music, etc. It's much more comfortable than a long traffic jam commute or riding on a smelly bus.
To get the most out of a mass transit network we must do much more zoning - making sure there are concentrated business centers instead of more sprawl.
The young professional demographic is who we want to be attracting too, because that is what will fuel our cities future. We need to offer benefits to gay families, because young professionals see this as a mark of sophistication. They also like mass transit, and want compact walkable neighborhoods to live and play in.
We are growing at a phenomenal rate. We MUST plan for the future, and not be in denial. Let's not repeat L.A.'s mistakes. Lets get ready for the future now, when its cheapest in both relative and absolute terms, instead of waiting until its too late. And let's learn from the success of cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Portland, Seattle, NYC, in luring young professionals by creating a socially liberal, dense, fun place that young people can see themselves living in long-term, not just as a first job out of college and escaping as soon as possible.
The rail is coming. The East End Line is already under construction.
And in the future, try not to compare Austin to Houston. Please. Houston has one of the lowest median ages for a city its size in the country. It attracts plenty of young professionals.
You should get together with EEstudent someday and have a 'angst about Houston' contest.
BTW, LA has the mountains on one side and water on the other. We don't have such boundaries in our way here.
Quote:
And let's learn from the success of cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Portland, Seattle, NYC, in luring young professionals by creating a socially liberal, dense, fun place that young people can see themselves living in long-term, not just as a first job out of college and escaping as soon as possible.
Young people seeing themselves living there long term? You mean childless young people whose top 3 people of concern are me, myself & I?
BTW, which of those cities mentioned is truly successful right now?
Portland???? Surely you jest. Houston will thankfully never be Portland.
Buses are good - but young professionals need and want options. High-speed mass transit allows people to go basically uninterrupted, without dealing with accidents/traffic congestion, from point A to point B. You can get a start on your work on the train, relax, listen to music, etc. It's much more comfortable than a long traffic jam commute or riding on a smelly bus.
Have you spent a significant amount of time in an urban area with mass transit? Because I can say, based on decades of experience, that in NYC, mass transit is anything but high-speed. The typical door-to-door commute is 40 minutes to 1 hour, including walking time, waits for trains and train changes. This stuff about relaxing is ludicrous. In the summer, you're waiting on standing-room only train platforms where the temperature hits 95 degrees Fahrenheit for three months, and then getting into trains where one out of three cars in non air-conditioned, along with vagrants who smell like fish that's been left out for a week. In winter, you're freezing on unheated train platforms, and then having to hold your heavy winter coat in one hand while grabbing onto some metal strap while pressed on all sides by other commuters in trains where the heated temperature is about 85 degrees or huddled up with no heat. The reason people who work in New York City put up with it is because that's where the lucrative jobs are, for purely historical reasons (given that a lot of major financial institutions have their roots in New York City), and some people grew up there and know of no other existence. But why would Houstonians want to subject themselves to this outmoded command-and-control type of geographical organization? And the kicker? NYC transit runs a $1b deficit that has to be subsidized by tax revenues.
Last edited by Zhang Fei; 12-08-2008 at 05:24 PM..
Have you spent a significant amount of time in an urban area with mass transit? Because I can say, based on decades of experience, that in NYC, mass transit is anything but high-speed. The typical door-to-door commute is 40 minutes to 1 hour, including walking time, waits for trains and train changes. This stuff about relaxing is ludicrous. In the summer, you're waiting on standing-room only train platforms where the temperature hits 95 degrees Fahrenheit for three months, and then getting into trains where one out of three cars in non-conditioned, along with vagrants who smell like fish that's been left out for a week. In winter, you're freezing on unheated train platforms, and then having to hold your heavy winter coat in one hand while grabbing onto some metal strap while pressed on all sides by other commuters in trains where the heated temperature is about 85 degrees or huddled up with no heat. The reason people who work in New York City put up with it is because that's where the lucrative jobs are, for purely historical reasons (given that a lot of major financial institutions have their roots in New York City), and some people grew up there and know of no other existence. But why would Houstonians want to subject themselves to this outmoded command-and-control type of geographical organization? And the kicker? NYC transit runs a $1b deficit that has to be subsidized by tax revenues.
I would put up with all of that just to use my car less. I rode the subway in NYC for a week earlier this year and it really wasn't that bad. I disagree with most of what the OP said and I'm happy with the steps the city is making to improve transit here by extending the light rail, but more should be done. Looking at the plans for metro rail is a bit disappointing.
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You should get together with EEstudent someday and have a 'angst about Houston' contest.
