Houston Strategies

Houston beats Portland for urban density, what CA and others can learn from HTX, top rankings for IAH, licensing reform, and more

And a funny story: came across these stories in my newsfeeds, thought they sounded familiar, then realized they're older posts of mine being republished at the Market Urbanism Report, lol! (with permission, of course)  Just glad to see the ideas spread.

• Houston provides a lesson for how fast-growing cities can relieve congestion - Contrary to the “induced demand” theory, Houston has relieved congestion by building more roads.
• Houston's transportation lessons for other cities: a road, bus, and rail checklist - The city should avoid fancy rail projects, in favor of road and bus strategies that will actually move people around.

Moving on to this week's items:

• Love how Arlington is outsourcing transit to private rideshare operators - Houston METRO should be looking at this!
• The Global Housing Crisis by Richard Florida at Atlantic CityLab.  This is a long-term competitive advantage for Houston and Texas, one of the few places still building enough housing to meet demand.
• WSJ: The Next Big Thing in Urban Transit: Fast-Bus Systems - Cities are looking at buses that travel on dedicated lanes as a cheaper alternatives to light rail.  We're on-trend with the Uptown BRT.  Hat tip to Sheila.
• Houston's Intercontinental Airport (IAH) did really well in the most recent Skytrax rankings (direct link). And Hobby moved up 20 places to 99th overall in the world (15th in the US), and 9th Best Regional airport in US. Hat tip to Ryan.

IAH 

1st most-improved in US (7th in the world)
1st in North America for best airport dining (7th in the world)
3rd overall in US
5th overall in North America
48th overall in world 

• Trulia heat map for home prices, drill down to Houston.
• Texas needs this! WSJ: A Model for Licensing Reform - How to make it easier for Americans to work in a skilled trade.
• Seattle Times: Houston’s solution to the homeless crisis: Housing — and lots of it. Hat tip to George.
• Great paper from Dr. Luis Torres at Texas A&M on The cost of building regulations.  I'm looking forward to collaborating with Dr. Torres on future COU papers.

Finally, Scott Beyer has an excellent piece at Market Urbanism debating whether Houston or Portland is doing urban density better:

"So which metro area–Houston or Portland–is doing urban density better? In the objective sense, Houston is, by fitting in more people. Subjectively, it depends on one’s tastes. Portland’s dedication to historic preservation, low-rise, so-called tasteful development, and pedestrian orientation is indeed charming. The core area feels like a slightly bigger version of an antiquated liberal arts college town, where the pace of life is slow and the people are intentionally offbeat. The fact that this sits amid the backdrop of cloudy skies and evergreen-covered hills gives the place an ethereal quality. 

Houston, meanwhile, is too busy urbanizing to even try and achieve this pretension. It is building upward, outward, and everything in-between–and is doing so rapidly and unapologetically, with the metro area population increasing since 2010 by 852,054, compared to 208,946 in Portland. This has made Houston, inside and outside of its core, a completely different place than Portland: more grandiose, vertical, diverse, global, monied and in your face. Indeed, there is an extent to which Houston, with its large gleaming skyscrapers and overt street-level multiculturalism, almost makes Portland feel like a cow town. 

This is not to say that one is obligated to like–much less live in–either Houston or Portland. But it does make a statement about markets versus planning, in respect to urbanization. If people want cities–as many Americans seem to–they should embrace growth, markets and deregulation; it they want “towns”, they should embrace planning, regulation and a collaborative process that allows community interests to navel-gaze about every last land-use decision. 

I certainly know what type of place I’d rather live in."

Hear, hear!

Labels: affordability, aviation, density, development, home affordability, market urbanism, Metro, mobility strategies, rankings, transit

posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:00 PM