Houston Strategies

2005 Highlights

Happy New Year! Time to take stock of Houston Strategies' first calendar year (our first birthday won't be until March). The Blogger dashboard tells me I have 261 posts in our first 10 months, which exhausts me just thinking about it (although nowhere near as prolific as many other Houston blogs). I'm planning on roughly keeping the 5/week pace for now, but may need to back off down the road. I'd rather slow down than dilute the quality too much.

Even if you're a regular reader, you might enjoy browsing the 2005 highlights below, which have been chosen with a particular focus on significant ideas I'd like to see kept alive for discussion and action. New comments are always welcome, or if you'd like me to try and expand on a topic of interest in 2006, drop me a line at tgattis (at) pdq.net (anti-spam-spider format - just change it into a normal email address). I also maintain a mailing list for those who prefer to receive Houston Strategies by email - just email me and I'll add you to the list.

As always, thanks for your interest in Houston Strategies. I'm looking forward to a great 2006.

December:

• Transit safety and county growth
  
• Thinking about Metro's HOV lane conversions
  
• Icon for Houston? (don't miss the comments)
  
• Houston's Social Capital
  

November:

• WSJ op-ed on Texas schools (competition debate, inc. some good stuff in the comments)
  
• Sprawl seems to be coded in our psyche
• Tracking cell phones for traffic reports
• The graffiti solution
• Commuter rail is the wrong ride
• The dynamics of downtown Houston
  
• Trading public employee raises for productivity improvements
  

October:

• New Census numbers on daytime population (and what Houston's numbers indicate)
  
• Houston's focal point?
• Houston, meet your older brother Chicago
  
• The good news on property tax reform failure in Texas
  
• The Creative Class as saviors of old cities
  
• The Virtues of Sprawl
  

September: A month dominated by posts on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, so not many long-term "keepers".

• Envision Houston, part 3 and part 4 - The Four Basic Development Models and Mixing them Houston
• The importance of keeping jobs in the core

August:

• Sprawl and the benefits of frontage roads
• Houston political leanings: conservative or balanced?
• Annexation and city-county consolidation
• Unity vs. fragmentation in metro areas

July:

• A hypothesis on the deeper psychology of rail
• I45 expansion plans and Woodland Heights
• Fixing IAH terminal confusion
• Handicapping the 2016 Summer Olympics
• A balanced view of New Urbanism
• Routing the new east-west light rail line and Afton Oaks followup
• Misleading STPP stats on transportation costs
• An innovative idea for Metro LRT/BRT stations: taxis
• Jobs in the core: Houston vs. other cities

June:

• Creative ways to fund more police
• Houston's new transit plan plus rail risks and other risks
• Mayor White gets it right on sprawl and followup
• Why does Houston have such a great restaurant scene?

May:

• A win-win-win strategy for Big Oil, Houston, and developing countries
• Recapturing gambling dollars from Louisiana
• Keys to unlock our gridlock (includes a link to the op-ed and the 3-part series)

April:

• April Fools: Houston embraces "New Weather Urbanism"
• Improving managed lanes in Houston
• Reducing pass-through truck traffic
• MaX lanes (last 2 paragraphs)
• Does Houston have a sense of 'sacredness'?

March:

• "Houston, we have a problem..." (branding identity)
  
• An education strategy for Texas
• Making Houston a global financial hub
• Realistically repurposing the Astrodome
• Venture capital in Houston
• Relieving the north-south traffic bottleneck
• A new UH - Institute of Technology campus?

Best wishes to everyone for 2006.

posted by Tory Gattis @ 8:06 AM