Saturday, February 10, 2018

Interviewed on PBS News Hour about post-Harvey Houston development and recommendations going forward, New Opportunity Boomtown, Big Houston, market urbanism, and more

Before getting to this week's items, PBS News Hour had a 9-minute segment this week on Houston development after Harvey, which includes about a minute interviewing me starting at the 6:50 point.  They interviewed me for about a half-hour on the top of my condo midrise in Midtown on Jan 12th, and it was freezing that day, thus the heavy coat.  I think they did a fair job with the sound bites and summary of our conversation – I love that they used my “don’t throw the development baby out with the hurricane bathwater” line (which is my mantra/tagline on all things Harvey) - although I wish they had included the stat about Houston land developed since 1992 would have absorbed less than 0.4% of the water that fell.

Moving on to this week's items:
  1. Eliminate parking requirements (agree to long-term reductions)
  2. Scale back minimum lot sizes (agree)
  3. Get street design right (disagree on being hostile to cars)
I like that he gives a shout-out to the flexibility and adapatability of our lack of zoning, but I'm not as opposed to development on the fringes as he is.  I like that we allow both urban and suburban development and let people choose what works for their lives.
I've got more, but that's already too much for one week!

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2 Comments:

At 3:30 PM, February 12, 2018, Anonymous Angostura said...

I'm not sure the CityLab article struck me as "hostile to cars". Restricting traffic speed isn't the same as restricting traffic volume. Some sort of traffic calming is a pre-requisite for increasing the incidence of walking, which in turn is necessary to reduce congestion. And lower parking minimums will only result in less parking if other modes increase their share.

Also, our RoW's are generally overly wide. In parts of the city, 36% of land area is right of way. It's very difficult for the remaining 64% of land area to generate enough tax revenue to support all that infrastructure.

 
At 11:43 AM, February 17, 2018, Blogger George Rogers said...

It's Rodeo Time.

 

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