TX beats CA, bike lanes backlash, tops for middle class and startups, clever flood protection for homes, TXDoT drop, place-based visas
I'm finally back from vacation with lots of items to catch-up on:- The Economist did a special section comparing California and Texas, and Texas came out on top. I finally had a chance to read the entire special section on my flight back. They definitely get into the pros and cons of both models, but summarize by saying Texas is pragmatic and best positioned to build on its strengths and address its weaknesses (like education and support services for the poor), while California has strongly entrenched interests that make it hard to change, especially unions and pension obligations (not to mention the cost of housing!).
- Take note Houston: huge public backlash against bike lanes removing car lanes. We have to be smart about these bike lanes: power line and bayou rights of way and quieter, lower-traffic neighborhood streets.
- Reason: Two Cheers for Pete Buttigieg's Proposal for "Place-Based Visas" for Immigrant Workers. This is an idea I've supported for a long time. Excerpt:
"Many struggling American communities are, among other things, losing people. Meanwhile, many millions more people would like to move to the United States of America than the country is prepared to allow in.
Three economists have called for leveraging the latter into a solution for the former, allowing both communities and immigrants to opt into a special program that would allow communities experiencing population loss to issue temporary visas to skilled foreigners that would allow them to live and work in places that want more workers."
- Time to step it up TXDoT: Study: Texas Highways Drop Slightly to 23rd in National Rankings of Highway Performance and Cost-Effectiveness
"Texas continues to rank ahead of other states that have multiple large metro areas, like California and Florida.
In safety and performance categories, Texas ranks 1st in structurally deficient bridges, but is 33rd in urban Interstate pavement condition, 37th in overall fatality rate, and 43rd in traffic congestion. On spending, Texas ranks 27th in total spending per mile.
“Texas has the largest highway system in the country and could do the most to improve its overall rankings by reducing traffic congestion on urban highways, improving the pavement conditions on those urban Interstates, and lowering fatality rates on rural and urban highways. Compared to nearby states, the report finds Texas’ overall highway performance is still better than Louisiana (ranks 34th) and Oklahoma (ranks 41st), but just behind New Mexico (ranks 21st),” said Baruch Feigenbaum, lead author of the Annual Highway Report and assistant director of transportation at Reason Foundation. “Texas is doing better than comparable highly-populated states like California (ranks 43rd) and Florida (40th).”
Texas’ best rankings are structurally deficient bridges (1st) and rural arterial pavement condition (13th). Texas’ worst rankings are in traffic congestion (43rd) and rural fatality rate (38th).
Texas’ state-controlled highway mileage makes it the largest highway system in the country."
- Houston hailed as the No. 1 Texas city for the middle class
- Inc. magazine names Houston one of the 'hottest startup cities'
Labels: costs of congestion, economy, entrepreneurship, governance, migration, mobility strategies, opportunity urbanism, perspectives, rankings, resilience
posted by Tory Gattis @ 7:31 PM
17 Comments:
Houston + Dallas combined have a larger GDP than Los Angeles + Riverside.
Wow. Really? Metro areas or cities? Does that include Orange County? Do you have the comparable population stats too? (and GDP per capita?)
I am a bicyclist, and I won't use the bike lanes. Let's take the Rice Village area as exemplum gratia. Morningside, a reasonable alternative to Greenbrier, has a bike lane. One on each side, no less! It's half poured concrete gutter, and half crumbled macadam. Unrideable. I live near Brays Bayou, and I appreciate the upgrades, but still won't ride 'em. I'm looking at you, walking your Jack Russell on a 40 foot leash with your headphones on and the situational awareness of a road-kill toad.
And by 'bicyclist', I don't mean someone who does it for exercise, or for sport, or for fun. It's how I get to work, it's how I get my groceries. It's my daily driver.
A 'simple' 8 mile trip in a car: "Grab the freeway, exit here, then a left" is very different for a cyclist. I'd much rather ride on nice shady side streets, but they don't cross the bayous, they don't cross the freeways, they don't cross the railroad tracks. For that, I've got to ride in combat.
Metro areas. See the gdp ranking in last post.
https://www.axios.com/era-of-winner-take-all-cities-16495b38-3df4-45fe-825e-5913482a0250.html
Thanks. Looks to me like Dallas + Houston beats LA (including OC), but not if LA adds Riverside. Riverside does have an exceptionally low GDP/capita though!
By less than a smidgen though.
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/06/20/texafornia-dreaming
The education comparison in this special is shoddy. Tge urban institute adjusts test score comparisons by demographic factors such as race, english spoken in the home, one parent families, etc. After adjusting Texas scores 2nd in the nation. A more simple comparison by the US Dept of Education that compared the 5 biggest states adjusting for race showed that TX outperformed the other 4 in virtually every category. The Economist has become such a shoddy magazine.
Thanks Bill, I did not know that! Pretty cool! Disappointed The Economist didn't catch that. I think they're a very good magazine (my favorite), but I've heard they're in financial distress and that may mean they're now cutting corners :-(
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/how-do-states-really-stack-2015-naep
Great link! Thanks George!
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/education/2015/11/09/213791/grading-how-a-national-standardized-test-grades-texas-students/
Another good link. Thanks George. I've queued it up for a future blog post!
I've got another one from cato
https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/fixing-bias-current-state-k-12-education-rankings
Historically they've been my favorite but there's a lot of misconceptions around education and a magazine that calls itself "economist" should know that comparing TX to say MN school performance without adjusting for demographic differences is dishonest.
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