Upward mobility report, high-capacity transit deceptions, NIMBYs saving cities? covid moving, and a sports play you have absolutely never ever seen
A few small items this week:
- Our think tank, The Urban Reform Institute - A Center for Opportunity Urbanism, released its newest report on upward mobility, with best city rankings for different minority groups: Hispanic, Asian, and African American. You'd think the deep blue coastal cities would be the best, but in fact it's the opposite (with the exception of well-paying government jobs in DC).
- Antiplanner: High-Capacity Transit Deceptions. "Transit advocates routinely make deceptive claims about the advantages of transit over cars or rail transit over buses. Often those claims deal with the capacity of different modes of transportation to move people. This policy brief will scrutinize some of these claims."
- The American Conservative: Did NIMBYs Save Cities? In many ways, slow-growing suburbs encased in regulatory amber function the way greenbelts or urban growth boundaries are supposed to. Houston is a counter-example to what he’s saying, since we have a pretty free market in both the suburbs and the city and we’re getting good growth in both. Hat tip to Judah.
- Bloomberg: New Data Shows Just How Much Americans Moved Temporarily During Covid. 3 of the top 10 cities gaining new move-ins during the pandemic are Houston suburbs: Katy (#1), Richmond (#2), and Cypress (#7). I suspect they already planned to move but just took advantage of the pandemic downtime and low mortgage rates.
Finally, I have to end with this absolutely unbelievable you've-never-seen-it-before-and-will-never-see-it-again recent video of a Rice kicker hitting all three field-goal crossbars a total of four times! The only thing that could have made it any cooler is if it had landed on the other side of the final crossbar!
Assuming the republic is still intact, I'll see ya again next week (or possibly even if it isn't).
Labels: affordability, home affordability, migration, opportunity urbanism, rail, rankings, sports, transit
posted by Tory Gattis @ 5:44 PM
3 Comments:
Covid and Youth Living with Parents
I think they might be right but the result was center city monopolies for redevelopment in most metro areas which has allowed many center cities to behave badly. The genius of Metro Houston is that in placing relativeky few development restrictions on the region, it accidentally established a highly competitive marketplace for good governance. Focusing municipalities on providing competitive public services and schools rather than political posturing.
Regards, Bill Reeves
Complete agreement Bill. Not only Harris vs. surrounding counties and City of Houston vs. Sugar Land, Katy, The Woodlands, and others, but also different management districts for different job centers trying to attract employers (downtown, uptown, Greenway, TMC, energy corridor, etc). The competition is good for the region.
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