Houston Strategies

The #1 way to revive urban cores, CA attempts the greatest white elephant project in history, Australia's home-building restrictions finally catch up with it, and more

 Some smaller items this week:

• NYT: Happy-Go-Lucky Australia Is Feeling Neither Happy, Nor Lucky. When you restrict housing and drive up prices, you get a 'sugar high' wealth effect for decades, but eventually the bill comes due for the next generation...
• Bill King: Harris County Grew By 1.2% In 2023, But Domestic Migration Continues Slide. The #1 change that could revive urban cores would be school choice vouchers. But in general the far suburbs definitely have a superior value proposition: less expensive newer homes in better school districts with lower taxes and less crime. More of their taxes go directly to services as well instead of public employee pensions and other long-term liabilities built up in the core. That is very hard to compete with.
• Houston is the fifth-wealthiest metro in the country, noticeably more than Dallas.
• Fortune: Texas’s big 3 housing markets built 300% more homes than California’s—despite having a far smaller population
• Chronicle: "The trend of converting old offices and hotels into new spaces is gaining momentum in Houston largely due to the city's lack of zoning laws, which makes it easier for real estate developers to repurpose the land and buildings. The concept of adaptive reuse, which involves repurposing an existing building for a use other than its original purpose, is a contemporary approach to land utilization that has the potential to drastically alter the appearance of Houston in the years to come." (hat tip to Rich)
• Reason: California's High-Speed Rail Needs Another $100 Billion. That's a Great Reason Not To Build It. 

"Magical thinking caused politicians and the media to back this boondoggle in the first place, and more than 15 years later, incredibly, the spell still hasn't broken." 

• Continuing the story with The Antiplanner: A Mere $100 Billion More:

"The plan admits that the agency expects to spend more on the 171 miles between Merced and Bakersfield than the $33 billion it had projected the entire 463-mile project would cost when voters approved it in 2008. ...

Meanwhile, in light of the pandemic, the agency has modestly reduced its ridership expectations from 35 million trips per year to 27.6 million. This is still more unrealistic than the cost projections. In 2019, Amtrak’s high-speed Acela carried less than 3.6 million riders in a corridor with a higher population than the LA-SF corridor. While California is promising higher speeds than the Acela, the Northeast Corridor has the advantage of really being two corridors anchored by New York, America’s largest city. The California corridor has no similar mid-point metropolis; the Fresno urban area has fewer than 725,000 residents compared with New York’s 19.5 million. Incidentally, to the extent that the 27.6 million turns out to be too high, the supposed savings from not having to expand road and airline capacities dwindles."

Labels: education, growth, high-speed rail, home affordability, land-use regulation, rail, rankings, zoning

posted by Tory Gattis @ 4:41 PM