Houston Strategies

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Astrodome as the world's largest climate-controlled festival park, smart traffic lights, HTX eating out vs other cities, relaxing parking minimums

The lead item this week is the Astrodome Conservancy's survey and public engagement on the future of the Astrodome. I've made a *lot* of posts over the years on the Astrodome - so many that I recently discovered the Astrodome tag on my blog only shows posts back to 2015 but not before. Before that I found them in 2014 (twice), 2013 (twice), 2012, and even as far back as 2005. After all of that debate, the best affordable solution I've settled on is the world’s largest climate-controlled park with a focus on weekend festivals. People love going to parks, but not during Houston’s extreme weather, especially summers. Having an activated park full of activities and festivals on weekends that is always protected from heat and rain would be a very popular spot for Houstonians, especially families desperate to find affordable activities every weekend (minus Texan home games or the Rodeo). And it could easily start very modestly and then expand over time with parking fees + philanthropy, like has been happening with the Zoo, MFAH, and HMNS. Imagine Levy Park + Discovery Green x10... or The Gathering Place in Tulsa (pictures)... pretty cool, right?! Be sure to let them know your own thoughts here.

Moving on to some smaller items this week:

NYT: Smarter Traffic Lights, Calmer Commuters. Holy crap Houston needs this! I think Uptown and TMC would be really good test cases. The AI could learn optimal traffic light timings based on time-of-day as well as make dynamic adjustments for unexpected surges.
Cities Spending the Most on Eating Out in 2020. We found that Houston, Texas ranks #11 for spending their annual income at restaurants. Houston residents spend an average of $357 each month on eating out and 5.7% of their annual income at restaurants. Houstonians spend about the same amount eating out vs. in. We eat out a lot, but at low prices. We eat out a lot more than Dallas residents, which surprised me a bit until you think about how hyper-competitive Houston's restaurant scene is from the lack of zoning. That hyper-competition applies to grocery stores as well, which shows up in how much less we're able to spend on food than most of the cities in their graph. Houstonians spend $300 less per year on groceries than the average American, but $1,000/year more on eating out due to the high incomes and great affordable restaurants here.
City Journal: End of the Road for Parking Requirements - They serve as a tax on housing. Houston has been expanding its "market-driven parking" zone beyond downtown to Midtown and EaDo, and hopefully to additional areas in the future. Let developers decide how much parking they need, not arbitrary formulas. Hat tip to Jay.
This makes me nauseous. Planners actually like tight zoning regulations like high minimum parking requirements so they can extort more out of the developer to relax them!

Labels: affordability, Astrodome, costs of congestion, dining, land-use regulation, mobility strategies, parking, planning, quality of place, rankings, transportation plan, zoning

Tuesday, February 09, 2021

Astrodome campaign ideas, MaX Lanes, pandemic migration, SV to TX, 4 post-pandemic predictions, superstar cities are in trouble, and more

The lead item this week is the Astrodome Conservancy spring campaign to re-engage the public on what to do with the Astrodome. My blog has had two main ideas over the years on the Astrodome - a “go big” one that requires big money, and a far more modest, affordable one as a climate-controlled weekend festival park. (other ideas here)

Honestly, I think the second one is the more realistic option right now, and could be very popular. The simple pitch for the second one is the world’s largest climate-controlled park. People love going to parks, but not during Houston’s extreme weather, especially summers and thunderstorms. Having an activated park full of activities and festivals on weekends that is always protected from heat and rain would be a very popular spot for Houstonians, especially families desperate to find affordable activities every weekend. And it could easily start very modestly and then expand over time with philanthropy (like has been happening with the zoo, MFAH, and HMNS) as well as parking charges to cover operations.

Moving on to this week's items:

Pretty excited to see TXDoT use my MaX Lanes branding in their 45N press release
Live and Lets Fly blog on 7 must-try restaurants in Houston. As a local, I’ll say this list is pretty solid, but really barely scratches the surface of the incredible depth of Houston's restaurant scene, honed from being where cultures mix – originally South + West + Mexico, but later from everywhere including Asian – plus the lack of zoning allowing absolute hypercompetition: good won’t cut it here, a restaurant better be great if it wants to survive. That Darwinian evolution has honed the scene over decades to where it’s finally getting the acknowledgment it deserves, like from GQ.
Slate: Americans moved closer to family during the pandemic. What if they stay there?. This may be one of the larger drivers of all the out-of-state plates I see in Houston now - people moving back home to be closer to family.

"But there’s another factor I hadn’t considered, one that so far appears to be the single largest driver of pandemic-era migration: family."

Bloomberg: Silicon Valley Won't Last Forever, and Texas Knows It - The birthplace of Dell and TI has been quietly building its tech industry since the 1930s. Now it has the chance to move into the spotlight (hat tip to George for archive link). Includes a nice excerpt on my alma mater:

"Part of the reason for this trajectory had to do with another institution that continues to play a key role in driving technological innovation in the state: Houston’s Rice University, which played a role comparable to Stanford's vis-à-vis Silicon Valley. In fact, many of the early players in Silicon Valley actually moved to California after graduating from Rice, constituting what is sometimes called the “Rice Mafia.”

How appropriate, then, that Rice would play a key role in the next step in the rise of Texas. In 1961, the university donated more than a thousand acres of land for the construction of what became known as the Johnson Space Center, flooding a once-provincial city with literal rocket scientists. Like Silicon Valley, where government contracts and connections proved essential in getting the region off the ground, Houston’s leadership in the space race kick-started a host of related industries."

NYT: A Letter to My Liberal Friends - If you want to know what worries conservatives, look at California. (hat tip to George for an archive link)

"If California is a vision of the sort of future the Biden administration wants for Americans, expect Americans to demur."

The Atlantic: Superstar Cities Are in Trouble - The past year has offered a glimpse of the nowhere-everywhere future of work, and it isn’t optimistic for big cities. It includes four predictions and a conclusion I would never have expected to see in a magazine like The Atlantic!

The rise of the supercommuter
The decline of the coastal superstar cities
The rise of the rest
The next Silicon Valley is nowhere

"As an urban resident of Washington, D.C., writing from my dining-room table, my claim is not that I believe the internet could or should replace the riotous physical-world collision of urban work, culture, art, and life. My humbler assertion is that 2020 has punctured my confidence that the internet cannot encroach on the benefits of urban density and proximity. Going forward, many fledgling companies may agree, as they find that the city in the cloud essentially acts as a more accessible version of the city on the Earth, eerily reproducing its forces of agglomeration, specialization, and convenience. The past 12 months have offered a glimpse of the nowhere-everywhere future of work."

Labels: Astrodome, dining, economic strategy, entrepreneurship, governance, MaX Lanes, migration, mobility strategies, pandemic, perspectives, tech, technology, world city

Sunday, July 28, 2019

How Metro should spend $400m, what brings people here, gentrification helps residents, expanding market-based parking, realistic Dome plans, Newsweek on HTX

This week the Metro board will be meeting to discuss what to do with $400 million in savings recently created in the MetroNext 2040 plan by consolidating two light rail lines to Hobby into one. The initial ideas are a new park-and-ride for Kingwood (looks good) and extending the Hobby rail line to the Monroe park-and-ride (~$350 million!). That extension is super questionable. I have trouble understanding who exactly would use it? Anyone at that Monroe park-and-ride will be able to choose between a fast express HOV bus ride downtown (maybe 10 or 15 mins?) or a 45+ minute light rail ride - who's going to take the rail? Maybe to go to Hobby or UH, but if you're already in a car, why wouldn't you just go the rest of the way to their parking lots? I just can't see a compelling use case. I'm curious what kinds of marginal ridership gains the Metro staff predict for the extension.

My own alternate suggestion: reduce rides system-wide to $1, including commuter buses. Any ride anywhere within Metro would only be $1. This would attract a ton of riders to the park-and-ride express buses (which cost several dollars each way now, depending on the route), and reduce congestion on the freeways - a huge winner with voters across the Metro service area whether they ride transit or not. Certainly, a lot of commuters now do the time+cost+parking math on park-and-ride commuter buses vs. driving and end up picking driving. This would strongly tip that value equation back over to commuter buses for a *lot* of people. If you're interested in putting in your two cents, the Metro board meeting is at 10am this Wednesday.

More on my Metro Moonshot proposal here.

Moving on to this week's smaller items:

Kudos to Houston City Council for expanding market-based parking (i.e. no required minimums) from downtown to include big parts of Midtown and EaDo. Here's to hoping they continue to expand. My own suggestion I've mentioned here previously: knowing that autonomous vehicles are coming and parking needs will be much lower in the future, set parking minimums to automatically ratchet down by some small incremental amount (5%?) every year. Not enough to scare the neighborhoods, but with a real impact over time. It's the same strategy HCTRA uses to regularly increase tolls in small nickel and dime increments - not enough to upset anyone, but enough to stay ahead of inflation over time.
Newsweek: Houston, We (Don't) Have a Problem: In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, a spotlight is on the renewed and reinvented Houston.
Could the Astrodome become Houston's Eiffel Tower? Nice renderings and ideas, but they need to be integrated into a *climate protected/controlled* Dome where the space will get used year-round. We don't have CA weather like this architect ;-) The County plan is a good start until there's budget for air conditioning in the future. At least it would be usable 7 months a year, including the Rodeo and OTC.
Wow. This one will break your paradigm. Turns out gentrification actually helps existing residents in a neighborhood more than it hurts them.

Finally, a couple of links related to Houston's identity. First, this local NPR Houston Matters episode on "What Brings People To Houston?" Some great keywords you'll hear in it: opportunity, diversity (and how that spawns the amazing food scene), and a welcoming friendliness (Houspitality!). And then this NY Times piece on "Want to Be Less Racist? Move to Hawaii -The “aloha spirit” may hold a deep lesson for all of us." Again, I think Houspitality is our version of the Aloha Spirit, and something we should definitely hold on to and actively cultivate (starting with Houston drivers! ;-).

Labels: Astrodome, development, identity, land-use regulation, Metro, mobility strategies, perspectives, transportation plan

Monday, January 28, 2019

No-AC Astrodome ok, Houston winning tech jobs, NZ learns from Houston, funding tech startups, and more

My MetroNext op-ed made a big splash last week and got a ton of positive feedback (very much appreciated everyone). Numerous smaller items this week:

On the lack of A/C in the immediate Astrodome renovation plans: It's not as crazy as it sounds. The primary use is the Rodeo and OTC, both in the spring, so good airflow probably adequate until there is a revenue stream to afford a new A/C system.
The 15th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2019 (Rating Middle-Income Housing Affordability) has been released (New Geography coverage here and here). As always, Houston ranks quite well, scoring a 3.7 this year in the ratio of home prices to median incomes.
The New Zealand government report I was interviewed for on creating more competitive urban land markets down there has been released. They may potentially adopt something similar to our MUDs. NZ has a horrendous housing crisis because of lack of development, and hopefully the government will be taking bolder steps to address it through new incentives for private development. Hat tip to Chris.
A good option for Houston? One Way to Finance Tech Startups Outside of Superstar Cities
A great Market Urbanism tweet on Houston:

"The Market Urbanism stance on affordable housing:
Deregulate land. In hot markets, this will lead to rapid construction & price stability. Take Houston: since 2010 it's #2 in population growth, but #1 in permits - maintaining price medians below the US average."

More from the Market Urbanism Report: Why is Austin the most expensive big city in Texas? Home prices are growing higher and faster in Austin than other Texas cities. The cause is regulation.
And one more from MUR: Does adding expensive housing help the little guy? According to our analysis, expensive housing helps not only the little guy but every other income group.
Joel Kotkin discusses how Houston and other affordable cities are actually beating the superstar cities for tech jobs.
Excited to see the potential for MaX Lanes inside the loop on I10.
Excerpt from a New Geography piece on CA vs. "wild west" Texas residential densities:

"But it goes much further. Even the metropolitan areas of Texas have comparatively high residential densities, despite their reputation for urban sprawl. A seminal analysis by the Brookings Institution characterized Texas metropolitan areas as having “an unparalleled openness to growth and development.” Indeed, Brookings named the Texas land use category, “Wild Wild Texas,” noting that “Wild Wild Texas presents the closest thing the United States has to land use deregulation.” This reflects the most market oriented land use regulations in the United States, and as every planner seemingly from Adelaide to Berlin seems to have been taught, “Houston has no zoning.”

In fact, the four largest Texas metropolitan areas, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin each have median lot sizes of from 0.18 acres to 0.25 acres, small or smaller than Philadelphia, Boston or Washington. The market orientation of Texas land and residential development have not resulted in less efficient use of land."

Vision Zero, a ‘Road Diet’ Fad, Is Proving to Be Deadly: Emergency vehicles get stuck on streets that have been narrowed to promote walking and bicycling. To be clear, I support Vision Zero efforts when it's about pragmatic accident reduction at problematic intersections, but not when it's a smokescreen for anti-car efforts shrinking roads, reducing speed limits, and adding speed humps. Excerpt:

"It’s noble to want to make America’s streets as safe as they can be. But government officials shouldn’t impose projects on communities that don’t work, inconvenience residents, hurt businesses and impede emergency responders in the process."

Finally, new County Judge Lina Hidalgo has put out a survey to the public to help set the priorities for her administration. I encourage all my readers to fill it out here.

Labels: affordability, Astrodome, density, development, entrepreneurship, home affordability, land-use regulation, MaX Lanes, mobility strategies, tech

Monday, October 02, 2017

Assessing Houston’s Chances and Suitability for Amazon HQ2

This week we have a guest post from Oscar (Erik) Slotboom analyzing Houston's chances for Amazon HQ2. Chris Tomlinson also weighed in at the Chronicle. And I'll weigh in with my own thoughts at the end, including a silver lining option I think we have a real chance with!

Assessing Houston’s Chances and Suitability for Amazon HQ2

Amazon’s request for proposals by October 19 for its planned second headquarters dubbed HQ2 has unleashed a frenzy of interest across the country. The New York Times has designated Denver as the city to beat, and a leading site candidate in the area is a large tract halfway between Denver and Boulder along highway 36, an office park which curiously was originally developed by Houston’s Phillips 66 to target alternative energy research. Denver’s front-runner status seems justified, since it has the Rocky Mountain high (in more sense than one!) and does not have any fatal flaws which could knock out other likely leading candidates, such as high housing costs and inability to build new housing (Boston, NYC, California), poor business climate and/or government finance (NYC and Chicago), inadequate infrastructure for a 50K workforce (Austin), lack of coolness (Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta), and lack of tech workforce in numerous cities, including Houston. There are plenty of rankings and lists of contenders on the web, and not a single one I’ve seen mentions Houston as a candidate (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

North Texas has been especially interested and eager, with daily press reports of sites that local interests are promoting, including a detailed proposal for Victory Park by Hillwood (Perot’s firm) and Hines, as well as numerous other sites including the planned Texas Central rail station , Reunion arena site, the Valley View mall redevelopment site in North Dallas, the State Fair site at Exposition Park, Plano, and many more. Local interests are submitting up to 50 sites, which are being filtered for one unified submission.

The Houston Business Journal reported that Houston will likely submit a bid. But in contrast to North Texas and other cities, there’s been negligible reporting of HQ2 activity in Houston. Which leads to the questions: how extensive is the local effort, does Houston have a chance, and would HQ2 even be a good fit for Houston?

Amazon’s Requirement

Amazon’s RFP spells out their wishful wish list, and there is no magical place which meets all their desires. So Amazon’s decision will be based on which criteria are most important, and perhaps only Jeff Bezos knows what will drive the decision. And Bezos may already have preferred location(s) in mind and is using this exercise to maximize the incentives to be offered by increasing the sense of competition.

Looking at the RFP, here is the number of lines dedicated to each criteria category:

	Lines in RFP on the subject	Houston’s position
Site and Buildings	50	Probably average or below
Incentives	27	Likely to be less than other big cities
Workforce	17	Below tech hubs
Overall Logistics	14	Good
Sustainability and Environment (mainly site buildings)	12	Depends on the building site
Business Climate	10	Good
Education	8	Average
Quality of Life	8	Average or below
Highways	7	Good (congestion is a factor)
Culture	4	Average or below
Public transit, bikes and pedestrians	4	Below average
Housing	2	Very good

If Amazon’s decision criteria are in proportion to the RFQ space, then issues like public transit, culture, and quality of life may not be as important as numerous press reports have suggested, which would work in Houston’s favor. The facility site, incentives, workforce, and logistics appear to be most important. On the other hand, business climate and housing, Houston’s strengths, are not among top categories in the RFP. Most cities including Houston are going to struggle to meet the real estate requirement, either with downtown sites or ready-to-build suburban sites with around 100 acres. Cities with suitable sites under single ownership will have an advantage.

Houston’s Chances

First things first: will the risk of hurricane disasters and potential major disruption to business operations be a fatal flaw for Houston, especially with Harvey fresh on everyone’s minds? There’s a good chance the answer to that question is yes, especially since Seattle is at risk for a major earthquake, and a near 100% safe location for HQ2 makes sense from the business perspective. But the RFQ makes no mention of operational continuity, so let’s assume we’re still in the running.

Sites: Amazon is open to anything and everything, but ideally wants 500,000+ sf by 2019 with space to expand to 8,000,000 sf, which is equivalent to eight of Hines’ newly built 48 story 1,050,000 sf office tower at 609 Main.While there is plenty of vacant space in Houston, I can’t think of a location which is an ideal match for Amazon, especially given the 2019 deadline for phase 1 space of 500,000 to 1,000,000 sf.

This web post suggests three sites in Houston: 800 Bell (former ExxonMobil office), the 150-acre East River site , and the Astrodome. While 800 Bell is empty and available, it was completed in 1963 and its exterior design screams early 1960s retro, which is probably a negative. Can it be renovated to meet modern standards, everything including LEED standards , trans-gender restrooms and ceiling heights? While the originally planned renovation would have redone the exterior, I’m inclined to think Amazon will want something newer than a 54-year-old building. On the plus side, there are plenty of vacant lots around 800 Bell, and it is downtown, if that’s what Amazon prefers.

I surveyed the East River site last week and I think it is a nonstarter. Approaching it from interstate 10 on Hirsch, you pass through a disadvantaged neighborhood with pre-WW2 housing and vacant lots – definitely not attractive. The east side of the site is bordered by warehouses, and going east along Clinton you’ll find more warehouses, industrial facilities, and a scrap yard. Buffalo Bayou along the site has a large cliff-like dropoff to the water, as well as bulkheads along the water, and is not much of asset in its current state. The north side of the property along Clinton is modern housing, which is not a vibrant urban scene Amazon may be seeking for a downtown location. In addition, there is no site work in progress yet, and the only office building is the old KBR building. I just can’t see Amazon wanting to bring potential recruits to this site, it won’t impress.

The Astrodome may have potential. Harris County has already slated $105 million towards its conversion to a parking garage and event center , and that money could be redirected to an office conversion. Once the Dome is reduced to a shell, you could build multiple levels of offices in a ring around the perimeter inside, potentially getting up to 1 million square feet of offices overlooking the field area, creating one of the most distinctive offices anywhere with myriad possibilities for the center field area and maybe catwalks up high. Somewhat like a smaller version of the Apple headquarters inside a dome. There’s plenty of parking, land for additional buildings is available probably for free since it is publicly owned, and it has good transportation access with the freeway and light rail. On negative side – potentially a show-stopper – is the need to coexist with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which may be possible for a smaller presence but not for a 50,000 person campus.

The former downtown post office site could be a potential candidate for downtown, but may not be large enough and the developer’s current plan would need to be totally redone. Of course there is plenty office space in the Energy Corridor, such as the 1.4 million sf campus Conoco has recently abandoned , but environmentally-oriented Amazon will probably not want to be anywhere near an oil and gas industry cluster. There could be suburban sites readily available in a suburban area like the Woodlands, but the challenge is to deliver 500,000+ sf by 2019 with sufficient space for massive expansion.

In summary, Houston does not appear to have ideal candidates for the site, so we don’t have any advantage in this crucial category.

Incentives: Houston will of course offer something, but most likely it will be much less than others will offer (and rightfully so, since there’s no compelling reason to give away the farm for Amazon, like Wisconsin did for Foxconn). Incentives are unlikely to be an advantage for Houston.

Workforce and Education: We’re going to rank behind tech hubs in the important workforce category, and we’ll probably be in middle of the pack in terms of education. Conclusion: there is no advantage for Houston in these categories.

For education, I can’t help but lament the demise of the proposed University of Texas Data Science Center. This new campus could have been a big plus in Houston’s bid, as well as being a tremendous asset to the region to prepare our workforce for the future. The University of Texas name would have brought prestige and resources that others can’t match. The cancellation due to narrow-minded political interests was a huge loss to Houston. (Disclosure: I’m a Texas Ex.)

Other Factors: For the remaining factors Houston will have advantages in business climate, logistics and housing, but lag behind others in public transit, culture and quality of life (or at least outside perceptions of those -Tory). Overall, no net advantage.

Which brings up a larger, more philosophical issue: are Amazon and Houston a good fit? If Amazon wants to duplicate its Seattle culture, image, and workforce dynamics, probably not. Being in the world’s leading oil and gas center may not be consistent with their values. The high-growth Seattle tech scene is a totally different workforce dynamic with abundant tech workers and high churn. Amazon is notorious for its high turnover rate. Houston’s lack of rival tech employers would provide a more staid, subdued employment scene.

Wildcards for Houston which could put us in play

Diversity: Page 5 of the RFQ calls for the “presence and support of a diverse population”. Houston would probably rank #1 among all contenders in this category, both domestically and in terms of immigrants. With the increased scrutiny of workforce diversity and inclusion in the tech industry, Houston would be a much better place to recruit black and Hispanic workers than Denver, Boston, and Austin, and certainly at least as good as any other place.

Sites and Building: Page 2 states that Amazon has a preference for “communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options”. As mentioned above, an office in the Astrodome would be highly unique and something that no other city can duplicate, and likely very attractive to millennials due to the coolness factor. But that’s only if the Astrodome is in play for Houston’s proposal.

Health Care: Does Amazon have any future aspirations of being in the health care industry beyond prescriptions? If yes, the Texas Medical Center workforce and strong medical education system is among the best in the country.

The scuttled University of Texas data science center: Can this project be resurrected as part of Houston’s proposal? It seems unlikely in the short time before the Amazon deadline, but if it can be resurrected it would be very helpful in closing the education gap.

Jeff Bezos Houston connection: He attended elementary school in Houston at River Oaks Elementary from fourth through sixth grade. Does he have fond memories of Houston, or does he prefer to avoid Houston?

Downtown Freeway plans: The $4 billion plan to rebuild and expand Houston’s downtown freeways to relieve congestion is expected to move forward in the 2020s. Most or all competing cities except Dallas have nothing in the works even remotely this ambitious for center-city highway infrastructure. Will Amazon view this as a plus?

Airports (Tory addition): fantastic nonstop air access to all of the Americas, if they want to drive an international expansion across Latin America.

Verdict

The chances of Houston being selected seem very unlikely due to our lack of strength in the key categories. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, since Amazon is probably not a good fit for Houston.

Just about every city with at least 1 million in population will submit a bid. For most cities (including Houston), this isn’t about winning, but it is about showing what you have to offer, and also that partnerships with Amazon are desired and valued. Amazon will continue to need distribution sites and regional offices, and here’s a chance to show Amazon our strengths, so when they need that next logistics facility, they’ll know we’re a good place to do business. So, assuming that Houston will submit a bid, the Greater Houston Partnership should be sure to highlight our strengths in logistics and transportation.

Amazon’s RFP says the final site selection and announcement will be in 2018. And North Texas should calm down and not get overexcited. Most likely, they’ll also be on the losing end.

Tory Commentary

In general, I pretty much agree with Oscar. I also think there's a more fundamental issue, which is that Amazon doesn't want to compete with the high-paying energy industry for local talent (especially if there's another oil boom!), nor does the energy industry want Amazon poaching their hard-recruited talent, especially technical talent. I just don't think there's much appetite here for Amazon, and the feeling is probably mutual.

Also, I think Amazon wants to be the "big fish in a small pond" (or maybe 'modest lake' for sufficient scale) wherever they go, with dominant influence (think Mercedes or Airbus in Alabama or BMW or Boeing in South Carolina), and that just wouldn't be the case in Houston with so many major Fortune 500 corporations here. They certainly would be in Denver though, and I agree with the NYTimes it's the most likely winner if they put a competitive incentive package together.

The silver lining: The most interesting wild card from Oscar's analysis is the UT data science center: if somehow those became synergistic campuses (maybe using the Astrodome or old Astroworld land?), it would certainly be a major differentiator vs. other cities. Even if we didn't win the HQ2, they may circle back for a major secondary office (data science + Americas intl HQ?)... a consolation prize worth shooting for?

UPDATE just added some new thoughts on the Astrodome option here.
UPDATE 2: Big Houston proposal at Generation Park.

Labels: Astrodome, companies, economic strategy, education, headquarters, perspectives

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Delay renovating NRG, don't incentivize local movies, USA rail beats Europe, Astrodome, anti-zoning PSA, visualizing our density, good gentrification, and more

Quite the backlog of items to get through this week:

Why do we want to incentivize movies to be filmed here? Not only is it a waste of taxpayer dollars (Hollywood goes with whoever gives them the most money), incentive movies I've seen out of Atlanta and NOLA make those cities look like crime-infested war zones! Why would we want to give the same image to Houston?! Or any Texas city?
Good suggestion from Purple City on encouraging raised floor homes to open up more land for rain absorption and reduce runoff and flooding.
A compelling argument for why America does rail better and far more efficiently than Europe
Hilarious! “Talk to Your Friends About Zoning”: A PSA Campaign for the NIMBY in Your Life
The Astrodome Conservancy has big plans for activating it! "Sports, sculptures, stargazing: What could be in store for the Astrodome"
Speaking of the Astrodome, a great argument for saving it!
Companies fleeing California look at Arizona and Texas. Hat tip to Sheila.
NY Post extolls Houston's restaurant scene, with consolations to Austin.
The infographic is too large to embed here, but check out visualizations of Houston's population density showing how big we would be if we had other cities' densities, from as low as 21.3 sq.miles if we had Manila density to 13,121 sq.miles if we were the same as Anchorage! (vs. our actual city size of 599 sq.miles) And note that we are more dense than both Austin and Dallas - thank you, no-zoning.
The Atlantic: In Defense of Gentrification. Turns out it actually has good effects on the residents living there.

"While the gentrification narrative (having rich neighbors makes life harder for poor people) is common, news stories seldom promote the narrative of concentrated poverty (having mostly poor neighbors makes life harder for the poor), which is both more prevalent and demonstrably more harmful."

Finally, Houston beats Dallas handily for Super Bowl hosting, but we're still not likely to get it again anytime soon. There's just too much new/renovated stadium competition out there. In fact, despite their last disaster, Dallas is likely to get it again before we do because of their palatial $1B stadium. Other cities in the pipeline include Atlanta, Minneapolis, Miami, NOLA, Phoenix, and a $2 billion behemoth being built in LA (count on at least two Super Bowls there after it's built). If we're going to renovate NRG to make another run at a Super Bowl, it sounds like we need to wait at least half a decade or more for the NFL's hosting backlog to clear out before doing it. Why invest a ton in NRG now when the upgrades may already be out of date by the time our next potential Super Bowl slot opens up??

Labels: Astrodome, density, development, economy, rail, sports, stadiums, zoning

Sunday, October 16, 2016

New GHP Tower, Houston attracting talent as a knowledge capital, saving the Astrodome, and more

This week I was able to attend the media preview of the Greater Houston Partnership's new tower and offices next to the GRB. It is an amazingly well-designed space that will be fantastic for hosting outside visitors and promoting economic development. I took my own pictures, but the Chronicle pictures here are better if you want to check it out, or the Twitter feed pics of the event here.

Moving on to this week's items:

Following up on my last post about Houston's lack of zoning being held up as a model nationally, Strong Towns has a good piece on the President's attack on zoning and housing restrictions. I don't always agree with Strong Towns, but they've got some good points here, most of which we do, but a few we could learn from (like taxing vacant land higher and requiring less off-street parking).
Houston/Harris County #3 for talent attraction behind Austin and SF/SV! A pretty impressive showing indeed. And some surprising names at the bottom of the list as well: NYC Manhattan, DC, Philly, and Chicago.
In spite of the oil industry downturn, Houston's GDP still exceeds $500 billion and outranks Dallas-Fort Worth for #4 in the nation (hat tip to Patrick)
Brookings ranks Houston as a Knowledge Capital, but not quite yet a Global Giant. From Kinder:

"Among knowledge capitals, Houston had some of the strongest economic indicators, including its GDP per capita and GDP growth between 2000 and 2015. Its trade, air passenger traffic and research profile also scored well.

Overall, Houston ranked third of the 19 knowledge capitals, behind Chicago and Dallas. Houston actually out-performed Dallas in all but four categories: venture capital per capita, educational attainment, overall metropolitan area population and air passenger traffic.

But there’s room to improve. Houston actually ranked lowest of all 19 knowledge capital cities when it comes to educational attainment, and in the bottom three for venture capital investment.

But as Houston continues to grow, these rankings may not hold. Houston is already on track to surpass Chicago’s population. And the University of Texas has eyed an expansion in Houston, adding to its university scene. The Texas Medical Center continues to add jobs and boost the city’s research potential. And a planned — if delayed - new terminal at Bush International Airport promises to bring more air traffic to the region."

The Lone Star State ranks sixth in the nation for charitable giving, higher than any other large state.
Hurray for the new Astrodome plan which recently passed commissioners court. Just to clarify, folks, it's *not* just a parking garage, but an event venue for conventions, festivals, OTC, Texan games, and the Rodeo that happens to be using a paid parking garage as a revenue-generating way to raise the floor 30 ft. to ground level.

Finally, I wanted to pass along this intriguing and thought-provoking quote Barry sent me. I love it!

"WE WILL NEVER FIX GOVERNMENT UNTIL WE ABANDON THE CENTRAL PLANNING MODEL OF REGULATION. We must return to the Framer’s conception of a “Republic” in which officials act on their best judgment and are accountable for how they do. Of course law is vital—to set goals and governing principles, and hierarchies of accountability, and, sometimes specific rules, as with pollution limits. But when law tries to supplant human judgment, it fails. Life is too complicated to be governed by dense rulebooks. That’s the core flaw of modern government. Law can’t think. People on the spot must take responsibility to do what they think is right, and be accountable for how they do. Talking about “better management” and “less red tape” and “new systems” will do nothing without human authority to make necessary choices. What reformers need to talk about is putting humans in charge again."

Labels: Astrodome, economy, land-use regulation, philanthropy, planning, rankings, talent, world city, zoning

Monday, August 22, 2016

Zoning shrinks the economy, TX cities as people, Astrodome, appreciating townhomes, helping homeless, and more

Lots of smaller items this week:

A cool video proposal for what to do with the Astrodome. The proposal is to strip it to its frame as a park for events. Great visuals. An Eiffel Tower for Houston. That is somewhat appealing, but I hate to give up the potential enclosed, air-conditioned, climate-protected space, especially given Houston's harsh weather. Couldn't it be a park and events space while staying enclosed? And I think that's the county's current concept/plan. Then there'd be a place we could hold events and festivals in the summer and winter, instead of just the spring and fall.

Speaking of the Astrodome, Jim Gast's excellent presentation on its history has finally been video recorded for the UH archives. He wrote the book, too. Highly recommended.
Light rail is turning obsolete very quickly. Excerpt:

"Bryan Mistele, the CEO of traffic tracker Inrix, argues in the Seattle Times that proposed new light-rail lines will be “obsolete before they are built.” Specifically, he says, automated, connected, electric, and shared vehicles–which he abbreviates as ACES–are already changing how people travel, and those changes are accelerating.

Sound Transit, Seattle’s regional rail transit agency, wants voters to approve a $54 billion ballot measure this November for more light rail. This, Mistele points out, is more than twice the cost of the Panama Canal expansion, yet isn’t likely to produce any significant benefits."

$54 *billion* (!!). Wow - that's a lot of money for what will soon be a very large white elephant. Thank goodness Houston METRO isn't trying to jump off a similar cliff...

So what makes sense for transit instead of rail? The future is self-driving vehicles:

"Cashman’s argument is that self-driving cars won’t be “affordable,” while public transit is. Excuse me? In 2014, American transit agencies spent $59 billion to move people 57 billion passenger miles (see page 106). That’s more than a dollar per passenger mile.

All spending on cars and driving, meanwhile, amounted to $1.1 billion (add lines 54, 57, and 116 of table 2.5.5). Highway subsidies in 2014 were about $45 billion (subtract gas tax diversions to transit and non-highway purposes from “other taxes and fees”). For that cost, Americans drove 2.7 trillion vehicle miles in light-duty vehicles. At an average occupancy of 1.67 people per vehicle (see table 16), that’s 4.5 trillion passenger miles, which works out to an average cost of 26 cents a passenger mile.

In other words, transit is only “affordable” because three-fourths of the cost is subsidized, while less than 4 percent of the cost of driving is subsidized. I’m in favor of ending both subsidies, but someone has to pay those costs; when adding them in, driving is four times more affordable than transit."

The Houston Townhouse: An Appreciation, by an LA-based journalist. Chronicle story.

"Whatever they look like, townhouses increase the housing supply in a relatively low-impact way. They can help keep Houston affordable while its coastal rivals commit economic suicide."

Shofur looks like a pretty awesome new inter-city bus service for Texas. Love the Uber-like interface.
How land-use regulations are zoning out low-income families. Wow, really good stuff from Brookings, including this painful tidbit I’ve been wondering about for a while:

“...a study published last year by Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti which estimates that the U.S. economy is 14 percent smaller as a result of constraints on housing development.”

Houston should do this! Day job projects for the homeless.

Finally, a little humor from George Rogers, who recently visited Houston from Chicago:

If Texas cities were people
Collin County (North Dallas): A Dad trying to be cool.
Austin: A Hipster trying to be cool. Lives at Urban Outfitters.
Fort Worth: Urban Cowboy.
San Antonio: Fort Worth's tejano buddy.
Houston: A nerdy kid that doesn't care about being cool.
Dallas: A dudebro that blows money at Neiman Marcus.
El Paso: Isn't that in New Mexico?

Dallas: I'm cool because I blew 500 dollars at Neiman Marcus.
Austin: I'm cool because I blew 500 dollars at Urban Outfitters.
Houston: What is cool anyways?

Labels: Astrodome, autonomous vehicles, density, development, land-use regulation, Metro, mobility strategies, rail, transit, zoning

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Replacing firefighters, Astrodome "ruin porn", Katy expansion vs. wasteful rail, and more

This week's items:

I heartily second the Chronicle's call for rethinking how many firefighters - and their expensive pensions - the city needs to support:

"Fire departments as people once knew them no longer exist. Most of a modern fire department's duties don't actually involve fighting fires. The number of fires across the nation was cut in half from 1980 to 2013, according to the National Fire Protection Association. New building codes, sprinkler systems, smoke detectors, flame-retardant materials and all sorts of laws and innovations have made our lives safer. Vehicle fires were cut by 64 percent and building fires declined 54 percent over that time. Yet while the number of fires have fallen, the number of people paid to fight them has grown by 50 percent.

It isn't as if fire stations don't get calls anymore. In fact, the total number of calls tripled over that three-decade stretch. But people need help with problems that can't be solved by a ladder and hose. Medical emergency calls have quadrupled. About 85 percent of the Houston Fire Department's calls are for emergency medical services.

Other cities have responded to these changing priorities by shifting resources where they're needed the most. Toronto has stopped sending firetrucks to medical emergencies and its budget writers have pushed for cutting fire stations while adding paramedics. That plan follows the advice of a 2013 study out of Portland State University's Center for Public Service, which identified replacing firetrucks with ambulances or other rapid response vehicles as a way to meet medical needs while cutting costs."

I liked this excerpt on the nature of Houston from Gray Matters at the Houston Chronicle:

“This is the genius of this place. Houston will always be shambolic and stretched and not quite finished. We will never be the most beautiful city, or the most pedestrian-friendly city, or the most efficiently planned city: The heat and soul-sapping humidity, our adolescent fascination with cars and speed and shiny things, our perpetual craving for something new, all conspire against our best civic aspirations. Houston is a place to start over, and we do starting over better than any other city on the planet.”

Kinder has an interesting idea for the Astrodome, although I think it makes more sense as a temporary use until a more complete revamp/reuse plan can come together: To Capitalize On Astrodome, Houston Should Consider Embracing “Ruin Porn”
Joel Kotkin on Where American Families Are Moving. Hint: Houston does pretty well.
Urban residents aren’t abandoning buses; buses are abandoning them. Houston is one of the worst near the bottom left of the second chart with a 38% decrease in ridership from a 20% decrease in service since 2000. Hopefully the new bus network will turn those numbers around (and early evidence seems to be pointing that direction). Hat tip to Bill. Excerpt:

"...there are serious equity issues with shifting resources from bus to rail – again, not because of anything inherent to those technologies, but simply because of who happens to use them in modern American cities. In most cases, shifting funding from bus to rail means shifting funding from services disproportionately used by lower-income people to ones with with a stronger middle- and upper-middle-class constituency. And while transit ought to be viewed as much more than just a service for the poor, we can’t ignore the equity impacts of transit policy.

In light of all this, we have to stop talking about America’s bus woes as a ridership problem. All the evidence suggests that when service is strong, and buses are a reliable way to get to work, school, or the grocery store, people will take them. Instead, the problem is that fewer and fewer people have access to that kind of strong bus line. If we care about ridership, we need to restore and enhance the kind of transit services that people can rely on."

Which leads directly to this next item, where two big rail projects made the top 20 list of biggest wastes of money in history:

"No. 6 – Denver FasTracks, Denver, Colo.
How Much Has Been Spent: $5.5 billion
Why It's a Boondoggle: In 2004, voters approved the funding of 122 miles of commuter rail tracks and 57 new stations. It was supposed to be the largest rail expansion project in America, however enough funding to finish the project isn't available and might not be until 2040. Instead of asking for more money, the project was scaled back.

And…

No. 1 – California High-Speed Rail, Southern California
How Much Has Been Spent: $68 billion
Why It's a Boondoggle: A bullet train could greatly reduce Southern California's notoriously bad traffic. Construction on the first 29-mile segment began in early 2015, a full seven years after voters approved funding, but by then the projected $33 billion cost had more than doubled. Only a little more than a third of total funding has been accounted for and some opponents already are trying to get the project killed altogether."

Finally, I've gotta call BS on this assertion that the Katy freeway expansions was a mistake. The project was finished in 2009, so the graph doesn't include pre-construction congestion. And we just went through the biggest economic boom this city has ever seen - can you imagine what the traffic would look like *without* the widening? It would be even more insane - like Austin on steroids. On top of that, without that widening, I think many of the big oil and gas employers would have given up on the city and gone out to Sugar Land, Katy, and The Woodlands rather than the Energy Corridor, Uptown, or Downtown. That freeway moves way, way more people than it did before as well as offering the congestion tolled lanes which didn't exist before. Bottom line: the government invested in a piece of infrastructure that has proven extremely popular and highly utilized - isn't that what we want from government investments of tax dollars? Let me ask you this: if we had a popular park, and expanded and upgraded it to make it even more popular, would we all complain that the expanded park "induced demand" and shouldn't have been expanded? Absolutely not - that would be absurd. Transportation infrastructure is no different.

Labels: Astrodome, commuter rail, growth, high-speed rail, identity, mobility strategies, rail, transit

Sunday, April 26, 2015

ULI finally respects Houston, better federal transit funding, growth, rankings, New Zealand, and more

Lots of big news this week about TXDoT's proposed expansion and revamping of I45N, including eliminating the Pierce Elevated downtown, but I'm going to hold off posting about it until I get a chance to go to the Tuesday public meeting information session. Instead let's clear out some smaller misc items this week:

ULI writes a positive article about Houston! (who would have predicted?) I think planner attitudes are starting to turn our way as they see how vibrant and diverse our open approach is. Goes into detail about Houston’s approach to land-use regulation. Whenever you hear criticisms of the "Houston way" of development, send them this article. Hat tip to Josh.

“Proponents of “the Houston way” argue that its combination of patchwork regulation and local control provides valuable flexibility to respond quickly to market shifts and reduces costs for developers, while still protecting neighborhoods’ character and ensuring quality in the built environment.”

The Texas Renaissance Festival outside of Houston has been ranked the nation's #1 cultural festival by USA Today, even beating out Mardi Gras in New Orleans!
GHP released their new April Economy at a Glance report with a deep analysis of Houston's population growth over history and where we've ranked over time as well as job and airport growth updates.
Speaking of airport growth, the Wall Street Journal did a good article on the expansion of international flying from Houston. The newest example is that Air New Zealand is coming to Houston! A big international feather in the cap for Houston. It will allow easy routings between ANZ and the eastern and southern U.S. as well as parts of Latin America and the Caribbean. So with this Air New Zealand flight Houston is one of five cities in the world connected to all continents except Antarctica (treating ANZ as one continental region), and the only one in the U.S.! (if you're wondering how that's possible, it's because the other U.S. cities with flights to Australia or New Zealand - LA, SF, DFW - don't have flights to Africa, and we do)
St. Louis is putting us to shame with how they treasure and invest in their Arch vs. our treatment of the Astrodome.
Fascinating article at TechCrunch considering the second and third order effects of self-driving autonomous vehicles. It's going to be a brave new world out there...
Not exactly news, but this analysis re-confirms Texas has a low tax burden compared to other states.
Houston ranked #4 on the 2015 Metropolitan Tech-STEM Growth Index behind Austin, Raleigh, and San Jose (Silicon Valley).

"Some of the others in our top 10 are not as renowned as tech centers, but have experienced rapid growth over the past decade. The biggest surprise may be No. 4 Houston, which enjoyed a 42.3% expansion of jobs in tech industries and a big 37.8% boost in STEM jobs from 2004-14. Much of the growth was in the now sputtering energy industry, but also medical-related technology, which continues to grow rapidly. Houston is the home to the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest concentration of medical facilities. It also ranks second to San Jose in engineers per capita."

Finally, Randal O' Toole at Cato has a great idea for a better way to allocate federal transit funding - more equitable with fewer rail boondoggles. It might actually get traction in the Republican Congress. Full report here.

Labels: Astrodome, autonomous vehicles, aviation, deed restrictions, economy, growth, land-use regulation, planning, rankings, taxes, transit

Sunday, April 05, 2015

New life for the Astrodome at 50, everybody's coming to Texas, our openness to new ideas, the rise of private transit, and more

Hope you enjoyed last week's April Fools post - quite the backlog of items to get to this week:

The ULI released their full report on a future for the Astrodome (Chronicle story, City Lab story). I've discussed it here before and am a big fan - I hope Judge Emmett and the County Commissioners can get traction with it. Interesting side note: this picture of the UH-UCLA "game of the century" at the Chronicle story was taken just a few steps from where my parents watched the game! They said the players looked like ants from that distance...
Lisa Falkenberg at the Chronicle adds her two cents on the plan, saying we need to think big: Let's face the Astrodome's future like we did its inception
Speaking of the Astrodome, the 50th birthday party is this Thursday (Chronicle story), including the opportunity to walk on the floor of the dome and gaze up at that amazing ceiling. I hope the 50th birthday celebration is an energetic spark to add some momentum to the new ULI plan.

"Nearly 48,000 people – including President Lyndon B. Johnson – crammed into the glistening new Astrodome on April 9, 1965, to watch the New York Yankees fall 2-1 to the newly renamed Houston Astros."

The Chronicle's story on the 50th anniversary of the Astrodome.
Houston metro area #1 for growth during 2013-14 according to new census data with a 156,371 gain. We are now at 6.5 million in the metro. New Geography breaks it down nationally, and Patrick breaks it down locally over at the GHP:

"Another way to look at population growth in Houston last year:
A baby was born every 5.5 minutes.
A death was recorded every 14.2 minutes.
Someone moved to the region from overseas every 16.3 minutes.
Someone moved to Houston from elsewhere in the U.S. every 8.0 minutes.
All told, Houston's population grew at the rate of one new resident every 3.4 minutes last year."

Congrats to METRO board member Christof Spieler on his impressive profile in Houstonia Magazine. I thought the ending was especially awesome:

"“To be able to say I can make tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people’s lives better every day, that’s meaningful. That’s what actually matters.”

Spieler grew up in the San Francisco suburbs, he told us, before moving to Houston for college. “I thought Houston was an awful place, but I would put up with it to go to Rice. But by the time I graduated I loved this place.” Our attraction? An openness to new ideas.

“There are cities which try really hard to block any change. And politically, the questions you get asked are: how long have you lived here? Who were your parents? Who do you know? I never would have ended up on an appointed transit board in a city like San Francisco. This is a city where, if you have good ideas and you’re willing to push for them, people will listen to you. It gives me endless hope for Houston’s ability to keep changing.”"

Speaking of good transit, excellent free market transit solutions are popping up all over San Francisco. I'd love to see this happen in Houston and for METRO to encourage it... Hat tip to Mihir.
David Brooks' recent NYT column on the level playing field in the 2016 presidential election gave us this shout out:

"When many of these voters think of economic dynamism, they think of places like Texas, the top job producer in the nation over the past decade, and, especially, places like Houston, a low-regulation, low-cost-of-living place. In places like Wisconsin, voters in the middle class private sector support candidates who cut state pensions and pass right-to-work laws, so that economic governance can be more Texas-style."

The Atlantic says "Americans Love Big Hot Suburbs - Everybody's moving to Texas." Cool graph of migration by average January temperature - can you guess the correlation? Best excerpt:

"If you pretend that the United States is populated exclusively by twentysomething graduates of national research universities, you'll develop the sense that everybody is moving to the city centers of New York, Chicago, San Jose, and Boston. In fact, all three of those metro areas have seen more Americans leaving than coming in the last five years. The cities with the highest levels of net domestic migration since 2010 are Houston, Dallas, Austin, Phoenix, Denver, and San Antonio. Once again, we're talking about Texas. More broadly, we're talking about sprawly metros with fast-growing suburbs in the Sun Belt."

Labels: Astrodome, census, economy, growth, identity, Metro, transit

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Avoiding CA's mistakes, Astrodome talk, great rankings, cool H-town video, and more

Let's kick off this week's post with an event announcement: if you have even the slightest interest in the Astrodome, don't miss Jim Gast's talk this Thursday. I saw him speak at Rice, and he has a really compelling mix of great slides and stories of the Astrodome's history - so good I suggested he get it turned into a documentary. As an added bonus, he'll sign a copy of his Astrodome book ("The Astrodome: Building an American Spectacle - A book about the people, technology, and times that built the biggest room in the world") for you. Not to be missed. Details here.

In other news, our new Center for Opportunity Urbanism think tank had an incredible inaugural luncheon event last week, with over 200 in attendance (!) and yours truly got some nice pics and quotes on the front page of the Chronicle. California land use attorney David Friedman gave a scary talk about how environmental good intentions went awry in California starting in the 1970s and, combined with judicial activism, led to complete development and infrastructure stagnation as well as a gutting of the middle class there (housing and jobs). You can see his slides here. A cautionary tale for Houston and Texas.

Other misc items this week:

The Economist magazine profiles Houston. Excerpt:

"Paradoxically, perhaps the city’s biggest strength is its sprawl. Unlike most other big cities in America, Houston has no zoning code, so it is quick to respond to demand for housing and office space. Last year authorities in the Houston metropolitan area, with a population of 6.2m, issued permits to build 64,000 homes. The entire state of California, with a population of 39m, issued just 83,000... Joel Kotkin of Chapman University in California argues that thanks to cars, even over its vast size, Houston creates the same possibilities for people to meet and share ideas that generate wealth in denser cities such as New York. Sprawl may not be pretty—but it seems to work."

Texas one of the happiest states in America: Makes a huge jump in new national rankings
GHP's March at a Glance report is out with updates on job growth, energy, and construction.
Houston ranked the #1 Best City for Foodies by Travel+Leisure
YardMap, a crowdsourced mapping project for your yard and bird habitats. Hat tip to John.
Houston #2 (behind Chicago) and Texas #1 for corporate relocations and expansions. We've been #1 or #2 every year since 2011. Houston had 265 new or expanded facilities.
A glowing piece on Houston in Forbes, with a powerhouse recounting of all our accolades over the last few years. Too many highlights to excerpt - read the whole thing: "Welcome To Houston, Texas - Still America's Economic Miracle"
Houston #9 on Brooking's list of top advanced industry hotspots, but we're #2 behind DC in total numbers (#3 if you merge SF and San Jose).
Forbes ranks Houston America's fastest growing city. Good opening paragraphs about us, and then these factoids:

"Since 2009 the area has welcomed some 1,500 corporate relocations or expansions—and that’s just counting those that created 50 or more jobs, leased 20,000 or more square feet of office space, or invested $1 million or more in capital improvements.
...
In the past four years, greater Houston grew by half a million people—half from moves, half from births. Population growth means housing demand, and realtors sold more than 425,000 homes in the last five years, amounting to a home-closing rate of one every six minutes, according to the Greater Houston Partnership. What’s more, jobs boost construction, which is why last year Houston topped our list of Building Boom Towns: metro areas with the most new construction.

What’s behind the boom, besides the obvious oil explosion? Exports. Between 2009 and 2013, the value of Houston’s exports grew 74.5%. More than 3,000 companies in greater Houston do business internationally, by Jankowski’s count, from oilfield services giant Schlumberger to Universe Technical Translation. The metro area is now the nation’s top exporter, ahead of New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Detroit. "

Finally I'd like to end with this really well done short promotional video of Houston by the GHP. It'll make you proud to be a Houstonian (you can make it a more impressive full screen size with a click on the lower right corner brackets).

Labels: Astrodome, dining, economy, environment, growth, history, land-use regulation, opportunity urbanism, quality of place, rankings