Bloomberg CityLab: The Questionable Economics of the 15-Minute City - The goals of this trendy urban planning model are laudable, but cities need to be realistic about their ability to place retail, services and jobs close to all residents. Excerpts:
"The economics of the 15-minute city don’t really work...
What hasn’t been said is that the economics of 15-minute city planning go against foundational principles of how urban markets function....
Employment markets are even less localized. The very raison d’etre of cities is as a vehicle for labor pooling and sharing — this cannot happen effectively at the neighborhood scale. Setting up an expectation where people live within 15 minutes of their place of work will at best result in bad matches between workers and jobs, and at worst no matches."
Arpit Gupta's "Contra Strong Towns" critique focuses on challenging the Strong Towns movement's assertion that suburban growth operates as a "Ponzi scheme." Gupta argues that the evidence does not support the claim that suburban development is inherently financially unsustainable. He emphasizes the need for rigorous accounting and empirical data to substantiate such arguments, which he finds lacking in Strong Towns' narrative. Hat tip to Zoabe.
Antiplanner: "But today’s density policies depress fertility rates and the anti-immigration movement make it more difficult to compensate for those policies. Fortunately, some are getting the message that “maybe we should rethink” YIMBYism."
Twitter: "There's a growing consensus on YIMBY Twitter that we need to build a lot of new high density housing in the biggest cities. Maybe we should rethink that idea." Or go with the Houston free-market model: allow lots of high-density housing in the core for those that want it (typically non-families) as well as plenty of low-density suburban housing for those that prefer that (typically families). Best of both worlds.
METRO $ needs to support higher City priorities, dropping fertility rates, updated home affordability, better bike safety, and tragic land-regulation consequences in Maui
Summer blog break is over and I'm back! Quite a few backlogged items:
Research shows that higher population densities mean lower fertility rates. High housing prices also lead to lower fertility rates. Further research shows that “living in spacious housing and in a family-friendly environment for a relatively long time leads to higher fertility.”
In short, if you think that preventing demographic collapse is a good thing, then this becomes one more reason to oppose planners who want to densify American cities. Planners’ efforts to force more people to live in apartments or smaller homes by making housing artificially expensive could be the downfall of the American economy.
2023 Demographia US Housing Housing Affordability Study released. Houston is worsening but still better than most of the country, and I think our home price-to-income ratio may be temporarily skewed upward. With high mortgage rates, I think more of the middle and working class are out of the market, so recent sales skew wealthier (not to mention they make up more of the remote/hybrid work employees willing to upgrade moving farther out) – people who might be selling an existing home and paying cash for a new one (or at least a very substantial down payment). This would skew the home price-to-income ratio to make Houston look more unaffordable than it really is.
Tragic unintended consequences: Hawaii restrictive land-use law -> reduced housing supply -> skyrocketing prices -> drives away farm labor -> farms bankrupted with flammable grasses left behind instead of fire-resistant native or agricultural plants -> deadly fires in Maui.
Rather than create an illusion of safety with bike lanes that increase congestion, bicycle advocates should focus on programs, such as improved intersection designs, that actually do make bicycling safer without necessarily hampering auto driving. Unfortunately, too many city planners and bicycle groups are stuck in the “automobiles are evil” mentality and anything that hurts autos is regarded as a win for bicycles even if it results in more bicycle riders being injured or killed.
More on METRO's Uptown BRT failure, wealth moving south, forensics reality, TX beating CA on homelessness, and more
A few smaller items this week:
More on Houston's BRT Failure with the Uptown Silver Line. Yet they're just going to pretend it didn't happen and plow ahead with the $1.5B Universities BRT line reducing Richmond to one lane each direction?!? 😠
"A Houston bus rapid transit route over dedicated bus lanes is attracting less than 10 percent of the riders that were projected for it. The Silver Line opened in August 2020 with the expectation that it would carry 14,850 weekday riders, but in fact it is carrying less than 900 riders per weekday, about 6 percent of projections...
One reason why ridership is low is that the line is slow. Schedules say that it takes 27 minutes to go 4.7 miles, which is an average of 10.4 miles per hour. The city’s regular local buses go much faster than that. Metro must have missed the memo that setting aside dedicated lanes to bus rapid transit is supposed to make the buses go faster, not slower.
This is just another example of why transit agencies shouldn’t spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on fixed transit infrastructure. No one can accurately foresee future transportation patterns, so relying on forms of transit that can be kept flexible — meaning buses sharing lanes with other traffic — is the safest and most cost-effective way to go."
"In the last decade, the number of people who are homeless in California has soared, rising more than 40%. Meanwhile, in Texas, they're seeing the opposite trend, with homelessness dropping by nearly a third."
“The numbers tell the story. For the first time, six fast-growing states in the South — Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee — are contributing more to the national GDP than the Northeast, with its Washington-New York-Boston corridor, in government figures going back to the 1990s. The switch happened during the pandemic and shows no signs of reverting.”
"Jews and Israelis who may feel uncomfortable at the rise of anti-Semitic sentiments among those in New York and California might find solace in states like Texas. Despite rising attacks and hate crimes on both sides of the American coast, the Lone Star State has remained unabashedly pro-Israel and open to business for those looking to relocate or expand their companies.
“People just love Israel here,” explained Toba Hellerstein, Executive Director of the Texas-Israel Alliance. “They just love Israelis, love Israel, and Israelis will come here and feel like they're rockstars… There is a real romanticism, whereas in other states you have some ideas around Israeli startups and also have political reasons that make them less interested in working with Israel, in Texas you don’t have that.”
"The urban form has shifted throughout history. This has been critical to its success. Today we are on the cusp of another transition, ushered in by new technologies and changing demographics, and accelerated by a devastating pandemic. Although these forces affect all geographies, the best chance of success and growth lies in what we define as The Next American City.
This newly released report from Urban Reform Institute examines the places that offer opportunity for a revitalized American Dream for more citizens.
The Next American City offers an answer to the problem plaguing those living in and around major cities. Offering a combination of affordability, amenities, and proximity to the large cities, but without the burdensome, heavy-handed regulations of local government or many of the social ills running rampant in our cities, these places – like The Woodlands and Bridgeland – are quickly shaping up to be the urban destinations of the future."
“The Urban Reform Institute, which advocates for market-oriented city planning, recently argued that the new models for American city living are developer-designed suburb and exurb communities such as The Woodlands, Bridgeland and Cinco Ranch, and there are a lot of reasons to suggest they are right. Development ever outward will almost certainly continue, particularly in Houston where there are no constraints and plenty of land.
Adding to the expectation for further suburban expansion are the evolving norms around remote/hybrid work, meaning long commutes will be less of a drawback for some workers. Looking even further forward, technologies such as autonomous vehicles could actually encourage more sprawl, which researchers are beginning to anticipate.
The pandemic certainly accelerated this trend. Based on our estimates from USPS data, tens of thousands more Houstonians left the city than moved here in 2020, and most of the move-outs stayed in the metro area, opting to live in one of the suburbs instead.”
Houston No. 1 in U.S. for home sales in master-planned communities, says survey: "According to a survey by real estate consulting firm RCLCO, 20% of the country’s 50 top-selling master-planned communities last year are in the Houston metro area. In that category, Houston ranks first among all of the metro areas represented on the list"
Great analysis from Kinder on Houston ADUs. Reducing barriers to more is great, but they will always have a hard time competing with the amenities and scale of Houston's super-competitive apartment market.
Bloomberg: The Global Housing Market Is Broken, and It’s Dividing Entire Countries - The dream of owning a home is increasingly out of reach. Democratic and authoritarian governments alike are struggling with the consequences. I've been arguing this for a long time: government housing constraints are popular with voters in the short-term, but come back to haunt cities long-term, which is why Houston's lack of zoning and open housing market is so important and is a critical long-term competitive advantage.
Protecting residents from dangerous industrial businesses, reducing crime, street parking for mixed-use retail, and rethinking Vision Zero
This week we have a special edition of Houston Strategies focused on... specific strategies for Houston (;-). The specific topics are protecting residents from dangerous industrial businesses, reducing crime, street parking for mixed-use retail businesses, and rethinking Vision Zero plans.
First, Judah passed along this story on zoning (or lack of it) coming up again in Houston since the warehouse explosion on the westside. My simple observation is that we don't need zoning to address this problem. If we have laws about minimum distances between adult business or liquor stores and schools+churches, we could certainly do the same for certain kinds of hazardous industrial businesses without adding zoning. More on this at blogHouston.
As far as reducing crime, the Houston police need to be all over using NextDoor as an intel source for neighborhood crimes. It could make a huge difference in reducing all sorts of minor (and not-so-minor) crimes in the neighborhoods.
“I’m so sick of Midtown,” Masson says. “The biggest issue is parking. Even though there is a humongous parking garage behind the bakery, no one knows it’s there. No one takes the time to look for it. They drive by, they don’t see a parking spot, they don’t pull over.”
I posted this to the Market Urbanism Report Facebook group and it generated a huge debate in the comments. While mixed-use sit-down restaurants seem to do well (people are willing to hunt for parking if they're staying a couple of hours), I think part of the problem for a quick in-and-out business like hers (bakeries, laundries, convenience stores, etc.) is she needs a couple of dedicated parking spaces right in front limited to her customers. But since it's City of Houston street parking, they can't do that, so those spaces are always full of longer-term parkers visiting the neighborhood. I've noticed most strip centers (hated by urbanists), will offer their tenants dedicated spaces right in front of their businesses (with signs limiting parking to customers). Maybe the City needs to offer that for street parking as well? Maybe the businesses pay for it? For those sorts of businesses, people are not willing to hunt for parking and they’re also not willing to go through the parking meter hassle (it takes several minutes to go through the process at a CoH meter). Just let the business pay for dedicated spaces during business hours (or, alternately, spaces limited to a quarter or half-hour).
Finally, Vision Zero plans have been adopted by many cities - including Houston - to reduce traffic fatalities, but they aren't working. Excerpts from another piece are a cautionary warning to Houston's efforts:
"Yet Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, among others, saw sharp increases in pedestrian and/or bicycle fatalities after adopting Vision Zero policies.
This won’t be a surprise to Antiplanner readers. As described in Policy Brief #25, Vision Zero is an overly simplistic strategy that fails to solve the real problems that are causing pedestrian fatalities to rise.
Vision Zero is based on the observation that pedestrians hit by cars traveling at high speeds are more likely to die than if the cars are traveling at low speeds. So Vision Zero’s primary tactic is to reduce driving speeds. Vision Zero’s secondary goal is to reduce driving period by making auto travel slower and less desirable compared to the alternatives. Neither of these are working very well.
... For decades, traffic engineers followed a tried-and-true formula for reducing auto fatalities: improve roadway designs in ways that reduce the number and impact of accidents. Vision Zero has diverted cities from that formula in an overt anti-auto strategy that sometimes actually makes streets more dangerous (such as when one-way streets are converted to two-way operation). So it is no surprise that Vision Zero isn’t working."
As I've said before, I support Vision Zero when the focus is on fixing problematic intersections and other pragmatic safety improvements. I don't support it when it's just a thinly veiled mask for anti-car urbanists (road diets, reduced speeds, one-way to two-way conversions, speed humps everywhere).
Could Houston get Google? converting the 59 Spur to a linear park, housing crisis drives socialism, millennials are driving, Houston is the future, and more
Apologies for the delay between posts - I've had some busy travel recently. Before getting to this week's items, a couple thoughts on the City's consideration of turning the Bagby and Brazos portions of Spur 527 off 59 into a park. I live in Midtown, so this affects me directly. I've managed to adapt ok to losing the Brazos exit since the bridge closed for repairs - Louisiana is inconvenient but works - but losing Bagby's southbound entrance is a bigger deal. I've thought quite a bit about this. At first I was totally opposed, then I figured I could live with it via Smith and Louisiana but still moderately opposed (even with the benefits of Bagby traffic reduction). I do think it will substantially negatively affect some of the businesses along Bagby and Brazos that rely on drive-by traffic like Spec's, CVS, and especially the new Midtown Whole Foods (which is already struggling in what was previously a food desert), as well as thousands of commuters that connect between 59 and 45 (which, in turn, will make the already-messy 59-45-288 interchange even worse). In fact, I'd argue the optics look pretty bad: sacrifice the commutes of a lot of working-class folks on the north and east sides commuting to jobs in the southwest so a few wealthy white people in gated Courtlandt Place can have a pocket park. Not a good look. And I think it is very likely that a City-maintained linear pocket park will turn into a homeless camp (sad, but that's the reality these days) - something I hope the neighbors have considered in their support. They may come to really regret it...
Mapped: The Salary Needed to Buy a Home in 50 U.S. Metro Areas. The only top ten metro less expensive than Houston is Atlanta. Texas as a whole does quite well, especially when our incredible growth rate is considered (the least expensive metros tend to also be growing the slowest).
When this guy talks down our downtown tunnel system, my response is that I would bet, five months of the year, downtown workers are willing to travel a lot farther to shop or visit a cool restaurant for lunch if they can use the tunnels than if they had to walk outside. Downtown vibrancy would actually decline without the tunnel system.
“If we keep forcing them to pay for housing and parks, they will go to Houston or Austin.”
I think the advantages for a Google office here would be pretty strong. Tons of oil-and-gas tech/IT talent that’s easy to poach, a city willing to do anything to land them, plus deep expat communities from nations all over the world that could handle some global functions (esp. Latin America). It would also work well if Google is considering any health care plays, with the world's largest med center right down the way in the innovation corridor.
Another thought is, what if you wanted to have a US office where you could bring H1B visa talent from all over the world, and they would be able to afford to live there as well as find a comfortable expat community from their nation? Houston would be a great location for that: huge Asian, Latin American, African, Middle Eastern, and even European communities - many from the long history of the global oil industry here.
This is a fantastic interview with Ed Glaeser that directly relates to COU’s mission. Great short video too. Really gets to how the housing crisis has led to the rise of socialism’s popularity among the young. "The entrenched vs. newcomers."
Government policies limit millennials’ prosperity, Harvard economist Edward Glaeser argues. Will they realize more of the same isn’t the answer?
“The right answer for this is not universal basic income. The right answer is freedom. Allow people to use their property the way they want to use it.”
Millennials hitting road at fast pace - "It turns out millennials don’t hate driving, after all." Remember when everyone thought Millenials were going to avoid driver's licenses and car ownership? Well, they did for a while, then they grew up and started forming families.
"New supply is one reason the median home price in Texas is currently $207,301, while in California, it’s nearly triple that, $605,280. California’s drought in new home production has been caused in part by land-use regulations and the state’s myriad environmental laws.
...
A Zillow-backed survey of economists and housing analysts predicted that in 2020, Texas’s relatively affordable big cities (Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, and especially Austin) will outperform the market average in home value growth, while overpriced California metros like San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles will fare poorly.
...
The California housing situation, on the other hand, is a multifaceted mess. Prices have skyrocketed. A new apartment in San Francisco costs an average of $700,000 to build—including materials, labor, and land—triple the cost of a decade ago. The average value of a home in Los Angeles County is $635,000—almost double the median price in Austin and nearly triple the median price in Dallas—and many neighborhoods have seen average prices more than double in the last decade. According to the United Way, one in three Californians, or 3.3 million families, don’t have incomes to meet their basic cost of living, and most struggle with high housing costs. The state’s 150,000 homeless residents represent a quarter of the nation’s homeless population. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it would cost “in excess of $250 billion” to provide affordable housing for all of the state’s 1.7 million rent-burdened households."
Houston's new mobility vision, how no-zoning works for us, NYT on TX, we need a police overhaul, and more
Before getting to this week's smaller items, I'd like to feature a great piece by Market Urbanist Scott Beyer in The Federalist: How No Zoning Laws Works For Houston. It makes a great case for how Houston has been able to stay affordable while booming through enabling easy growth of housing supply (i.e. not strangling it with regulation). I'm extensively quoted in it, and although usually I would pull out excerpts here, this one has way too many great points - you'll just have to read the whole thing (honestly, it's not that long). Enjoy.
NextCity on "What If Houston Fell in Love With Planning: Can a booming city known for laissez-faire zoning become a U.S. model for equitable urban growth?" A long, pretty balanced piece covering a wide range of Houston issues/topics. One nice excerpt, hat tip to Lydia:
“Houston has a wonderful opportunity because it doesn’t have an ossified, traditional Euclidean zoning structure that separates everything out by use,” says Festa. “If you want to develop mixed-use, smart growth, walkable urbanism, there are still some barriers, but you already have a head start over more traditionally zoned cities.”
But my favorite reaction is this tweet from the Urbanophile Aaron Renn:
"Better question: what if other cities fell out of love with it?"
Kinder and the Chronicle react to the NextCity piece, to which I ask why would we want to empower NIMBYs to stop development? That's what happens in every city, and it cuts off housing supply rapidly leading to unaffordability. Is that what we want too? The Wall Street Journal just recognized us for growth without unaffordability - why do we want to eliminate one of our great strengths? If you're afraid of development in your neighborhood, make sure you move to one with deed restrictions, otherwise buy your house with your eyes open to how the neighborhood may change over time.
Hat tip to Jay for this crime ranking of cities, which unfortunately we don't do so well on: "It's 'sortable' by investment in police, crime rank and community risk factors. What struck me is that Houston has among the highest investment in police, is only middle-high on risk factors, but is still second highest on crime. Clearly money spent is not money spent well."
Finally, I was able to attend the Mayor's State of Mobility address today. It was a long, detailed, balanced, well thought-out speech on a strategy for addressing Houston's mobility needs. I agreed with almost all of it, with one notable exception being the claim that the Katy Freeway expansion was a mistake because it's just as congested as it used to be. That may be, but it moves twice as many people as it used to, and if we hadn't done it, congestion would be far worse out there, and I'm sure many employers in that corridor would have abandoned Houston for Katy, The Woodlands, and Sugar Land. One interesting item of note from the Mayor: he will *not* force rail on neighborhoods that don't want it, which means the University Line is essentially dead west of Shepherd as long as he's in office (not that I think METRO has the funds available in any case).
At the same event, TAG had this graphic with the consensus $69B Regional Mobility Vision. Two things really jumped out at me. The first is that METRO is showing $24 *billion* of new rail lines as a "minimum need"!! Not sure where that funding is supposed to come from, or if it did magically appear, whether all these lines would be the best use of it. The other thing that jumped out at me? Well, if you look closely, evidently the downtown CBD is moving to the East End... lol.
How the Texas economy compares to many several regions around the world. You might be impressed - I was. Bigger than Scandinavia, Australia + New Zealand, Mexico + Central America, or Spanish South America. I don't give a lot of credence to the secession talk, but we clearly do have more than enough of an economy to be independent.
NPR story on how police departments have started using social media like Pinterest to enlist the public in finding suspects or people wanted on warrants. 57% increase in arrests! Houston should be all over this, especially given our rising burglary problem. If you know anybody at HPD, please forward it over.
"The second thing that stands out is Texas. The focus on just the very top of the league table for large metro areas actually understates the performance of the Lone Star State. Looking at all metropolitan areas, 8 of the top 20 and 17 of the top 50 metros, in terms of percentage employment growth, are in Texas."
"In the only major city in the United States without zoning laws, developers can, in theory, build virtually anything, anywhere in the city. In practice, however, understanding and catering to local industries is a critical element in site selection, Mr. Cover says. “When you really get down to it, the city is market-zoned, because land prices are not based on zoning rights, they’re based on purely capitalistic, highest and best use value,” he said. “If you build the wrong product or build in the wrong place, the market is going to severely punish you.”
Houston #5 top paying metro in America, and it's all the more impressive when you consider how low our cost of living is compared to the higher cities on the list.
But while Silicon Valley basks in the golden glow of the wealth spotlight, Houston, TX is quietly minting new millionaires at a fast pace.
For the last two years Houston has enjoyed more growth in the number of High Net Worth Individuals–people with at least $1 million in investable assets (primary homes don’t count)–than any other U.S. city.
A recent Capgemini study found that Houston’s millionaire population surged by 9.6% to a total of 96,700 wealthy citizens from 2009 to 2010. The year before that, Houston saw its millionaire ranks surge by 29%.
What’s stimulating the increase in Houston’s millionaire roster? Old school fossil fuels. “The strong presence of the oil and gas industry in Houston benefited local HNWIs as oil prices grew over 15% in 2010,” William Sullivan, Capgemini’s head of Global Market Intelligence, wrote in an email. “Additionally, of the 10 markets studied, Houston had the highest per capita income growth (8%) compared to a 4% average growth for the other nine markets.”
Finally, check out the 39:36 point in this episode of the CW series "Arrow" and see if you recognize the skyline. The show is set in the fictional "Starling City" and filmed in Vancouver, but that's most definitely our skyline.
I've got more items, but this post is already pretty full. Have to save the rest for a future post...
Chicago is undergoing a rash of gang violence. Democrat Mayor Rahm Emanuel, choose Garry McCarthy (formerly Chief of the Newark Police Department, formerly with the NYPD) to be his new Chief of Police. McCarthy in turn has turned to David Kennedy to help stymie gang violence in Chicago.
Kennedy is a self-taught, public safety academic and criminal street gang expert whose data, evidence, and crime reduction tactics reduced the homicide rate in Boston and scores of other American cities. He has nearly three decades of boots-on-the-ground experience working with criminal street gang members in their own neighborhoods and recently published “Don’t Shoot.”
On Wednesday, July 11, 2012, Kennedy spoke to a small group of Houstonians dedicated, in practice and profession, to smart and effective public safety policy about the data-based truisms discovered in his first national effort, Operation Ceasefire.
During the blood-soaked 90’s, the American homicide rate was still soaring, fueled by gang crime and ‘group-based’ violence. Operation Ceasefire was a Harvard-based/policing/publicity program created by Kennedy that became the baseline for community-based gang violence prevention programming. It has since been adopted to some degree in 70 American cities, the latest being Chicago. The initial data and findings published by Kennedy while at Harvard have held true to date and are replicable, where the public will exist to modify tried and failed anti-gang policing tactics.
The program premise is simple:
When it comes to violent crimes, especially homicides, a very small number of gang/’group’ members are responsible for a large and disproportionate number of killings;
Gang-related homicides are not random; they are motivated by personal disputes and the rivalry inherent in gang culture making them predictable;
Crimes that are predictable can be prevented;
Intentional dissemination of the anti-gang plan to gang members results in ‘self’ deterrence;
Communities needed to and would support gang members who sought return to lawful society through education, employment, etc.
Enter Mr. Kennedy’s think tank, the Center for Crime Prevention and Control, which provides basic analytical and tactical services and support required to affect an anti-gang plan. The cost of Kennedy’s groups services to implement a policy package here in Houston, Texas: approximately $150 - $250k. The value: Priceless. It’s time Houston, with one of the highest homicide rates in the nation, 50% gang-related, sat up and took notice of the enormous cost in lives and in tax revenue caused by ignoring gang crime. Isn't it time our community adopted the nation’s proven best practices for crime fighting at the lowest cost possible?
Some of my long-time readers probably know I'm also a bit of an aviation nerd, so I got pretty excited by the Continental announcements of new 787 service from IAH to both New Zealand and Nigeria in the fall of 2011 (once they get the planes). Nigeria is all about the oil industry, but New Zealand is all about the feed to and from Star Alliance partner hubs at each end: Air New Zealand to points all over NZ and Australia, and Continental to the eastern US, Latin America, and even Europe. The only other US service to Australia or New Zealand is from California, but Houston can offer a lot more connections than LA or SF can. I was a little disappointed Continental is not offering thru-service from IAH to Sydney with a stop in Auckland, but evidently it's a crew-rest issue (you'll be able to easily connect on Air New Zealand). I also understand that the schedules allow them to use just three 787s to provide a circulation of flights covering both destinations (usually it would require four, since each leg is over 12 hours). Anyway, all in all it's pretty cool and a nice feather-in-the-cap for Houston (take that, DFW!), as is this designation from the press release:
"With the addition of flights to Africa, Houston will become one of just four cities in the world - and the only city in the Western Hemisphere - to have nonstop service to every inhabited continent on the globe."
Well, that's if you assume New Zealand is part of the Australian continent, which is debatable, but I'll buy it. For the curious, the other three cities with similar service are Doha, Dubai, and Johannesburg.
The Austin American-Statesman reports on Metro's problems and how they're factoring against Bill White in the governor's race. White was pretty hands-on early on in his administration, and I was a big fan when he converted some of the planned lines to cheaper BRT (which were unfortunately later switched back to LRT), but then it didn't seem to be high on his priority list after that. The Houston Press also has a cover story on the "Train Wreck" at Metro, although there may be some errors of fact (see the comments).
"I can see in Houston the nanomedicine industry developing like Silicon Valley," said Mauro Ferrari, chairman of the Department of Nanomedicine and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. "I think it’s a big opportunity for the city and the state, and it’s developing at a good pace."
In the 3½ years Ferrari has been conducting research in Houston, his lab has brought in close to $70 million in funding.
"By the summer, my department will have brought in over $100 million," he said. "Those are unprecedented numbers. That speaks to the growth of nanomedicine and that Houston has excellence in research in nanomedicine and excellence on the clinical side."
"If you put together the numbers for my department, plus these 170 faculty in the alliance, you have by far the largest collection in the world of nanomedicine expertise, and literally hundreds of millions of dollars in funding coming in," Ferrari said. "Nanomedicine is an area that has an unbelievable economic impact, and to be leaders in this high-growth field has a huge impact on Houston and on Texas."
Houston’s position as a hub for nanomedical research has also spawned a number of startup spinoffs in the private sector, including Leonardo Biosystems, with which Ferrari is affiliated. The company is developing a technique to deliver drugs that would fight refractory breast cancer.
The Texas Medical Center continues to grow and provide great high-tech diversification from energy, space, and the port for the Houston economy.
Finally, I've mentioned before that I also have a companion blog at the Chronicle called Opportunity Urbanist. Some of you may be interested in a new series I've started running over there on Friday afternoons where I re-post (and occasionally update) highlight posts from the archives at Houston Strategies. I've started at the beginning in mid-2005, and am moving forward from there. You'd be amazed how many readers front page placement on Chron.com can bring in...
Congratulations to Annise Parker on her win last night, becoming, as she pointed out, the first Rice alum to become mayor of Houston ;-). Between her and Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the Rice mafia now controls this town. Nerds rule, literally in this case. I'm hoping for my appointment call any day now... (hint, hint)
She faces a difficult financial situation at the city, and obviously her first priority will be getting that under control. In addition to those short-term pressures, there are the long-term financial issues of city employee pensions and Metro's solvency, with rail cost estimates spiraling upward and revenue shrinking. If she does nothing else in the next two years but fix those financial problems and get the city and Metro on a sustainable financial path (without raising taxes), she'll have one of the most accomplished mayoral terms in city history and will more than deserve two follow-on terms.
But that's no reason to limit our ambitions. I went through my highlight posts from the last five years to find some good strategies for the next few years, with an emphasis on low or no-cost ideas:
"The lesson of High Point is that you can reduce crime by making credible threats, without having to lock up so many people. To deter, a punishment must be swift, certain and severe....Mr Kleiman suggests several other promising, non-macho approaches to curbing crime. Raise alcohol taxes. Start school days later to prevent after-school crime. Force probationers to wear GPS tags, thus making probation a tough (and much cheaper) alternative to prison. Americans should experiment with such ideas, he says, and if they are serious about justice, the object should be to cut crime, not to make criminals suffer."
Finally, in the more experimental category, I think there is a real opportunity to truly open up government to enable more engagement by citizens (including innovation and finding much-needed efficiency improvements), in the same way the open source movement works with software on the internet. But that's a topic for a whole 'nother blog...
Houston a green capital? plus top rankings, reducing crime, and elevated busways
Some smaller items for your reading pleasure when escaping the relatives or shopping of Thanksgiving break (or work, if you're stuck there this afternoon or Friday).
"The Daily Beast set out to definitively sort the best and the worst, undertaking a comprehensive study that heavily factored in on-time arrivals and departures, and also examined safety records, tarmac nightmares, airport accessibility, the baggage process, security waits, and amenities."
Innovative ideas on crime reduction in the Economist, mainly through deep relationships in the community. Excellent ideas for Houston to try under our new mayor and chief of police. I'm particularly a fan of GPS tags to prevent recidivism.
"The lesson of High Point is that you can reduce crime by making credible threats, without having to lock up so many people. To deter, a punishment must be swift, certain and severe. ... Mr Kleiman suggests several other promising, non-macho approaches to curbing crime. Raise alcohol taxes. Start school days later to prevent after-school crime. Force probationers to wear GPS tags, thus making probation a tough (and much cheaper) alternative to prison. Americans should experiment with such ideas, he says, and if they are serious about justice, the object should be to cut crime, not to make criminals suffer."
In No. 2 city San Antonio, home to four military bases, and Austin, our third-ranked city and the state seat of government, municipal jobs supplement Texas' robust energy sector. In Dallas (No. 6), it's a thriving tech industry that buffers it from energy highs and lows. Although Houston (No. 8) is invested mostly in oil, it has diversified its energy industry beyond oil rigs into refining and chemicals manufacturing.
What's more, the state's housing prices never ascended to the unsustainable levels the rest of the country hit at the peak of the housing bubble. Thus, it didn't crash as hard. These factors have toughened the local economy against a recession that is inextricably tied to real estate.
"Texas didn't have as big of a boom," says James P. Gaines, research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. "So we're not having anywhere near the kind of bust."
Neal has an interesting post on the potential for elevated busways as a superior transit solution in Houston vs. at-grade rail. I think it could make a lot of sense in certain corridors (depending on the economics), esp. if it could be tied in to the HOV lanes so express buses could make seamless transitions to local distribution. Maybe Post Oak would make a good candidate? Or something through the medical center? Would love to hear your suggestions in the comments.
Houston #1 in green home construction. Dallas is #2. We certainly have the climate and electricity prices to make it a worthwhile investment. Yet another hat tip to Jessie (I promise I do find material through other sources too ;-).
"Houston actually makes a lot of sense. Unlike many places in the country, Texas’ electricity grid isn’t under stress, for starters. And from an environmental perspective, it’s fairly clean, with a lot of juice coming from wind farms and natural-gas fired plants.
Electricity-guzzling cars that up the demand for natural-gas for power generation could even make the region’s fossil fuels industry happy, says says Kenneth Medlock, an economist at Rice University. And since most cars would charge at night, Texas’ booming wind-energy industry would find new customers, too.
In the end, America’s fourth-largest city epitomizes the country’s love affair with the car. Unlike in green urbs like San Francisco or Seattle, it’s all but impossible to live here without wheels—so they might as well be electric. It will probably be cheaper and easier to electrify urban sprawl than rein it in altogether.
Who knows? Maybe in a decade Houston’s famed ArtCar parade will be a largely electric affair."
(as I've been saying on this blog for a while: transit will not take over more than a tiny percentage of trips, the personal vehicle is now a permanent part of society, it will just change propulsion technology)
Speaking of being a green capital: algae fuel is picking up momentum, and biofuels are Houston's best bet for leveraging our energy infrastructure skill base to lead the next generation of energy technologies.
That's it for this round, but keep 'em comin' Jessie (and everybody else).
An open dialogue on serious strategies for making Houston a better city, as well as a coalition-builder to make them happen. All comments, email, and support welcome.
