Should "Be Someone" be Houston's official motto?
Most Houstonians are familiar with Houston's most famous piece of graffiti, the "Be Someone" message in giant letters on the Union Pacific bridge over I45 north of downtown. It's gone through a lot of iterations and defacement over the years,
including recently, but the fact that it keeps coming back is a testament to its popularity. Long ago I did a post here titled "
What message is your city telling you?" discussing
an essay by Paul Graham (of Y Combinator fame). His basic theme is that each city has its own subtle message it's sending you about what's important and how you should direct your ambition.
Here are some of his examples:
- New York: "You should make more money."
- Boston/Cambridge: "You should be smarter." (or at least better read)
- Silicon Valley: "You should be more powerful." (i.e. change the world)
"Cambridge as a result feels like a town whose main industry is ideas, while New York's is finance and Silicon Valley's is startups."
- SF/Berkeley: "You should live better." (more conscientious, more civilized, better 'quality of life')
- LA: "You should be more beautiful and famous."
- DC: "You should know more important people."
- Paris: "You should do things with more style."
- London: "You should be more aristocratic." (higher class - although he says this signal is weaker than it used to be)
Here's the summary list of messages he came up with:
"So far the complete list of messages I've picked up from cities is: wealth, style, hipness, physical attractiveness, fame, political power, economic power, intelligence, social class, and quality of life."
And here's what I came up with at the time for
Houston:
"So what about our little town of hard working engineers and entrepreneurs? The city of Canion, Cooley, DeBakey, and a gaggle of energy and real estate mavericks? Well, I think we can rule out style, hipness, physical attractiveness, fame, political power, intelligence, social class, and quality of life. Wealth, maybe a bit, but I think the primary one is economic power - "You should be a bigger player in business." (even the business of medicine) We don't seem to care too much whether you're an entrepreneur, developer, or top executive - just so long as you're a big shot. And if you're not a big shot, the message is to become one by whatever path necessary - whether on your own or through a large organization.
Maybe not the ideal message I'd choose (although not bad), but I think it's an accurate reflection of the culture of the city."
Later
my friend Anne suggested maybe "
industriousness" is a better ambition message for Houston rather than "economic power", because it's more inclusive of people working hard in all sorts of endeavors, including nonprofits. Both of those certainly fit well with a "
Be Someone" motto encouraging people to go out and make a difference in the world.
I think it would great for the city to embrace "
Be Someone" as our official motto and start baking it into our identity as a city (
cue the T-shirts). It's a great message we could put just about everywhere. A similar example of an inspiring motto is "
Live a Great Story". On a practical note, that probably means cleaning up the sign and protecting it from future defacement, maybe with a protective spray-paint-repelling clear coat and/or some sort of physical protective shield added to the bridge. But the real value is beyond the sign itself, but in the collective sense of identity it can unify Houstonians around.
BeSomeone City!
Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments...
Labels: graffiti, identity, perspectives
Regs, housing value, graffiti, blue states, HSR, Astrodome, and more
Finishing off the smaller items I started last week:
"Consider Texas and California. In the Bush years, liberal polemicists turned the president’s home state — pious, lightly regulated, stingy with public services and mad for sprawl — into a symbol of everything that was barbaric about Republican America. Meanwhile, California, always liberalism’s favorite laboratory, was passing global-warming legislation, pouring billions into stem-cell research, and seemed to be negotiating its way toward universal health care.
But flash forward to the current recession, and suddenly Texas looks like a model citizen. The Lone Star kept growing well after the country had dipped into recession. Its unemployment rate and foreclosure rate are both well below the national average. It’s one of only six states that didn’t run budget deficits in 2009.
Meanwhile, California, long a paradise for regulators and public-sector unions, has become a fiscal disaster area. ...
But in state capital after state capital, the downturn has highlighted the weaknesses of liberal governance — the zeal for unsustainable social spending, the preference for regulation over job creation, the heavy reliance for tax revenue on the volatile incomes of the upper upper class.
And, inevitably, the tendency toward political corruption. The Republicans have their mistresses, but the Democrats are dealing with a more serious array of scandals: the Blagojevich-Burris embarrassment in Illinois, Senator Christopher Dodd’s dubious mortgage dealings in Connecticut, the expansive graft case in New Jersey, and a slew of corruption investigations featuring Democratic congressmen.
...And it also helps explain Obama’s current difficulties. The president is pushing a California-style climate-change bill at a time when businesses (and people) are fleeing the Golden State in droves. He’s pushing a health care plan that looks a lot like the system currently hemorrhaging money in Massachusetts. His ballooning deficits resemble the shortfalls paralyzing state capitals from Springfield to Sacramento.
...The president wants to govern America like a blue state. But for that to work, he’ll need the nation’s economy to start performing more like Texas."
- If you're interested in the CoH Chapter 15 debate, which could seriously impact TOD and dense development in Houston, HRG outlines the issues in detail here and here. Hat tip to Josh.
- Both good and bad news for Houston: "Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast: Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world's top energy economist"
- Readers of my blog know I'm a big fan of Houston's entrepreneurial culture and light regulatory touch, which is why this Chronicle story on how red tape regulations are strangling the eco-friendly downtown free cab/jitney service makes my blood boil. Come on, people. The administration and council need to get their act together on this, and soon, before the service dies. And I'm a pretty big fan of Mayor White, but if he doesn't get this fixed and the service dies, I hope it blows back on his eco-credentials for his Senate campaign. In a strong mayor city like ours, there's no excuse.
- A KHOU story on Houston's projected growth and zoning (no!). Hat tip to HAIF.
- Joel Kotkin reviews Peter T. Kilborn’s Next Stop, Reloville: Life Inside America's New Rootless Professional Class
in the Wall Street Journal. Includes several mentions of The Woodlands. Hat tip to Allen. - KHH on "Why our suburbs develop like they do: because of our rigid development standards" and a great piece on how zoning burdens a city more and more with time (with a focus on Portland and Austin), and how lucky Houston is to not have the burden.
- America's 10 Best Undervalued Places to Live includes Houston and College Station (hat tip to Marc). By their reckoning, we're 37 percent undervalued, and College Station-Bryan, Texas is 21 percent undervalued. Excerpt:
"Houston. Unlike other metropolitan areas, Houston has not been hammered by the national housing bust. In fact, real home prices increased nearly 5 percent from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of 2009, according to a Brookings Institution report. But even without a sharp decline in real estate values, projected job and population growth should drive future home price appreciation and create value, says James Gaines, a research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. "The medium- and long-term prospects for Houston are extremely good," he says. The area's low-tax, pro-business climate will lure new employers to Houston and help bolster an already sound local economy anchored by the energy and healthcare sectors, Gaines says. More jobs, of course, mean more residents and greater demand for housing. "[Houston has] good demographic growth, job growth, and a reasonably balanced housing market," he says. The median home price in Houston was $120,000, in the first quarter, which IHS Global Insight considers 37 percent undervalued."
- An email pass-along. Glad to see some movement by the city on this.
City of Houston Debuts Graffiti Website
New site provides information and resources on fighting graffiti
Mayor Bill White and Vice Mayor Pro-Tem and Council Member Sue Lovell have announced a new City of Houston website for citizens and organizations that want to fight graffiti in their neighborhoods. The site, www.houstontx.gov/graffiti provides resources for abating, or painting over, graffiti as well as information on government agencies, and groups that provide positive alternatives to graffiti.
The main section of the site, which will be regularly updated, features information, complete with contact phone numbers, and links to City of Houston departments, other governmental agencies, and community organizations that work to abate graffiti. The site also includes an interactive section, which invites citizens with ideas about dealing with graffiti to leave messages.
Citizens are encouraged to report graffiti by phone to 311. For more information, contact the office of Vice Mayor Pro-Tem and City Council Member Sue Lovell at 832.393.3013 or by e-mail at atlarge2@cityofhouston.net
Finally, don't forget to comment on
the future of the Astrodome at Offcite (from the Rice Design Alliance) before comments close on Monday.
My comment is here.
Labels: affordability, Astrodome, energy, environment, graffiti, high-speed rail, home affordability, land-use regulation, transit-oriented development, zoning
Comprehensively addressing graffiti
The City Council Quality of Life committee met today and talked about, among other things, graffiti abatement. You may remember
Councilmember Sue Lovell's graffiti op-ed a couple weeks back in the Chronicle (why oh why, chron.com, can't you have real permalinks like the rest of the newspaper web site world?). That op-ed displaced another potential op-ed on the same topic by Deborah January-Bevers, Executive Director of the
Quality of Life Coalition, and I'd like to pass it along here.
She and I had a good conversation after the PBS town hall forum, and I'm convinced they're on the right track with the solution - basically a combination of best practices from across the city and country - even incorporating
my own suggestion from a while back (definitely my #1 post for ongoing comments over the last 3+ years - and a lot of good insight into the taggers' perspective there - with potential elements of other solutions, like giving graffiti artists legitimate outlets on otherwise boring walls). One solution I haven't heard enough about: why doesn't the city/county/etc. put those graffiti-resistant coatings on obvious target surfaces, like the 59 trench and the bridges that cross it?
One final point before the op-ed: I really like and support the
Quality of Life Coalition, because they're focused on
real-world solutions to
real issues you can point to (trees, landscaping, parks, recreation, bayous, billboards, signage, litter, graffiti) - rather than a lot of vague hand-waving around "we need comprehensive government planning and regulation to solve all problems and create utopia-on-earth."
From Deborah:It’s time once again to step up the anti-graffiti efforts along Houston’s freeways, parks and other public areas.
Numerous businesses and civic advocates work regularly with the City of Houston on private and public property to improve anti-graffiti efforts through increased enforcement against violators and anti-graffiti education. Several years ago, these groups supported the City of Houston’s policy changes and implementation of better graffiti removal processes. The result of increased use of graffiti abatement trucks by the City of Houston and management districts, heightened use of 311 to report graffiti violations, and business participation in anti-graffiti enforcement have proved effective in reducing graffiti in many areas around Houston -- so much so that the errant graffiti taggers have now turned their attention to our freeway systems, parks and other public areas, where reporting and removal is more difficult and costly.
Law-abiding citizens know the multiple ill-effects of graffiti on our community. Graffiti fosters crime, lowers property values, mars our landscape and leaves a bad impression for all who see it. Anti-graffiti education and public awareness play a key role in lessening the number of graffiti “tags” in the community but graffiti is still a taxpayer problem – costing thousands of dollars each year for the City of Houston, TxDOT and surrounding counties to remove it on public property.
While the business and civic communities, through management districts and other organizations play a large role in keeping graffiti out of their respective neighborhoods – many groups work in conjunction with the East End Management District’s very successful Graffiti Abatement Program – areas outside of a management district are still large targets for taggers.
The Quality of Life Coalition, comprised of more than 85 endorsing organizations in the Houston area, has long supported implementation of Best Management Practices in anti-litter and anti-graffiti policies. We strongly support increased anti-graffiti efforts by the City of Houston, TxDOT and Harris County through public outreach, education and awareness programs, crime-stopper rewards, criminal enforcement and use of more graffiti abatement trucks. We also encourage continued use of Public Service Announcements under the Stop Trashing Houston campaign (see
www.stoptrashinghouston.org) and development of an City of Houston-hosted anti-graffiti resource website, which has proven successful in reducing graffiti in other cities.
If indeed our region’s current success with anti-graffiti efforts is causing graffiti taggers to move to new areas – such as our freeways, parks and other public areas -- then a coordinated approach is needed between the City of Houston, TxDOT and Harris County. Reducing graffiti is a critical component of continuing to improve our region’s quality of life.
Deborah January-Bevers is the Executive Director of the Quality of Life Coalition.
Update 7/22/09: A new City of Houston graffiti web site.
Labels: graffiti, perspectives, quality of place
