Too many people moving to Houston? (Baytown, The Woodlands: how much, new home, school)
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Second of all, do you even live in Houston? I can throw that question right back at you. If you did, how would you not know that housing is FAR more expensive in the city? That's the most powerful force for pushing people out to the boonies.
I wonder how far out the building will go before folks realize it's too damn much. Fairfeild is way out there and to have to commute all the way to down town is crazy. What I don't understand is why everything has to be down town as far as jobs. Why can't These offices of work locate to other nearby areas to spread the boom some and not completely clusterf*ck the city of houston. I just came back from a weekend in austin and it sucks coming back to houston. The traffic, the density, the people, being all in austins favor. The people are goofy there but at least they are nice.
It wouldn't feel so far if there was a commuter rail system in Houston. When I am talking about commuter rail, I'm talking about systems such as Chicagoland's Metra or NYC's Metro North and LIRR systems. Austin's Capital Rail system is an example of overstretching light rail's capabilities, which METRO has tried to do with the current rail plan (imagine taking street-level light rail from Cypress to Downtown Houston?).
When you're driving on the freeway whether or not in traffic, driving those long distances is very strenuous. Riding commuter rail to/from downtown leaves you free to engage in relaxing distractions such as take a nap, reading the paper or using your smartphone (such as reading threads on City-Data and posting) and is not energy sapping.
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Originally Posted by nilkn
Agreed--putting all the best jobs in one relatively tiny geographic area is a horrible idea for Houston in the long run. It's a problem of extreme short-sightedness that many cities have suffered from, and it has created a vast amount of undue hardship for people in the form of longer commutes, traffic congestion, and extremely uneven housing prices.
This will have a hugely deleterious effect on the lives of many residents of the city. The total volume of commuters could be drastically reduced--and quality of life thereby drastically increased--if offices were spread out uniformly.
The off-peak direction of a freeway is congested because of suburban offices who happen to employ inner-loopers. These inner-loopers would have taken arterial roads for the few miles to get downtown but instead have to drive on the freeways to the suburbs creating a confusing mess and freaking out suburbanites. Theoretically, taking the Katy Freeway from Katy to Downtown in the afternoon should be effortless since the traffic jam is in the opposite direction. Not true!!!
Public transport is not an option for city-to-suburb commuters since there are few going that direction and concentrates more on the suburb-to-city commuter majority. It is even worse for suburb-to-suburb commuters; as in non-existent as I learned the hard way when I went to community college in a neighboring suburb.
And the new skyscrapers that beautify the sky of Houston would not be built if commercial space was spread out uniformly. Downtown retail would not be revitalized without the foot traffic from office workers as a seed to grow it into a seven day a week commercial center. Without commuter rail, Downtown retail and commercial space will continue into the never-ending chicken-and-egg scenario.
People complaining about most of the jobs being downtown is asinine, it makes sense to have to have most of the jobs in central area since people are coming from all parts of the city. Nobody forces you people to move way out to the bonnies, and then you have the nerve to complain about the commute.
I've got to say that I have a pretty decent salary but that salary forces me to live in the boonies if I want a home and not a townhome or condo. Homes inside the loop are out of my price range.
Ah, the enlightened opinions of the typical zealous right wing conservative from the outer loop who probably lives in a master planned community in some white flight town like Richmond, Simonton or Fulshear. I imagine you're middle aged, Caucasian, a boomer, and in some mangerial position or own a small business. You think that you're outlook is the correct and only way to do things and everyone who hasn't pulled themselves out of poverty yet is a no good leach that lacks personal responsibility and gumption.
According to you, it isn't the city's fault that it's not effectively addressing the population boom or the increase in poverty due to most of the jobs being low pay service sector while the boom continues to benefit only the professional and highly skilled worker class.
According to you, the lack of real affordable training programs, outreach and city services to move those unskilled into the skilled boom is not a matter that should concern the city but instead should be a matter of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY! Yes, individual drive and determination because if by gum YOU can do it then so can any Tom, Dick and Harry. LOL.
Please, get off your reactionary sanctimonious high horse! I live in Los Angeles as of now and can attest to the fact that despite the bonkers like government bureaucracy, the city has NOT devolved into a Detroit style mess. The quality of life is still above that of Houston and the crime rate is LOW for a city it's size. That is an amazing feat for the nation's 2nd largest city.
Meanwhile Houston crime is up, poverty is up, despite an increase in the local wage? Why is that? Why are the Feds coming in to investigage the City and County jails? Because they know they're dungeons full to the ceiling with the hardest hit lowest run of the ladder elements in the city.
So take the rose colored glasses off and step away from your white flight community for a while to realize the OTHER side of the Houston success story that Houston does not want the national news to know about. But if you read the articles in the Chronicle that I've read where professors from Rice are examining the social and economic implications of relying on this growth to be PRIVATELY run. Poverty up, crime up, jails crowded, freeways packed? How is this in the land that FORBES dubbed the "greatest city in the country"?
I love Houston with all my heart and it will always be my home but dang some of you just will not admit the problems and just love all the BS publicity you're getting from rags that promote a NARROW VIEW of the growth.
Very well said! I couldn't rep you enough for this!
It would be interesting to see how many people who are against transplants moving to Houston and Texas in general are actually transplants themselves from different cities and states...
I am against the 'unskilled thinking they are going to score some big corporate job' moving here. I have been here all of my life so has my Husband.
Tired of this falsehood being repeated over and over
Quote:
Originally Posted by texas7
I've got to say that I have a pretty decent salary but that salary forces me to live in the boonies if I want a home and not a townhome or condo. Homes inside the loop are out of my price range.
There are many, many single family homes with yards available on the east side of the inner loop and the area between 610 and Highway 6 / FM 1960 at prices much cheaper than what you'll pay in the outer-edge communities. Sure, the homes need some updating, but so do those expensive older homes in the Heights and Memorial. Do you have something against Alief, Inwood, Greenwood Forest, Sagemont, Sharpstown, Spring Branch, etc.? Easy to get spacious homes and yards under $200K - and compared to The Woodlands or Cinco Ranch or Richmond or Clear Lake you're not at all in the boonies. So to say "I can't afford a house in the west side of the inner loop, I have to live instead 25 miles from downtown" is a completely bogus statement. I don't understand why people keep repeating it.
As far as too many jobs concentrating in the urban core (downtown, Uptown, Medical Center, Greenway) - Houston is actually famous for how its jobs centers are dispersed - look at Sugar Land, Energy Corridor, Westchase, The Woodlands etc. To deny this is again another bogus statement. To me it's just someone whining that their professional job isn't less than 5 miles from the outer suburban residence. The city frankly needs to remain competitive for white collar jobs, it's absolutely critical to the tax base.
Furthermore, as someone pointed out, if a company is located in the urban core, it gives them better access to educated professionals living throughout the metro area, not just the outer suburbs directly adjacent to them. Is it practical for a firm located in The Woodlands to think they have ready access to potential employees who live in Sugar Land?
LocalPlanner, it was pretty clear that texas7 wasn't meaning "in the boonies" completely literally. He was referring to simply living in or out of the loop, in the context of the post he responded to.
You listed a bunch of places that are far out of the loop. They may not literally be "the boonies," but they are not centrally located at all. And some of them, like Inwood Forest, have some pretty major drawbacks, like being surrounded on all sides by very low-income, very high-crime apartment complexes.
Anywhere actually in the loop offering spacious homes and yards for less than $200k is simply going to be downright sketchy. That's all there is to it. Those are called "up-and-coming" areas, and they're not really for everybody.
Nilkn, if texas7 was using "boonies" to refer to anywhere inside the FM 1960 / Hwy 6 semi-ring, and especially anywhere inside the Beltway, it's a pretty egregious misuse of the term.
Nevertheless, I've read many posts here and elsewhere that state essentially the same thing I railed against above. It's the very simplistic "I HAVE to live (name your suburban minimum 20 miles out) because I can't afford a single family home on the west side of the inner loop or the Memorial corridor." Without any other criteria stated by such posters, such as "where the schools are high performing and full of the children of educated professionals" or "where I don't have to be exposed to the poor and working classes at my local shopping places", then it's a demonstrably false statement. It's as if they're pretending a gigantic chunk of the region's single family areas (many of which aren't even very old) don't even exist.
Nilkn, if texas7 was using "boonies" to refer to anywhere inside the FM 1960 / Hwy 6 semi-ring, and especially anywhere inside the Beltway, it's a pretty egregious misuse of the term.
Nevertheless, I've read many posts here and elsewhere that state essentially the same thing I railed against above. It's the very simplistic "I HAVE to live (name your suburban minimum 20 miles out) because I can't afford a single family home on the west side of the inner loop or the Memorial corridor." Without any other criteria stated by such posters, such as "where the schools are high performing and full of the children of educated professionals" or "where I don't have to be exposed to the poor and working classes at my local shopping places", then it's a demonstrably false statement. It's as if they're pretending a gigantic chunk of the region's single family areas (many of which aren't even very old) don't even exist.
LocalPlanner, I think you make a very valid point. I have found myself in conversations with people who will say things like, "Nobody sends their kids to Hogg," as if the people who do actually send their kids to Hogg are not people at all. It is deeply depersonalizing, even if it is intended out of a kind of innocence/naivete.
I agree with you that many people will overlook parts of Houston but..
You do realize that Inwood and Alief are considered bad areas don't you? Most people will agree to that.
How often do you hear this question...Where is the best transitional neighborhood with crappy schools for my three kids to go to?
Although they don't always post it, I bet the ones who opt for the burbs when they can't afford the "Nice" areas close in simply have kids and prefer to play it safe. Can't say I blame them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LocalPlanner
There are many, many single family homes with yards available on the east side of the inner loop and the area between 610 and Highway 6 / FM 1960 at prices much cheaper than what you'll pay in the outer-edge communities. Sure, the homes need some updating, but so do those expensive older homes in the Heights and Memorial. Do you have something against Alief, Inwood, Greenwood Forest, Sagemont, Sharpstown, Spring Branch, etc.? Easy to get spacious homes and yards under $200K - and compared to The Woodlands or Cinco Ranch or Richmond or Clear Lake you're not at all in the boonies. So to say "I can't afford a house in the west side of the inner loop, I have to live instead 25 miles from downtown" is a completely bogus statement. I don't understand why people keep repeating it.
Last edited by hendersj31; 10-22-2013 at 01:31 PM..
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Tired of this falsehood being repeated over and over
