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Phoenix was growing much too fast until recently until it destroyed the quality of life. Now its actually starting to shrink. This is a good thing because the huge population influx was causing more competition for the precious few jobs available, traffic jams, air pollution (almost the worst in the country), and horrific rate of violent crime. Phoenix is easily the worst place Ive lived. Phoenix cant handle being a large metro area and needs to shrink by a lot.
Are any of them hurting in the housing department???
Are any of them severely lacking in infrastructure compared to other large metros?
Any of them severely strained in city services compared to others?
Any of them really over crowded? I mean are natural resources hard to go around because of the flood of new people?
Could the cities provide adequate jobs for the flood of new comers prior to the economic woes??
Any of them limited in room to grow?
Phoenix's housing market is notorious in the real estate industry for its over-inflated size and instability. Previously a backwater settlement with typically rural characteristics, Phoenix was the relocation center of choice in the later 1980s due to cheap and suburban-like housing in the "city."
Due to rapid and haphazard suburban and semi-urban expansion into rural areas very far from the true city's center, prices were speculated to be far more than they were worth. However, once the housing bubble popped, demand for these homes decreased dramatically, and now Phoenix's housing market is plagued by a lack of consumer initiative and horribly incongruent home prices.
Furthermore, Phoenix has hardly any public transit of any sort, so yes, it is lacking in infrastructure, especially when compared to cities of comparable size such as Philadelphia. And public education in Phoenix is a nightmare, as wealthy whites either completely segregate or refuse to attend public schools in Phoenix. Phoenix also has neither major universities nor research institutes.
Houston has a similar growth pattern as Phoenix, though was a far larger city in the 1950s than Phoenix was, when it began its aggressive growth. It has aggressively annexed the land around it, sometimes in a very illogical way (a map of Houston proper shows areas of the city separated by the city's center by at least 350 square kilometers of independent municipalities.
Houston has a relatively strong economy, with strong growth in its industrial and technology sectors that was funded and invested in for years with its initial oil wealth. It also is a center of medicine, with the Texas Medical Center being one of the largest centers of medical research and healthcare services in the world.
Likewise, Houston's infrastructure is sub-par on certain aspects and exceptional in others. In the high density areas of the city, there is light rail and bus transit, however, this does not always connect to the outlying areas and suburbs. Though, Houston's vehicle traffic system is well developed, and its airport is very large and reportedly very efficient. Again, the Texas Medical Center allows for large medical coverage in the city.
Atlanta has the least amount of limits when it comes to growth, but won't grow much more rapidly because of the nature of the city. Since the 1900's, Atlanta has grown at a more or less steady pace, with only a slight boom in the last thirty or so years.
It has, in theory, good economic foundations, with one of the largest concentrations of Fortune 500 headquarters per capita in the U.S. It is the basis for such memorable brands as Coca-Cola, Time Warner (the CNN division, specifically), and Home Depot. However, this prosperity has not always seeped down to the middle and lower classes, as poverty in some neighborhoods has endured throughout all of Atlanta's history.
Atlanta has pretty good infrastructure in some aspects. Atlanta has a pretty well developed subway system for a city of its size, though for some reason its traffic and commute time is still horrible. Of course I have to mention the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is one of the busiest airports on the planet. To simply see this airport is to almost enter a city all in itself. It also has some nice and extensive parks, many renovated for the Olympics that were held in Atlanta and the largest park was renovated in 2010. Finally, Atlanta has several good public institutions and research centers, like Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Crime is a huge issue in Atlanta in concentrated neighborhoods. Part of the reason for this is that Atlanta has substantial segregation in certain areas.
Houston annexed just to get that tax money. It's very very smart and I think many cities envy what Houston did including it's neighbor 245 miles to its north. There are advantages and disadvantages to it. Can't figure out which one outweighs the other though. If you look at a city map of Houston, it usually follows a thoroughfare and then take over a large tax based area like the airport.
Location: Cleveland bound with MPLS in the rear-view
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Originally Posted by Spade
Houston annexed just to get that tax money. It's very very smart and I think many cities envy what Houston did including it's neighbor 245 miles to its north. There are advantages and disadvantages to it. Can't figure out which one outweighs the other though. If you look at a city map of Houston, it usually follows a thoroughfare and then take over a large tax based area like the airport.
If Houston wants taxes so desperately why doesn't it then......charge more taxes? The more your grow/expand the more services you need to provide, so the geniuses in Houston still have XX.X number of tax revenue to pay for every person, regardless of how many people it generates revenue from. I really wonder how this will play out in the future if/when cities in TX start taxing its citizens more: will people flee as fast as they came, or will they stay and eek it out?
If Houston wants taxes so desperately why doesn't it then......charge more taxes? The more your grow/expand the more services you need to provide, so the geniuses in Houston still have XX.X number of tax revenue to pay for every person, regardless of how many people it generates revenue from. I really wonder how this will play out in the future if/when cities in TX start taxing its citizens more: will people flee as fast as they came, or will they stay and eek it out?
Like I said, there are ardvantages and disadvantages to it.
Also, let me add that Houston wanted the airport (both of them), ship channel, other business districts inside of the city limits. Who wouldn't want that. The problem is just like you said when it comes to growth and expansion. For example, Houston wants to build it's rail system inside the loop. Well people mostly outside the loop want the rail to reach them. People inside the loop are saying that you must connect the inner city first before you worry about the outer parts of Houston. You also have some in outer Houston saying that Houston is too big to have a rail system and it's too late for an efficient mass transit system. Me personally, I refer to the inner loop as the "city" of Houston. The Galleria/Uptown is much like an Edge City but it's inside the city limits.Reminds me of Tyson's Corner. The inner loop is 95 square miles.
If Houston wants taxes so desperately why doesn't it then......charge more taxes? The more your grow/expand the more services you need to provide, so the geniuses in Houston still have XX.X number of tax revenue to pay for every person, regardless of how many people it generates revenue from. I really wonder how this will play out in the future if/when cities in TX start taxing its citizens more: will people flee as fast as they came, or will they stay and eek it out?
Houston isn't annexing residential areas tho. Only commercial areas like malls, or business districts. For example, the city has annexed entire commercial area on the I-10 West corridor in the Katy area, but left the residential areas behind those businesses alone.
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