Why Texas is America's Future, Keep Houston Ugly, Save the Dome truck, and more
Just a few smaller items this week:- A WSJ op-ed on how Florida embraced smart growth, built a huge bubble that burst, then later repealed smart growth to allow housing supply to meet demand and is back on its former growth track. Hat tip to Oscar.
- Keep Houston Ugly!
- A new "Save the Dome" mobile truck is roaming Houston to drum up support for the ballot proposal. Schedule of appearances here.
- The demographics of metro Houston if we were a village of 100 people. Pretty fascinating.
- Time magazine has a cover story this week on "The United States of Texas: Why the Lone Star State is America's Future" by noted economist Tyler Cowen. They also have a blog post on the story with 10 reasons why Texas is our future. Excerpts:
The lower house prices, along with a generally low cost of living — helped along by cheap labor, cheap produce and cheap gas (currently about $3 a gallon) — really matter when it comes to quality of life … Texas has a higher per capita income than California, adjusted for cost of living, and nearly catches up with New York by the same measure. Once you factor in state and local taxes, Texas pulls ahead of New York — by a wide margin.
...
What it all adds up to is a future where many more Americans live in Texas — and much of the rest of America looks more and more like the Lone Star State.
Among the policies Cowen proposes as we move into this future: cheaper education (to allow workers to upgrade their skills), looser building and zoning regulations (to radically reduce the price of housing across America), and a loosening of occupational licensing at the state and local level (to open up many more low-skill jobs).
Texas, he writes, is “America’s America,” where Americans go when they need a fresh start. And a little more Texas could go a long way.
Labels: affordability, Astrodome, demographics, home affordability, identity, land-use regulation, perspectives, smart growth
posted by Tory Gattis @ 7:43 PM
5 Comments:
That is so weird. Somebody needs to tell Carl Hiaasen. Florida in the twentieth century was practically synonymous with land speculation and boom-and-bust housing construction. But no, that was all in our imaginations. It was always "slow-and-steady" wins the race until 2007. Because of none other than Smart Growth!
I'm curious: when you say that out loud, does it sound right to you?
Just to weigh in, although I appreciate the cleverness of the campaign, I really don't like the idea that Houston is ugly. I was raised here and I never thought of my city as ugly. I think the trees and vegetation are beautiful; it could be a bit more clean and tidy (having to live in Dallas has made me notice this MUCH more), but calling it ugly is not going to help that effort. I wish people would have pride in their city and either say that it's beautiful or, if it isn't, then work to make it beautiful.
Well, it is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I think there's a beauty in our chaos, especially the vegetation/trees. I do agree with the beautification efforts that are going on around the city. But I'm not in favor of a heavy-handed regulatory approach.
http://www.swagroup.com/fellowship/buffalo-bayou-bliss.html
Tory, wanted you to see this..
Cool. Thanks for the heads up, Paul.
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