Everyone starts like you. I just want a little set up here, it won't hurt anyone. It's just a little thing. Then it grows. And grows. And grows. As it should. But to grow it right costs money, and permits, and flood mitigation for the impervious cover. But those pesky governments they shouldn't control you! You're just one business! You're not affecting anyone! What's a little more concrete? Who's that gonna hurt? They're impeding your growth! Multiply you times a bunch of people and we end up where we are. ****ed.
After coming and seeing things first hand I will gladly eat crow on this. The drive in from Austin everything looked nearly normal and was glad to see that downtown looked like it was in good shape and even seeing some nightlife. I was only in Houston on this trip for about 5 hours with 3 of those spent at GRB so I didn't get to see too much but what I saw was very hopeful.
^^ I was helping out at the GRB too over the weekend and agree that it felt very hopeful. A lot of supplies rolling in and people still coming from all over. You're mixing up zoning with ordinances though. Houston can have no zoning but require developers to build better drainage through city ordinances.
Is the lack of zoning one of the reasons houston is not a walkable city? While most local observers think that conventional zoning will never happen in Houston, some advocates continue to call for more regulation. Former city councilman Peter Brown, for example, warns that Houston has to push harder to promote denser, walking-scale neighborhoods, or risk succumbing to paralyzing traffic congestion from its traditional auto-centric culture. “Many people feel that we’ve almost reached the limit,” he says. “We need to create a more orderly city in which people aren’t stuck in their cars, and surface parking doesn’t take up so much space.” https://urbanland.uli.org/industry-sectors/city-almost-no-limits/
Houston is one of the most rapidly changing cities in the country. Not many cities are like that. I lived in Chicago off and on for the last 10 years (2007-2017) and it's pretty much the same now as it was then. If anything, Chicago has shrunk in population. Houston will bounce back and continue to grow.
Zoning determines what you can do where which leads to drainage impact based on the requirements of said business or entity. This City is a mess and the citizens here need to realize this. They need to reign this in and start implementing some tough measures before Harvey goes down to Houston as the Doom did for Valeria. Make no mistake, these are massive problems that these people have been ignoring to make a quick buck for years. Unnecessary hotels, massive freeways to neighborhoods that people aren't buying, empty shopping centers and office buildings.
Maybe get rid of that parking ordinance thing. If people can't park their cars they'll be forced to find other means to get to where they want to go or live closer so they can walk to that area.
As others have stated yes you can get the same results as zoning through other ordinances but really zoning makes it easier and cleaner to do when you can just map out what land uses should go where. Anyway zoning is not the only challenge to Houston's poor planning as has been mentioned in other threads an engineering report 20 years ago had predicted many of the problems that came to pass in Harvey and offered a solution. This solution was rejected as being too expensive and ambitious. As Texans we like to pride ourselves on taking on big challenges but when it comes to things like this we've often come up short.
I can't let this question go from my mind for some unexplained reason. My heart is starting to feel like Houston will become a Cleveland or Detroit in the next 10-15 years because people will not want to rebuild. I am often wrong about these things, so there is always that.
There is a much different reason why Detroit and Cleveland fell apart. Both of those cities went down when manufacturing left. There weren't any jobs. That's not the case here. Have you heard any companies packing up and leaving because of this storm? It was a singular event...not one that will have as long lasting of an impact as entire industries leaving an area.
No one outside of ND is going to start building more refineries outside of TX-LA, and half the stock market is run by an energy board now, I don't what else Houston's greatness consists of but the economic aspects are probably secure.
I think this is a great piece that sums up the amazing spirit of Houstonians to help each other but also the big challenges that Houston faces to improve it's development. Houstonians are willing to take on tough challenges and develop innovative solutions but that hasn't applied to the planning and development of the city. There are many design solutions from city wide scale down to individual homes that can help to deal with storms. Houston will continue to face more storms and flooding. Harvey is an opportunity to take steps to deal with those. https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/houston-must-plan-coming-storm/
Im originally from Houston but have lived in Miami for the past few years and was blown away at home quick the recovery was inside the loop. I just came back in town to escape hurricane irma and westheimer near the galleria didn't skip a beat. All the businesses were open and packed. Houston is such a great place and its really become world class in recent years. Im an older guy and I don't go out clubbing anymore but Im so old that I remember there being really nothing in town just Red Star or whatever it was called and Bond back in the day. Today we have top notch nightlife and its diverse. We're getting these incredible restaurants from big groups in LA and Miami like Nobu soon, Yahuatacha or whatever it is at the galleria, and more. We never got stuff like that in the past. The only thing that concerns me is 3 floods in the past 3 years and big businesses may potentially look to go somewhere else but then with the port here and cheap real estate I dont think anyone goes anywhere. I cant emphasize enough how cheap real estate is here, and prime real estate at that. New construction in West university which is the most expensive area per sq ft is barely at $400/sq ft. Look at other major US cities: New York in the best parts is $4000-5000/sq ft, Miami is over $2500/ft in the best parts, I could go on and on.....we're at $400 in our most expensive part? Come on, thats incredible and Houston will always be feasible for businesses looking to expand. You can't set up shop in NYC when you have a 15% city tax ontop of your regular taxes and then real estate is through the roof. I'm an asset manager at a family office and I wish I could setup a pair trade of long houston/short NYC real estate bc in the coming decades you're going to see a mass exodus from NYC bc the taxes are ridiculous, the weather is meh most of the year, and there are just too many places in the US for businesses to go with better weather,lower taxes, and cheaper real estate.
Seriously? Houston has a lot more going for it than places like Cleveland or Detroit ever did. C'mon now...
