I’ve lived in Texas my whole life. This is utterly off-the-rails nonsense from some Londoner with absolutely no anchoring in ground-truth reality. Just a blatant lie. The only driving force of...
Exemplary
I’ve lived in Texas my whole life. This is utterly off-the-rails nonsense from some Londoner with absolutely no anchoring in ground-truth reality.
It’s not just that Texas simply has more space to build on: its cities aren’t merely adding sprawl at the periphery, they’re densifying the existing city, and doing so by allowing existing homeowners to expand and subdivide their property.
In Houston, a 1998 change to planning laws empowered landowners to turn one home into three — instantly creating space for new families in the heart of the city, while generating a tidy profit for themselves. A crucial detail was the inclusion of an opt-out for individual neighbourhoods whose residents wished to keep things as they were, increasing the scheme’s durability.
Just a blatant lie. The only driving force of inner-city densification in Houston is luxury condos. I lived there for over two decades, knew people in all walks of life, and never met a single person living in a subdivided house as described. It is quite literally entirely suburbian sprawl being built.
Austin has been much better at densification due to the city government being early ditchers of required parking minimums. But there’s still a huge housing crunch and in reality, most of the real new housing is coming from luxury apartments, and strings of identical cookie-cutter homes out in the suburbs. And Austin isn’t known for its “red-state virtues”.
This isn’t even getting into the construction quality issues and absurd status of weatherproofing/insulation for new construction.
Don’t take advice from some idiot who lives in Britain about why copying Texas’ building habits is a good idea.
This accords with my experience from seeing most of the Houston metro on work trips. It's a perfect example of why unrestrained sprawl is undesirable, how to build a transit system that mainly...
This accords with my experience from seeing most of the Houston metro on work trips. It's a perfect example of why unrestrained sprawl is undesirable, how to build a transit system that mainly serves the well-off, and what a city looks like when there's little or no plan to include public amenities like parks and walkable areas.
The vast majority of the medical ancillary staff I spoke with had hour-long commutes from affordable places in the Houston exurb.
As a Londoner, I’ll add that a significant amount of our housing stock already is older buildings subdivided into flats and/or extended into what used to be their gardens. Something like this over...
As a Londoner, I’ll add that a significant amount of our housing stock already is older buildings subdivided into flats and/or extended into what used to be their gardens. Something like this over one or two floors of an older four storey terrace is totally standard.
The parking minimums comment made me smile too - we’ve got pretty aggressive parking maximums for new construction, generally set at <1 space per unit (with a decent amount of places coming in under that for simple reasons of space).
The SF Bay Area is constrained by mountains that seem to limit development. I regularly bike up a few thousand feet to peaks with fantastic overviews of the SF Bay Area. The Bay Area is ringed by...
The SF Bay Area is constrained by mountains that seem to limit development.
I regularly bike up a few thousand feet to peaks with fantastic overviews of the SF Bay Area. The Bay Area is ringed by huge mountains. The housing is primarily on the flat bits, and there are almost no more empty flat bits.
There are acres of empty farmland, but they are all on mountainous terrain. Some houses definitely crop up in the mountains, but surprisingly little.
Paywalled, but based on the headline - which I read as I’m curious about what this article might say.
Paywalled, but based on the headline - which I read as
“What can an entire State, with minimal physical constraints on metropolitan expansion and a transportation infrastructure that prioritizes cars, teach two cities with physical constraints on metropolitan expansion- and historical preservation concerns for London - about building houses.”
It’s not just that Texas simply has more space to build on: its cities aren’t merely adding sprawl at the periphery, they’re densifying the existing city, and doing so by allowing existing homeowners to expand and subdivide their property.
In Houston, a 1998 change to planning laws empowered landowners to turn one home into three — instantly creating space for new families in the heart of the city, while generating a tidy profit for themselves. A crucial detail was the inclusion of an opt-out for individual neighbourhoods whose residents wished to keep things as they were, increasing the scheme’s durability.
That there is an unsupported assertion. No data, no citation. Just an assertion that in the context of the rest of the article is meant to leave readers thinking that up zoning is the cause not...
It’s not just that Texas simply has more space to build on: its cities aren’t merely adding sprawl at the periphery, they’re densifying the existing city, and doing so by allowing existing homeowners to expand and subdivide their property.
That there is an unsupported assertion. No data, no citation. Just an assertion that in the context of the rest of the article is meant to leave readers thinking that up zoning is the cause not geographic expansion.
The hyperlink in this quote provides sources. The article acknowledges that Houston is a city with a history of sprawling development. The 1998 changes didn't stop outward growth or demolish all...
The hyperlink in this quote provides sources.
In Houston, a 1998 change to planning laws empowered landowners to turn one home into three — instantly creating space for new families in the heart of the city, while generating a tidy profit for themselves. A crucial detail was the inclusion of an opt-out for individual neighborhoods whose residents wished to keep things as they were, increasing the scheme’s durability.
The article acknowledges that Houston is a city with a history of sprawling development.
Historically, Houston mostly made space for new residents (and old) by growing outwards. The city is a byword for urban sprawl and car culture. It is rarely held up as an example of ‘good’ planning, despite its success restraining house price and rent inflation.
The 1998 changes didn't stop outward growth or demolish all the far flung suburbs, but it allowed the city center and closer in communities to increase density and walkability.
Houston may not be the city that springs to mind when you think of ‘gentle density’: the mid-rise, mixed-use type of development that characterises how cities developed organically prior to the twentieth century. But take a walk around Houston’s inner suburbs and you’ll find surprisingly dense patterns of development, some even having a slightly European feel.
I am not a particular fan of Texas, but it seems like their policies have created the kind of redevelopment and density increases in downtown and the surrounding communities that other major cities are having trouble with. The Houston policy only targeted the center of the city, so focusing on the sprawl outside the zone of effect isn't valid when evaluating the policy. Other cities can learn from the success of this policy while still modifying it to meet the specific wants and needs of their populations.
This source is also from an author in England who has no real knowledge of the Texas cityscape. The Heights and Montrose are the two kinda-walkable neighborhoods where these townhomes are popular,...
This source is also from an author in England who has no real knowledge of the Texas cityscape.
The Heights and Montrose are the two kinda-walkable neighborhoods where these townhomes are popular, and as the “inner suburbs” label hints - people aren’t walking to work, they’re walking to strip malls and shopping center complexes.
These townhomes are near-universally solid concrete lots fenced-off from the street with zero aesthetic appeal. I promise you: they’re not the cute, compact, walkable San Fran/New England homes you’re thinking of.
Who gives a shit about the aesthetic appeal?? It's housing, if you want to solve a housing crisis, build more houses, who cares what they look like. I've lived in Houston my whole life and...
Who gives a shit about the aesthetic appeal?? It's housing, if you want to solve a housing crisis, build more houses, who cares what they look like. I've lived in Houston my whole life and replacing decrepit 1920s construction pier and beam shotgun houses with 4 story townhomes is an improvement, it's moronic to act like it isn't. Houston's housing costs and rent is affordable, it's why you are seeing people flock to the city, whether they move into a townhome or buy a sfh in a far off suburbs, does it really matter? What's the point of heralding density alone as a virtue when the goal should be affordable housing, ugly or sprawling or cookie cutter be damned
The majority of people don’t aspire to live in a cheap, ugly place. You’re welcome to like unwalkable/sprawl-based housing, if that floats your boat - but it’s not the goal of most neo-urbanist...
The majority of people don’t aspire to live in a cheap, ugly place.
You’re welcome to like unwalkable/sprawl-based housing, if that floats your boat - but it’s not the goal of most neo-urbanist policy. Unfortunately in the case of Houston, those low-quality homes aren’t taking the market pressure away to make nicer, midrange, high-density housing in a tight-nit community more affordable, since the new development is all ugly, unwalkable sprawl.
Density isn’t the virtue - a pleasant, accessible place that a large population can harmoniously live in is what most of us care about.
If that were true, you wouldn't see Texas and the rest of the South leading the nation in new transplants? I think people want to live where housing is cheap, because it's where they can have more...
If that were true, you wouldn't see Texas and the rest of the South leading the nation in new transplants? I think people want to live where housing is cheap, because it's where they can have more of their income for discretionary spending or savings.
If there is somewhere like what you are describing that is a pleasant accessible space that's affordable I'd love to hear about it.
People move to Houston despite the negatives for the same reason people in food deserts buy McDonalds and Doritos from the corner store. The revealed preference doesn’t indicate that they’re...
People move to Houston despite the negatives for the same reason people in food deserts buy McDonalds and Doritos from the corner store. The revealed preference doesn’t indicate that they’re eating that stuff because it’s good or healthy food; it’s because they’re desperate and don’t have better options.
Doritos stop people from starving, but no one confuses them for good food. The long-term solution to fixing food deserts isn’t to subsidize McDonalds and Frito-Lay, but instead to make other affordable options available - e.g. root vegetables, rice and beans, lentils.
Similarly for housing, we know good, affordable modes of living exist and are viable because we did them in the past in the US before regulation got in the way, and because other parts of the world still use them. The townhomes of the American Northeast, and surrounding mix of interconnected apartments/small storefronts (think Boston/Hoboken) are a prime example of dense, high-quality urban spaces that we should be incentivizing through public policy; the townhomes of Houston are not.
What an absolutely ridiculous comparison. People in food deserts don't have the luxury of choice, people moving their lives absolutely do (the alternative is staying where they were, or in the...
What an absolutely ridiculous comparison. People in food deserts don't have the luxury of choice, people moving their lives absolutely do (the alternative is staying where they were, or in the instance where they were priced out, plenty of other choices besides Houston).
People are moving here because the cost of living is affordable and they have a higher quality of life compared to their other options, I don't see how you can use Boston as an example with a straight face considering the massive gulf of difference in affordability between the two.
I do not see why you hate townhomes that are nicer and denser than the detached SFH on large lots they are replacing?? Why shouldn't other places copy Houston in allowing replats to enable more dense housing. Again, if you have some magical way to incentivize more Bostons and less Houston's feel free to explain it, policy or otherwise. Using people's greed and aligning their own self interest to densification (via replats) vs kowtowing to nimbys who only want their property value to increase (which in Houston they are forced to pay high property taxes unlike California with it's capped property taxes(lol why the fuck would this be allowed still)
Doritos/McDonald's and Houston housing have two common economic traits: they're inferior goods, and their relative prevalence in their markets is heavily driven by government subsidies. I'm not...
Doritos/McDonald's and Houston housing have two common economic traits: they're inferior goods, and their relative prevalence in their markets is heavily driven by government subsidies.
I'm not saying that just to dunk on Houston - what I mean is that you can buy any given tier of home (in terms of sqft, build quality, amenities) at a much lower price than you can in other cities of comparable size. Some of that is attributable to Houston's big housing supply, for sure, but a bigger factor is that Houston is a less-desirable place to live. People who move to Boston over Houston are either willing to pay a big premium to have the same-sized home, or willing to settle for lower-tier housing. Objectively, when making microeconomic decisions about where to live, the average American resettler routinely chooses to pay tens of thousands of dollars annually to not live in Houston.
As for the subsidies, much like McDonald's is artificially cheap due to the billions in annual subsidies for soybean/corn/hay, Houston housing and urban sprawl have been made artificially cheap by tens of billions in annual subsidies + spending for car infrastructure. To be clear, my argument is not that we shouldn't be subsidizing infrastructure or agriculture; we absolutely should - but we shouldn't be spending more on corn and soybean that every other type of produce combined, and we shouldn't be subsidizing cars to the extent we are without proportionally investing in making walking/biking into viable choices for commuters.
I do not see why you hate townhomes that are nicer and denser than the detached SFH on large lots they are replacing??
You're putting words in my mouth. I have nothing against the increased density, but I think that increase is marginal compared to other factors and I fundamentally disagree that they're nice. My root-level comment on this thread called it out, but IMO Austin's policy of relaxing parking minimums alongside splitting up lots has had much better outcomes.
I literally just told you that the median, average American settler is choosing to move to Houston, or Dallas, or anywhere that is affordable, if you look at the data since the pandemic you'll see...
I literally just told you that the median, average American settler is choosing to move to Houston, or Dallas, or anywhere that is affordable, if you look at the data since the pandemic you'll see the obvious trend. Bay area, NYC, Boston are not seeing population growth since 2020, check FRED data, Houston is, people are making the microeconomic decision to spend less on housing, and more on everything else, that's not inferior, that's an advantage. People make tradeoffs when they pick where to live, you repeatedly act like there is some scale of desirability that is universal, not only is that not the case, but the revealed preferences disagree with you!
Austin has a long way to go before it densifies anywhere outside UT, but it also became wildly unaffordable in recent memory, having comparable rents to Manhattan!! That is insane to me because you're still in TX (lol) politically, AND it's hot, AND the cedar fever is awful. When I visit LA on Venice Beach you understand why those houses are millions of dollars at least.
I'm not sure that realistically there is much advantage to subsidizing highways over public transit, in theory there obviously should be but here in the US (Looking at you NYC) we can't seem to get anything done on time or on budget (also applies to TX highways but seemingly they can expand lanes more successfully than subways get built)
I feel like you think I'm unaware of your points, I'm really not, and I think places like Amsterdam are probably the platonic ideal of a city, with predominantly biking and transit all that's necessary (and while maintaining better affordability than NYC), but I dislike when people come up with excuses to patronize the choices people are making. You don't get to tell other people that what they chose to value in a city is inferior to an alternative, it should be patently obvious that price != quality, as is the case in almost every other application.
It provides references for the policy change but it doesn’t provide any data or references for the proportion of development - now or historically - that is increasing density relative to growing...
It provides references for the policy change but it doesn’t provide any data or references for the proportion of development - now or historically - that is increasing density relative to growing geographically when saying:
its cities aren’t merely adding sprawl at the periphery, they’re densifying the existing city.
Great. It’s doing both, that’s good. But how much of each?
We aren’t told by the FT author. We’re left to assume that they’re doing a lot of densifying and assume that doing a lot of densifying is why Texas is building more/doesn’t have a housing crisis/whatever.
It does provide data for the proportion of development that is increasing density relative to growing geographically. All the quotes I post contain links to the exact sources you are asking about....
It does provide data for the proportion of development that is increasing density relative to growing geographically. All the quotes I post contain links to the exact sources you are asking about.
Houston had higher than average housing growth for single family and multifamily housing from 2010 to 2020
According to the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, from 2010 to 2020, Houston’s total housing stock increased by 10.8 percent, while its stock of multifamily housing in buildings with five or more units increased by 14.8 percent. Across the country, there was a 6.5 percent increase in the total stock of housing and an 11.5 percent increase in the stock of multifamily housing.
More housing was built each year on average between 2005 and 2021 in the inner loop in Houston, than Oakland and San Francisco combined.
The area inside Loop 610 contains 14% of the total housing units, 11% of the population and 5% of the land area in Harris County. The Inner Loop also absorbed 19% of all newly built units since 2005, averaging 5,345 housing units built per year. That’s twice as much as all of the housing units built each year in San Francisco and Oakland combined—2,913 units per year—during the same period, and confirms the high demand for homes in Houston’s urban core. (The comparison to San Francisco and Oakland is made because the land area of those cities combined is comparable to Houston’s Inner Loop.) Housing production in Houston’s Inner Loop also surpassed annual housing production since 2010 for the cities of San Diego (4,100 units per year) and Atlanta (1,945 units per year), and nearly as much as Seattle (6,200 units per year). This level of housing production is quite an accomplishment for an American city, and is significant progress toward the region’s goals of sustainable development by building plentiful housing near major job centers, services and transportation options. Houston’s urban redevelopment mainly can be attributed to its distinctly liberal approach to land use, a stark departure from cities with single-use zoning and large lot requirements, which constrain development of higher density housing types and act as barriers to housing supply.
You see many single family homes being built outside of the inner loop, but those are areas that are not affected by the 1998 regulation. Saying a policy that targets the inner loop is not effective because it didn't stop single family home construction beyond the inner loop doesn't make sense.
Houston took an area where lots had a minimum size of 5,000sqft and reduced it to 1,400sqft. Houston also has a "shall approve" system where if something meets their building rules, it is automatically approved. This has allowed the inner belt of Houston to build multifamily buildings and townhomes incredibly quickly and densify the area.
I appreciate you for giving the sources and data, seems most in this thread have no intentions of engaging because they have preconceived notions of what Houston or Texas is and that it's the...
I appreciate you for giving the sources and data, seems most in this thread have no intentions of engaging because they have preconceived notions of what Houston or Texas is and that it's the opposite of the type of housing solutions they'd desire(ones that seem not to help much in practice). Hell, SF could look to Houston too on how to deal with the homeless. The city is far more than an oil and gas hub of guns and horses lmao
Yeah, I don’t particularly like the aesthetic appeal of Houston. I much prefer the way the Bay Area is set up, but Houston did create a policy that allows for denser housing and quick development....
Yeah, I don’t particularly like the aesthetic appeal of Houston. I much prefer the way the Bay Area is set up, but Houston did create a policy that allows for denser housing and quick development.
I don’t think the exact same cookie-cutter policy would be right for other cities, but that’s not what I or any of these articles have been advocating for. Cities with housing crises can look at what the 1998 policy in Houston did well and modify it to align to other goals to fit with the needs and values of their city.
It feels like people miss a lot of nuance in articles and try to assign black and white thinking in the comments. The point of all these articles is not “Houston good, California and London Bad.” These articles are saying “Houston did something that helped increase density and prevent a housing crisis. Maybe that solution could help these other cities with housing crises.”
The lesson for the rest of London, for San Francisco and New York is that densifying historic cities need not mean architectural vandalism or characterless tower blocks. Small tweaks to planning regulations that make gentle density the default can deliver big gains for current and new residents alike, but their longevity depends on their flexibility.
I feel like this is a little more apples to oranges than this article makes it out to be, but I don’t have the credentials to make a more informed comment than that.
I feel like this is a little more apples to oranges than this article makes it out to be, but I don’t have the credentials to make a more informed comment than that.
It's mostly about relaxing zoning laws and decreasing regulation around development. This is something that California has implemented state-wide with the abolishment of single family zoning. It...
It's mostly about relaxing zoning laws and decreasing regulation around development. This is something that California has implemented state-wide with the abolishment of single family zoning. It just takes time to see these changes make a difference.
I’ve lived in Texas my whole life. This is utterly off-the-rails nonsense from some Londoner with absolutely no anchoring in ground-truth reality.
Just a blatant lie. The only driving force of inner-city densification in Houston is luxury condos. I lived there for over two decades, knew people in all walks of life, and never met a single person living in a subdivided house as described. It is quite literally entirely suburbian sprawl being built.
Austin has been much better at densification due to the city government being early ditchers of required parking minimums. But there’s still a huge housing crunch and in reality, most of the real new housing is coming from luxury apartments, and strings of identical cookie-cutter homes out in the suburbs. And Austin isn’t known for its “red-state virtues”.
This isn’t even getting into the construction quality issues and absurd status of weatherproofing/insulation for new construction.
Don’t take advice from some idiot who lives in Britain about why copying Texas’ building habits is a good idea.
This accords with my experience from seeing most of the Houston metro on work trips. It's a perfect example of why unrestrained sprawl is undesirable, how to build a transit system that mainly serves the well-off, and what a city looks like when there's little or no plan to include public amenities like parks and walkable areas.
The vast majority of the medical ancillary staff I spoke with had hour-long commutes from affordable places in the Houston exurb.
As a Londoner, I’ll add that a significant amount of our housing stock already is older buildings subdivided into flats and/or extended into what used to be their gardens. Something like this over one or two floors of an older four storey terrace is totally standard.
The parking minimums comment made me smile too - we’ve got pretty aggressive parking maximums for new construction, generally set at <1 space per unit (with a decent amount of places coming in under that for simple reasons of space).
The SF Bay Area is constrained by mountains that seem to limit development.
I regularly bike up a few thousand feet to peaks with fantastic overviews of the SF Bay Area. The Bay Area is ringed by huge mountains. The housing is primarily on the flat bits, and there are almost no more empty flat bits.
There are acres of empty farmland, but they are all on mountainous terrain. Some houses definitely crop up in the mountains, but surprisingly little.
And that's a good reason to increase height limits and density (see Hong Kong).
Paywalled, but based on the headline - which I read as
I’m curious about what this article might say.
This is an archive link.
That there is an unsupported assertion. No data, no citation. Just an assertion that in the context of the rest of the article is meant to leave readers thinking that up zoning is the cause not geographic expansion.
I’m all for increasing density, fwiw.
The hyperlink in this quote provides sources.
The article acknowledges that Houston is a city with a history of sprawling development.
The 1998 changes didn't stop outward growth or demolish all the far flung suburbs, but it allowed the city center and closer in communities to increase density and walkability.
I am not a particular fan of Texas, but it seems like their policies have created the kind of redevelopment and density increases in downtown and the surrounding communities that other major cities are having trouble with. The Houston policy only targeted the center of the city, so focusing on the sprawl outside the zone of effect isn't valid when evaluating the policy. Other cities can learn from the success of this policy while still modifying it to meet the specific wants and needs of their populations.
This source is also from an author in England who has no real knowledge of the Texas cityscape.
The Heights and Montrose are the two kinda-walkable neighborhoods where these townhomes are popular, and as the “inner suburbs” label hints - people aren’t walking to work, they’re walking to strip malls and shopping center complexes.
These townhomes are near-universally solid concrete lots fenced-off from the street with zero aesthetic appeal. I promise you: they’re not the cute, compact, walkable San Fran/New England homes you’re thinking of.
Who gives a shit about the aesthetic appeal?? It's housing, if you want to solve a housing crisis, build more houses, who cares what they look like. I've lived in Houston my whole life and replacing decrepit 1920s construction pier and beam shotgun houses with 4 story townhomes is an improvement, it's moronic to act like it isn't. Houston's housing costs and rent is affordable, it's why you are seeing people flock to the city, whether they move into a townhome or buy a sfh in a far off suburbs, does it really matter? What's the point of heralding density alone as a virtue when the goal should be affordable housing, ugly or sprawling or cookie cutter be damned
The majority of people don’t aspire to live in a cheap, ugly place.
You’re welcome to like unwalkable/sprawl-based housing, if that floats your boat - but it’s not the goal of most neo-urbanist policy. Unfortunately in the case of Houston, those low-quality homes aren’t taking the market pressure away to make nicer, midrange, high-density housing in a tight-nit community more affordable, since the new development is all ugly, unwalkable sprawl.
Density isn’t the virtue - a pleasant, accessible place that a large population can harmoniously live in is what most of us care about.
If that were true, you wouldn't see Texas and the rest of the South leading the nation in new transplants? I think people want to live where housing is cheap, because it's where they can have more of their income for discretionary spending or savings.
If there is somewhere like what you are describing that is a pleasant accessible space that's affordable I'd love to hear about it.
People move to Houston despite the negatives for the same reason people in food deserts buy McDonalds and Doritos from the corner store. The revealed preference doesn’t indicate that they’re eating that stuff because it’s good or healthy food; it’s because they’re desperate and don’t have better options.
Doritos stop people from starving, but no one confuses them for good food. The long-term solution to fixing food deserts isn’t to subsidize McDonalds and Frito-Lay, but instead to make other affordable options available - e.g. root vegetables, rice and beans, lentils.
Similarly for housing, we know good, affordable modes of living exist and are viable because we did them in the past in the US before regulation got in the way, and because other parts of the world still use them. The townhomes of the American Northeast, and surrounding mix of interconnected apartments/small storefronts (think Boston/Hoboken) are a prime example of dense, high-quality urban spaces that we should be incentivizing through public policy; the townhomes of Houston are not.
What an absolutely ridiculous comparison. People in food deserts don't have the luxury of choice, people moving their lives absolutely do (the alternative is staying where they were, or in the instance where they were priced out, plenty of other choices besides Houston).
People are moving here because the cost of living is affordable and they have a higher quality of life compared to their other options, I don't see how you can use Boston as an example with a straight face considering the massive gulf of difference in affordability between the two.
I do not see why you hate townhomes that are nicer and denser than the detached SFH on large lots they are replacing?? Why shouldn't other places copy Houston in allowing replats to enable more dense housing. Again, if you have some magical way to incentivize more Bostons and less Houston's feel free to explain it, policy or otherwise. Using people's greed and aligning their own self interest to densification (via replats) vs kowtowing to nimbys who only want their property value to increase (which in Houston they are forced to pay high property taxes unlike California with it's capped property taxes(lol why the fuck would this be allowed still)
Doritos/McDonald's and Houston housing have two common economic traits: they're inferior goods, and their relative prevalence in their markets is heavily driven by government subsidies.
I'm not saying that just to dunk on Houston - what I mean is that you can buy any given tier of home (in terms of sqft, build quality, amenities) at a much lower price than you can in other cities of comparable size. Some of that is attributable to Houston's big housing supply, for sure, but a bigger factor is that Houston is a less-desirable place to live. People who move to Boston over Houston are either willing to pay a big premium to have the same-sized home, or willing to settle for lower-tier housing. Objectively, when making microeconomic decisions about where to live, the average American resettler routinely chooses to pay tens of thousands of dollars annually to not live in Houston.
As for the subsidies, much like McDonald's is artificially cheap due to the billions in annual subsidies for soybean/corn/hay, Houston housing and urban sprawl have been made artificially cheap by tens of billions in annual subsidies + spending for car infrastructure. To be clear, my argument is not that we shouldn't be subsidizing infrastructure or agriculture; we absolutely should - but we shouldn't be spending more on corn and soybean that every other type of produce combined, and we shouldn't be subsidizing cars to the extent we are without proportionally investing in making walking/biking into viable choices for commuters.
You're putting words in my mouth. I have nothing against the increased density, but I think that increase is marginal compared to other factors and I fundamentally disagree that they're nice. My root-level comment on this thread called it out, but IMO Austin's policy of relaxing parking minimums alongside splitting up lots has had much better outcomes.
US DoT 2024 Budget Highlights
Cornography: Perverse Incentives and the United States Corn Subsidy
I literally just told you that the median, average American settler is choosing to move to Houston, or Dallas, or anywhere that is affordable, if you look at the data since the pandemic you'll see the obvious trend. Bay area, NYC, Boston are not seeing population growth since 2020, check FRED data, Houston is, people are making the microeconomic decision to spend less on housing, and more on everything else, that's not inferior, that's an advantage. People make tradeoffs when they pick where to live, you repeatedly act like there is some scale of desirability that is universal, not only is that not the case, but the revealed preferences disagree with you!
Austin has a long way to go before it densifies anywhere outside UT, but it also became wildly unaffordable in recent memory, having comparable rents to Manhattan!! That is insane to me because you're still in TX (lol) politically, AND it's hot, AND the cedar fever is awful. When I visit LA on Venice Beach you understand why those houses are millions of dollars at least.
I'm not sure that realistically there is much advantage to subsidizing highways over public transit, in theory there obviously should be but here in the US (Looking at you NYC) we can't seem to get anything done on time or on budget (also applies to TX highways but seemingly they can expand lanes more successfully than subways get built)
I feel like you think I'm unaware of your points, I'm really not, and I think places like Amsterdam are probably the platonic ideal of a city, with predominantly biking and transit all that's necessary (and while maintaining better affordability than NYC), but I dislike when people come up with excuses to patronize the choices people are making. You don't get to tell other people that what they chose to value in a city is inferior to an alternative, it should be patently obvious that price != quality, as is the case in almost every other application.
It provides references for the policy change but it doesn’t provide any data or references for the proportion of development - now or historically - that is increasing density relative to growing geographically when saying:
Great. It’s doing both, that’s good. But how much of each?
We aren’t told by the FT author. We’re left to assume that they’re doing a lot of densifying and assume that doing a lot of densifying is why Texas is building more/doesn’t have a housing crisis/whatever.
It does provide data for the proportion of development that is increasing density relative to growing geographically. All the quotes I post contain links to the exact sources you are asking about.
Houston had higher than average housing growth for single family and multifamily housing from 2010 to 2020
In the inner loop where the policy is in effect, 67,494 townhomes and multifamily units were built between 2005 and 2018
More housing was built each year on average between 2005 and 2021 in the inner loop in Houston, than Oakland and San Francisco combined.
You see many single family homes being built outside of the inner loop, but those are areas that are not affected by the 1998 regulation. Saying a policy that targets the inner loop is not effective because it didn't stop single family home construction beyond the inner loop doesn't make sense.
Houston took an area where lots had a minimum size of 5,000sqft and reduced it to 1,400sqft. Houston also has a "shall approve" system where if something meets their building rules, it is automatically approved. This has allowed the inner belt of Houston to build multifamily buildings and townhomes incredibly quickly and densify the area.
I appreciate you for giving the sources and data, seems most in this thread have no intentions of engaging because they have preconceived notions of what Houston or Texas is and that it's the opposite of the type of housing solutions they'd desire(ones that seem not to help much in practice). Hell, SF could look to Houston too on how to deal with the homeless. The city is far more than an oil and gas hub of guns and horses lmao
Yeah, I don’t particularly like the aesthetic appeal of Houston. I much prefer the way the Bay Area is set up, but Houston did create a policy that allows for denser housing and quick development.
I don’t think the exact same cookie-cutter policy would be right for other cities, but that’s not what I or any of these articles have been advocating for. Cities with housing crises can look at what the 1998 policy in Houston did well and modify it to align to other goals to fit with the needs and values of their city.
It feels like people miss a lot of nuance in articles and try to assign black and white thinking in the comments. The point of all these articles is not “Houston good, California and London Bad.” These articles are saying “Houston did something that helped increase density and prevent a housing crisis. Maybe that solution could help these other cities with housing crises.”
I feel like this is a little more apples to oranges than this article makes it out to be, but I don’t have the credentials to make a more informed comment than that.
It's mostly about relaxing zoning laws and decreasing regulation around development. This is something that California has implemented state-wide with the abolishment of single family zoning. It just takes time to see these changes make a difference.