Tuesday, May 27, 2008
While the link works
It's been a few weeks since I saw the print edition of the April/May issue of New Urban News, and, because the archives seem to require a subscription, I'm not sure how long this commentary on a recent conference in Houston will be available.
I don't have time to snark about people who think that "66 percent more freeway lanes per capita than the average US urban area" is wonderful thing, but I do wonder what was said about the rebuilding of New Orleans at a conference of such people.
I don't mean to imply any criticism of Houston, but if the American Dream Coalition holds up Houston as the ideal American city, I really don't care what it has to say about the rebuilding of New Orleans. Please, no angry comments, I'm not knocking Houston. However, the physical differences between Houston and New Orleans aren't merely aesthetic. There are obvious geographic differences between the cities that shaped the development of both.
As a matter of fact, Houston is probably the only deep water port city in which it would be possible find anything resembling the concentric zone model or any kind of uniform outward expansion, at least on such a large scale. Strange that that the learned fellows of American Dream Coalition discuss Houston's affordable housing without mentioning that. I won't bother discussing the other issues related to sprawl, everybody already has an opinion on those issues anyway.
I don't have time to snark about people who think that "66 percent more freeway lanes per capita than the average US urban area" is wonderful thing, but I do wonder what was said about the rebuilding of New Orleans at a conference of such people.
I don't mean to imply any criticism of Houston, but if the American Dream Coalition holds up Houston as the ideal American city, I really don't care what it has to say about the rebuilding of New Orleans. Please, no angry comments, I'm not knocking Houston. However, the physical differences between Houston and New Orleans aren't merely aesthetic. There are obvious geographic differences between the cities that shaped the development of both.
As a matter of fact, Houston is probably the only deep water port city in which it would be possible find anything resembling the concentric zone model or any kind of uniform outward expansion, at least on such a large scale. Strange that that the learned fellows of American Dream Coalition discuss Houston's affordable housing without mentioning that. I won't bother discussing the other issues related to sprawl, everybody already has an opinion on those issues anyway.
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That's why Metro Houston can expand more easily than other deep water ports. That ability to expand outward in almost every direction is a large part of the reason why housing in the Houston area is relatively cheap. I thought it was interesting that the Cato guys at the American Dram coalition left that factor out when they gave the reasons for Houston's affordable housing.
I don't have time to do detailed criticisms of conservative/libertarian think tanks, but I started to do a post on the odd choice of Houston as the model of what small government can do for a city. Few cities owe their growth to the federal government more than Houston.
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I don't have time to do detailed criticisms of conservative/libertarian think tanks, but I started to do a post on the odd choice of Houston as the model of what small government can do for a city. Few cities owe their growth to the federal government more than Houston.
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