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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:04 PM
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How Houston Is Becoming America’s Next Dense City

How Houston Is Becoming America’s Next Dense City

https://catalyst.independent.org/201...xt-dense-city/



Interesting article about Houston's densification

Quote:
Anyone who advocates for “Market Urbanism”—aka free-market city policy—must grapple with a common response: “but then we’ll get a bunch of Houstons.” The implication is that Houston is a sprawling mess of traffic, pollution, and bad architecture, and has become this way due to no regulation. The city doesn’t have zoning, after all, and skeptics warn that replicating it will lead to the same urban form elsewhere.

But Houston’s narrative should be more complicated. If I were to summarize Houston, I’d say the aspects of it that thrive are due to it having a functioning market; while the aspects of it that urbanists hate are the outcome of its centrally-planned paradigm. Let’s unpack both.
Quote:
There’s a quality about Houston, though, that transcends its built pattern: affordability. For decades, Houston has been the nation’s leading example of an “opportunity city”. It has, like coastal cities, high demand—aka fast growing job opportunities and population growth. But unlike those metros, it builds lots of housing, thus stabilizing prices. The median home price is $190,000, which is just 4/5ths the national average, according to Zillow. Midtown’s median home prices are $309,000, extremely low for a centrally-located urban neighborhood. This affordability has made Houston a refuge for expats from expensive states, and for immigrants—it is now the nation’s most diverse city.

The affordability can be tied to both Houston’s density and sprawl. Rather than one being good and the other bad, both forms of growth have helped stabilize prices. But the multi-family infill housing is the most organic outcome to be found in the Houston model. If America had a more market-oriented urban approach, those aspects of Houston—the density and affordability—would be the ones most likely replicated. For this reason, “getting a bunch of Houstons” should be an urbanist goal.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:10 PM
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Just read the article and feel like the exact same thing could be said of Atlanta.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:29 PM
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I would argue that Houston has more potential given its grid and haphazard development

easy to get to LA levels of density across the core urban area

[IMG]Houston Skyline-Almeda-Sept 2019-Mabry Campbell by Mabry Campbell, on Flickr[/IMG]
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:32 PM
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Do you know what LA's core density is? From East LA to Century City or so, it's alot for a sun belt/newer city, and it's 12 miles of it. Just the core, anyway.
I don't see anything in these pictures to suggest that. It still reminds me of the outer SFV or San Gabriel Valley , if anything. Or OC.

Last edited by LA21st; Dec 18, 2019 at 8:42 PM.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:36 PM
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Wow, we can start threads with articles sourced from think tanks that only exist to promote a particular political ideology? Good to know!
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:38 PM
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Well that's more of an infill corner of inner houston

the houston model would be tightly packed SFH, tons of houston boxes (5-6 story midrises), and a smattering of highrises.

whereas LA is tightly packed SFH, tons of small apartments, and a smattering of highrises.

this pic shows the SFH built density of houston

River Oaks-Houston Skyline-ROBB-Mabry Campbell by Mabry Campbell, on Flickr
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:41 PM
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my point is the built environment is already dense, and could support much higher densities (multifamily units can pack 20x more people into the same square footage) if the underutilized land was built up at certain nodes (This is already happening of course)

it's not like atlanta with very sparse SFH built environment. this is about as dense as SFH can get .
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:44 PM
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Uh, the entire LA city of LA has been building 5-8 story mixed use complexes (many in walkable districts) for the last 8-10 years and they're everywhere. There's probably hundreds more planned/u.c.

I have no idea how you think these aerials are like central LA. I really don't .
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:44 PM
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Houston is definitely on a path towards substantial density over the next decade. Its grid pattern and local emphasis on infill (inner loop) development lends itself to the movement.

Not sure why blatant boosters of other cities would suggest or argue otherwise.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:46 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LA21st View Post
Uh, the entire LA city of LA has been building 5-8 story mixed use complexes (many in walkable districts) for the last 8-10 years and they're everywhere. There's probably hundreds more planned/u.c.

I have no idea how you think these aerials are like central LA. I really don't .
good for LA. however, I doubt they've built as much as houston.

these are called 'texas donuts', not LA donuts

http://ktgy.com/work/type/residential/wrap/

texas donut:

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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:49 PM
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?

As far as mixed use buildings? Yes, LA has built more and I'm sure there's more planned/u.c too.

Like I said, the core density of LA is very high for a sunbelt city and it's only increasing. Not sure what you're talking about.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:50 PM
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for the record, here is Koreatown, the densest area of central LA. the commercial streets are far superior to houston , but the built environment is not that different than the more developed parts of the inner loop

[IMG]KoreaTown by HunterKerhart.com, on Flickr[/IMG]
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:54 PM
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Again, not sure what the similarties are. The last pic of Houston you showed (with the dounts) reminds me of LA's Playa Vista (new neighborhood) near LAX than anything in central LA.

That's not the best pic of Koreatown either.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:54 PM
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if you look at total multifamily US census permits for the last 10 years, I wonder how houston and LA compare..
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 8:59 PM
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I said mixed use, which means more for urbanity.
I can promise you LA's list for that is endless in the last several years.

But you do you want to compare neighborhood density between inner loop Houston and central LA?
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 9:00 PM
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I think its possible it could become the most dense of the non-dense cities.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 9:02 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LA21st View Post
I said mixed use, which means more for urbanity.
I can promise you LA's list for that is endless in the last several years.

But you do you want to compare neighborhood density between inner loop Houston and central LA?
LA is obviously denser, but Houston has added more multifamily.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 9:11 PM
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Dallas has been outperforming Houston in nearly every metric for the last decade or so. Dallas is more expensive and more tightly regulated than Houston. So much for the premise of this article.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 9:19 PM
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thanks to regulation, dallas seems to shunt new multifamily developments into 'new urban centers' in addison/plano/frisco/downtown/15 other cities whereas in Houston these tend to be built within the existing housing grid in and around the inner loop.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2019, 9:23 PM
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That's another false premise in the article - the idea that local zoning and regulations are not responsive to local market forces. Nobody is forcing the people of Dallas to live in SFHs in the suburbs, when they would really rather live in a Houston donut
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