At least, that's the (recurring dream)
This is not an unusual prediction to see in the Chronicle. There is always a consultant somewhere who's willing to provide Sarnoff a quote stating something similar. Unfortunately for the downtown set, the giddy predictions also have to be tempered with the reality that there's very little retail in the area, no grocery stores, and not much easy access to schools, etc.
Downtown Houston is now, and will always be, Houston's business center. And no matter how many high-priced consultant you bring in that fact is not going to change. What's really concerning is that, in many cases, the consultants brought in to make these proclamations are paid for in TIRZ money, or, taxpayer money that's segregated from the general fund for exclusive use in the district to which it is assigned.
The arguments against these TIRZ are strong and multi-faceted, especially in a city like Houston which has fallen in love with them to the point of distraction and misuse. But that's a series of posts for another day.
What's important here is that Houston is still being led down an expensive, developer's dream of a highway to nowhere. And, they're doing it mostly at taxpayer expense to assuage the fantasies of the unproductive class who view Nirvana as being a Houston where 2 Million (white) rich folks are packed inside the Loop asshole to elbow riding around on toy trains, stopping at cafe's and sipping coffee, shopping at private label boutiques free of the scourge of name brands, eating hemp and spending their evenings at cafe bars.
Meanwhile, at the end of every shift, 4 Million poor and middle class minorities hop on a shoddy bus service to get back outside the city center where they live in their multi-family units while the wealthy retreat to their condos within the city.
You see it happening to Houston everyday. It's the Paris model, a model that's now proven to not work at all. What's even worse is that it appears, by residential patterns, that most Houstonians are rejecting this model but the unproductive set continue to try and foist it on them.
