The Divide: Hunting for a home. Monica Rohr. HoustonChronicle.com ($$$) - The Chronicle discovers the "Two Houston's" theme just in time to aid Turner's campaign. The late Marvin Zindler said it best "It's Hell being poor." The questions not being asked are: What role, if any, should the city have in forwarding a solution? (Mandatory minimum wages have not worked out well in other cities) What is the root cause of this? (Education? Drive? Circumstance?) and (most importantly) What do we mean by affordable housing? (At this point the term is as undefined as food deserts) Then there are the legitimate concerns surrounding unintended consequences. Do we really want to make the 21st Century equivalent of the Automat commercially viable?
As Katy booms, housing scarce for working class. Leah Binkowitz, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$) - In which the Chron decides to shame surrounding communities for not sharing in Turner's "two Houston's" vision. And doubles down on it's inability to adequately define "affordable housing". This is a big problem in media coverage on this issue.
In Texas, minorities less-likely to own homes. Alexa Ura and Jolie McCullough. John Thornton's Texas Tribune. - Not surprisingly, the TLSPM suffers from the same lack of definition as does the Chron. It's almost as if these reporter types get together and share notes in a semi-secret roundtable setting....or something.
Do food deserts cause poor eating habits. Joe Cortright. The Atlantic. - Reading the story the short answer is "No". The problem is more likely caused by poverty. That hasn't stopped Houston from issuing thousands in tax subsidies to solve a problem that's both poorly defined and unlikely to provide much of a solution.
Why some Christians are upset at Starbucks new Holiday Cups. Heather Leighton. Chron.com - As the Chron's free website continues to go down the crapper it's important to note that Christians are the last unprotected class deemed OK to mock. Even if that mockery is based on nothing but the author's projections and not reality.
That won't stop them from mocking however. The kids have their story and they're sticking to it. Whether it's fact-based or no.
The soft bigotry of low expectations. - We no longer expect much from Metro, and boy do we get it. The bigger story is that "reimagining" was sold as totally revamping Houston's bus service to make it work better for more Houstonians. That it's not coming close to doing that is not the story. Instead, we've moved the goal posts back to chip-shot range, and Metro is still barely getting by.
'Campaign in a box' fires up commissioners, consultants. David Saleh Rauf. HoustonChronicle.com($$$) - Still, it's better than a "D**k in a box" right?
Business leaders aren't giving up on Parker's Folly. Chris Tomlinson, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$) - The Chron's Austin-based business writer basically tells us what we already knew. 1. That the GHP is still on-board with HER Ordinance and 2. He doesn't understand what a special accommodation is either.
Parker's Folly was defeated by an unholy alliance. Egberto Willies, DailyKOS.com - The meme from progressive groups have moved from "Houstonians are transphobes" to "Houstonians, especially minority ones, are too stupid to understand the issue." Don't worry though, Non-progressive Caucasians are still hateful homo or transphobic so all is well. Don't want you to get the impression that we're progressing on the debate over this issue.
Speaking of John Thornton's Texas Tribune, I'm not sure they understand the meaning of the word "disenfranchise". Because, if they do, then they're intentionally misusing it.
Things Parker and a majority of city council also don't understand: How diesel engines work. I would say the Editorial Board doesn't understand that either but you knew that already.
Houston's Budget Outlook Looks Gloomier. Mike Morris, HoustonChronicle.com($$$) - Meanwhile, Mayor Parker is continuing to obsess over her folly and Sylvester Turner is imploring us to "love one another" so that we can fix potholes....or something.
John Thornton's Texas Tribune helps Turner's campaign make a reach. Of course, this is a tempest in a Teapot. According to the campaign a "junior staffer" sent a stupid tweet that was deleted due to concerns it violated Cruz' privacy. Whether or not you believe that the resulting twitter storm by Turner's staff was comical. As many early attacks that they're laying on King (and some of them have been nastily personal) they must have some negative internal polling data that's freaking them out. Either that or Turner's staff is rather dim. (also a possibility)
Speaking of odd. - While the Houston Mayoral race is officially non-partisan I'm willing to bet the number of Democratic precinct chairs leveling attacks against Turner is exactly zero. Supporters will call this "truth telling" but they would be wrong. While it's OK to dislike King as a Republican (and to say he's not a driver of the conservative movement [he's not, but he's also not running as a conservative as the author wrongly states]), it's dishonest to try and cast Turner as "the true conservative" in the race.
Houston Tourism sees first impact after HER Ordinance fallout. Cara Smith. Houston Business Journal - This would be a blockbuster story....except the headline is untrue. The operative quote is as follows:
Emphasis mine. So, in other words "Nothing to see here" (Despite the fact that the GHP would like there to be). The Houston Business Journal has basically thrown away any pretense of not being the GHP's mouthpiece, as opposed to a media outlet. As such, and given that they don't have much of a grasp on how oil and gas works, I've pretty-much stopped going to them for actual business news. Rigzone and other national business publications do a much better job reporting on Houston's largest industry.As of Nov. 6, Waterman said that he's heard from four "fairly large," citywide customers that are concerned about what HERO's loss means for Houston. These customers could be conventions or events in Houston, and are “thousand-plus” customers, Waterman said, meaning that on their peak nights, more than 1,000 hotels rooms in Houston are booked for the event.Losing one, let alone all four, of these customers would result in a substantial amount of business opportunity lost. But Waterman also said that’s not likely to happen, and that the city has thousands of smaller events customers that are still all-in.
And finally......
Houston might be getting a Shake Shack. This is a good thing. Provided they finally get the Galleria III section completed right and it's no longer a dank, hard to reach, low-rent section of Houston's best mall.
