Ashby High Rise casts long shadow over Houston land use. Erin Mulvaney, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
There are, of course, no issues that are being intensely litigated in poor areas as there are in the wealthy enclaves mentioned above. Nor has there been the traditional amount of support in City Hall for say, preserving Houston's Wards. (With the notable exception of the 3rd Ward, which acts as a personal finance tool and incumbent protection system for State Rep. Garnet Coleman.)These arguments have emerged in several similar lawsuits filed against projects since and city laws have been passed to address some of the complaints brought by the residents who live near the Ashby site.Festa said that with the various land use restrictions in Houston, in the form of minimum-lot sizes, historic districts and residential buffer ordinances, the region has "de-facto zoning." This has led to many questions and sets up battles over where to build and about density versus preserving what is already there.He said there are equity issues on both sides."Wealthy neighbors pass the hat and hire top-notch attorneys. What happens to the ones that don't have those resources?" Festa said. "Nowhere is this stuff more intense than land-use battles."There have been battles over what should be built in River Oaks, the Museum District and the Heights.
But New Urbanism has never been about density, it has always been about trying to force people who choose otherwise to adopt a lifestyle deemed "suitable" by a group of people who work little and accomplish less. Who spend their days attending workshops, talking about a walk they once had and demanding that city resources be spent on their priorities. If the 'other' people would just move into areas that they feel blighted?
That's a bonus.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with this. People can, and should be allowed to, voice their opinions on how and where others live to their heart's content. Just as we have the right to point a finger at them, laugh and mock them for both their lack of self-awareness and utter ignorance when it comes to economics. David Crossely and his band of think-tank acolytes are free to call for so-called "complete streets" with European roundabouts, speed humps and a region-wide 20 MPH speed limit as loudly as they want. Despite their protests to the contrary no one, of serious demeanor, is trying to blunt their ability to do so.
The arguments come when the government buys into this job-killing nonsense (as did the Brown, White, Parker and (it seems) Turner administrations) and start directing scarce city finances to making the dream a reality. This is how Houston gets saddled with Billions of dollars in spending on active and proposed rail lines that aren't decreasing mobility, it's how parklets, and the ridiculous photo-ops they create, suddenly get viewed as urban policy victories, and it's how bike lanes to nowhere get built, and then ignored because the city doesn't really belong in the business of playing nanny for people's living choices.
What the cities need to do is figure out what reality is, and then make transportation plans that reflect that reality.
In Houston, that would mean realizing that the amenities in many Houston suburbs are knocking the so-called "urbanism" that Houston is priding itself on into a cocked hat. It would mean that trying to force (other) people to move downtown to fulfill some Manhattan-lite wet dream that New Urbanists have is not popular on a mass scale. It would mean more bus service to outlying areas, more park-n-ride and less insistence that one of Houston's busiest traffic, and economic, corridors lose car lines in favor of a bus...to nowhere.
It would also mean that, at some level, people in high places are beginning to envision a Houston with driverless cars, where taxi services are no longer needed and traffic collisions are less prevalent than in the past. It would mean buttressing the existing road infrastructure to to handle this eventuality.
Unfortunately, this type of thing takes leadership. And as has been clearly demonstrated on this blog for several years now, Houston has a leadership vacuum that is sucking up all of the good ideas and the city's potential. This could be reversed by members of the productive class pushing back against the unproductive nitwits trying to make decisions for them but, as the productive class does, they are too busy working during the day and being otherwise occupied during the evenings and weekends.
In other words, little is going to change until leadership fills the void. I wouldn't hold your breath.
