Any attempt by Houston or Harris County to build new affordable housing will be for naught if thousands of existing units become unaffordable along the way. The Kinder Institute’s Housing Preservation in Harris County report examines the state of both forms of housing in hopes of identifying how the community can keep housing accessible to its working class residents.
Many houses of worship own empty and underused buildings and land. Cities and counties need properties for affordable housing. Seems like a match made in, well, heaven.
Roughly one and a half years after George Floyd’s murder and the global protests that followed, local votes affecting local police forces came to the ballot box last week. In Austin, Proposition A would have mandated higher police staffing levels, but it failed by a very large margin, with 69% of voters rejecting the measure. Farther north in Minneapolis, a more narrow but still decisive vote rejected the disbandment of the Minneapolis police department (56% opposed).
Houston, Boise, and Seattle share a strong-mayor form of government, and its voters tend to favor progressive-leaning candidates. But these two majority-White cities have lifted Hispanic candidates into office in recent years, while representation has dwindled in Houston.
PERSPECTIVES:
DEMOGRAPHICS, ELECTIONS AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, GOVERNANCE
In November 1979, Houston City Council went from being almost exclusively male and white to being dramatically more diverse, literally overnight, as voters elected the council’s first two women and its first Mexican-American, and tripled the representation of African-Americans. The new council was also on average 10 years younger. It was a new day in city politics—thanks to federally required reforms that led to single-member districting—and Houston never looked back.
INSIGHTS:
DEMOGRAPHICS, ELECTIONS AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, GOVERNANCE
There’s an adage in Texas about a braggart being someone who’s “all hat and no cattle.” But you can’t say that about “Big D,” rapidly emerging as the de facto capital of the American Heartland.
The LULAC House in Houston's Midtown neighborhood has hosted presidents and has helped launch social programs that would inspire federal efforts that continue to this day. This symbol of collective Hispanic political power could be a rallying point and a shared ground for advocates for Houston and the Latinx community alike—if it can be saved.
PERSPECTIVES:
PLACEMAKING, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DISPARITY
It is now clear that the pandemic will not be behind us anytime soon. The pandemic variants and skepticism over the vaccine have made the potential for herd immunity (requiring a very high vaccination rate globally) difficult if not impossible to attain. This means that we are probably going to have to live with COVID for the foreseeable future and to adapt continuously to its impacts to our way of life.
Racial segregation is so prevalent in American cities that it can seem normal, even natural. Many Americans, including government officials and everyday housing consumers, view segregation in this way. Housing market professionals, or those who professionally assist consumers with home buying or selling, are no exception.
The Houston suburb of The Woodlands has been called an “invisible city” for the dense tree canopy that shrouds the extent of its development. It is invisible perhaps in another way: It’s not a city at all, but rather a patchwork of special districts, service contracts and interlocal agreements—a tenuous marvel of public-private partnership. But that could soon change.
INSIGHTS:
GOVERNANCE
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