COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT’S FLOWING TOWARD HOUSTON’S EAST END 
“The entire East End except for a handful of homes near the bayou in Idylwood drains well and doesn’t flood. Allison, Ike, Harvey . . . nada. The steady drip drip of people moving over here might become a real flood now though.” [Dana-X, commenting on High and Dry in EaDo; Theatrical Shelter at the GRB; Elevated Before Harvey, Just in Time]
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Yeah, but the overwhelming downside is the well above average crime rate and stratospheric cancer rates.
I thought I remembered an article about the chemical smell on the east side that a lot of people were noticing before the storm when the petro companies were flaring gas and after the storm when they were flaring other chemicals. But yea, through a few more master planned communities of vertical mobile home parks, and I bet you will see a difference in drainage.
commonsense I’m supoening you for those crime stats…so we can all see your just bullshit.
A lot of people confuse Eastwood with Pasadena but that’s mainly due to the fact that they are blooming idiots.
JoeDirt, the stats are public information with nice crime maps easily available, but I already see you’re trying to setup a a real estate version of No True Scotsman Fallacy (but MY block has low crime, oh that bright red spot? That’s not East End, etc)
commonsense, joedirt is correct to ask. While the east end doesn’t make the top 10 lists in safest neighborhoods, it is well above average, and according to the last 6 months of data, outside of assault, it has fewer reported crimes than any of the tracked crime data. And I’d submit that the reason assault is so high is very likely domestic disturbance, it’s a fact that lower income areas have more domestic violence.
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If you had led with schools, then you’d be on to something, but going with crime rate as your horse to back, well, you’re overwhelmingly wrong.
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anyone can see this data for themselves and see how full of it you are, just head over to spotcrime(dot)com to see how wrong commonsense is!
I moved into the East End/ Eastwood area two years ago and have yet to feel unsafe. My office is in EADO and the same goes there. On the other hand, when I lived in montrose for 10 years my car was broken into 6 times and there was high calls for domestic disturbance and the thefts. 2k in property tax and peace vs 12k with disturbance. I think the east has the upper hand. I’ll save that 10k for my child’s private school tuition. My 2 cents. All are welcome in the East! Please save an old house before buying into the town home though. Peace out!
Common sense is unfortunately correct Joedirt :(. My husband and I would LOVE to move to riverside/ east end and even found several houses in that area that could work for us. However once you take a stroll to crimereports.com which is endorsed by the city of houston, the murder and aggravated assault and the rapes that have occurred in a 5 block radius (in the past 6 months) of the neighborhoods off of Dowling, South of Alabama are facts that are too glaring to ignore. I really want someone to tell me it’s not true – because there are some awesome beautiful homes over there.
Dowling, South of Alabama is not the East End and yes, crime is bad in that area.
Toasty is right … I would have started with Schools. Crime is average as anywhere else in Houston. The thing that makes the East End attractive is the proximity to Downtown and it’s not too densely populated yet (on the weekends you can ride your bike without having to compete with a lot of vehicle traffic). Trains are also an issue if you are not used to them.
Wait a second – “neighborhoods off of Dowling, south of Alabama” – that is East End? I know the commenter said “Riverside / East End”. Riverside Terrace and East End are quite different. I don’t want to start a neighborhood boundaries rant.
9 comments and no one has called commonsense ‘racist’? Normally when someone points out that an area has high crime, they’re called racists.
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Letting me down this am Swamplot….
im glad someone on here has the courage to complain about people bringing up racism in a thread where no one had yet brought up racism
@cody
Seriously… I never heard complaints about crime countered with accusations of racism. I’m calling total and complete b.s. on that one.
@Fuerza
Geography is hard.
When I hear “East End”, I always think Navigation, Harrisburg, SSgt Macario Garcia, 69th, Broadway, and all of the lettered streets near the Ship Channel.
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Riverside Terrace is most definitely NOT the East End.
I’m with Google. I think Magnolia Park.
Come on people, look at the news. There is NO argument anywhere or anytime that cannot be won by crying racism.
Riverside Terrace isn’t even east….
Anyways, most of the east end is pretty safe. Lived here for years. Parts of the corridor north of Harrisburg can be a bit squirrely, and east downtown just needs a bit more infill, but for the most part the area is fine. I ride my bike around Idylwood all the time. It’s absolutely stunning. Right near there is Forest Hill which is a solid neighborhood of mostly older working class hispanics. Never seen or heard of any serious crime in the area, and people take pretty good care of their homes. Heck, we have trick or treaters. I NEVER saw that in Montrose. No real flooding issues, ever.
progg/waytogo: There was just a story about block houses where commonsense made some joke about it helping with bullets. At least a few people called “racist” at the comment. There was some other 5th ward story where a comment (I think it was commonsense, thus my reply today) and he got a “that’s racist” back at him.
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Now, granted, some of the “That’s racist!” replies might just be people making fun of people who find racism everywhere. Quite frankly it’s hard to separate actual comments from those virtue signaling from those making fun of them.
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Today I saw a comment (not on swamplot) calming the hurricane that destroyed PR was man made because trump doesn’t like black people. At first I laughed and thought “Must be someone making fun of people who might really think that”. But when I clicked the profile I saw tons of crazy stuff that suggested he was being serious.
Race may be a valid a factor in an analysis of one’s risk exposure to crime in a particular neighborhood. Rates of crime committed by one race upon another are tracked and vary quite a bit. Black-on-black violence in particular is notoriously higher than black-on-white violence. What is not entirely clear, however, is whether socioeconomic segregation is the cause versus cultural prejudices. Also, there is bias in the frequency with which crimes are reported, and that also varies by race in a neighborhood and with those involved.
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This analysis is hard. Really, it is…and there are times when anecdotal evidence is sufficiently rich with details such that it is a valuable supplement to official stats. To that end, I find myself being another East End booster. I’ve lived there, owned there, and worked there, both North and South of Harrisburg. Never felt particularly unsafe. Lost some copper on a construction site, but that probably was an inside job; in Montrose my car got broken into and my GPS was jacked and that was considered almost a rite of passage by neighbors; off of Holly Hall my neighbor suffered a home invasion and that was also a recurring problem in the condo complex despite it being solidly middle class and mostly owner-occupied.
I’m thinking there’s just some general saltiness about folks who spent the last decade talking about how the East End would never work, now that it’s turning into a real estate powerhouse. There’s always going to be limitations in it’s peak values due to its proximity to the ship channel, so I don’t think it will ever become another Heights, but it has incredible value for any of the people who work on the east side of town, or downtown, and I think there’s still a lot of room for appreciation. Especially as growth continues in some of the plants. The loss of the botanical gardens was a pretty significant blow to its long term gains, but the HGA does seem to be keeping their word and remodeling Wortham. If they get a proper clubhouse in there it may be a decent consolation prize. The only really lacking thing over there is schools, but there’s absolutely nothing unique about that since it’s been an issue for any of the inner loop neighborhoods as they develop.
I like how everyone just skipped over the cancer rate point, I take it the “Cancer Alley†moniker for east end is not in dispute.
http://swamplot.com/how-you-too-can-browse-interactive-maps-of-houstons-cancer-hotspots-for-fun-and-panic/2014-02-25/#comments
“Pollution all over metro area… Check
Extra pollution over areas dirty hipsters want to live… Check” (poster: commonsense).
Obviously there are carcinogens originating from the Ship Channel plants…and the SE breezes relocate it accordingly. There used to be Plume Maps online and the hard hit areas would surprise you…people within a mile or two of Pasadena and Manchester have increased rates but are we talking another 50 people per million or? I say don’t buy offgassing Ikea etc furniture and carpets and eat or juice organic greens daily and you’ll likely more than offset it. And yes I live over here so am bias but that’s what I do.
This may be the lone thread Cody contributed to where he didn’t inform us of his vast real estate holdings or how he’s making the world better for his clients.
Ok so looks like commonsense has dropped the crime issue since it’s easily disprovable, so let’s heave ho and shift those goalposts. Now we’re onto the cancer issue. Yes, in some areas of the east side you will be closer to chemplants and that will definitely increase your cancer rate. A few points on that though. First, the increase in incidence rate is not nearly as severe as he is claiming. There are a ton of analyses that show the increase is not so dramatic compared to the rest of Houston, and none showing “stratospheric increases” like he is claiming. The majority show about a 30% increase in the bad areas. Second, the increases that are there are mostly for the farther east areas like magnolia park, galena park, deer park, etc (basically don’t live in a park). Parts of Eastwood itself actually shows lower cancer rates than lots of Houston. Third, the increase in cancer rates is not limited to the Far East end, it also includes downtown and the galleria. They actually have a higher incidence of cancer than many areas in Eastwood.
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Additionaly, from a health perspective, since we’ve got some Memorial brat badmouthing us again, let’s ask which is worse. A mild increase in cancer risk, or the health effects of exposure to black mold from flooding damage, combined with the mental and financial scars associated with not knowing if your house will survive a flood.
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And finally, the vast majority of the increased cancer risk you experience isn’t from living in the east end, it’s from living in Houston, period. Living anywhere inside the Beltway increases your cancer risk by about 200%. From the same reference point, living in the far east end/downtown/galleria puts you at about 275% increase (note- 200% to 275% is where I got the 30% listed above).
And at the end of the day, let’s talk about what really matters. This blog is mostly targeted at realtors and developers. People who invest in real estate. East end has already happened dude. It’s been a bit of a bonanza. Many areas have nearly doubled in value. Yoir poor reasoning has already been proven false, and if you avoided investing over here for that reason, or god forbid you convinced someone else to avoid this area, the damage has already been done.
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This isn’t about proving that the east end is a good investment. It already has been a good investment. That is literally proven at this point. Whether it continues to climb may be in question, and I think that heavily depends on specific area, but you can’t argue East End isn’t a good investment, that ship has sailed.
http://swamplot.com/how-you-too-can-browse-interactive-maps-of-houstons-cancer-hotspots-for-fun-and-panic/2014-02-25/#comments
Another post from the Swamplot link above from a few years ago. This issue really seems overblown and that comes from someone who actually spoke at a EPA public meeting advocating for cleaner air. Cleaner is better than being abused by cheating petrochemical plants but overall…it’s almost a non-issue.
“Context is important. According to the website cancer.org, a male in the US has a 43.92% chance of developing cancer at some point in his lifetime. That’s 439,200 in a million. Even in the most dangerous zone in this map, we’re varying that number by 75-100 per million, or 0.0075% to 0.0150%. If you want to reduce your risk of getting cancer, there’s not much you can do with your genetics, but there’s a lot of other great advice you can follow regarding diet, exercise, and other life choices that swamp out the cancer risks of living in certain Houston neighborhoods.” Thank you Phil Aphonic.
I’m no math wiz and am open to being corrected but this poster seems to have explained it the way that I was understanding it…and I submit that this is the correct perspective as explained above: the INCREASED RISK over the normal risk is LESS THAN 2/100% OF A PERCENT EVEN IN THE “BAD” AREAS!………take care of what you drop down the pie hole and your stress people and don’t worry too much about the chemical plants as the act of worrying about the chemicals wafting in the breeze probably is a much greater risk than the object of your worries, whereas adding herbs and fresh phytochemicals to your bloodstream on a regular basis is a true kick-ass act of intelligent defiance against any carcinogens short of hot radiation particles.
@MrEction, oh nay nay, I have not dropped the crime argument, you still have not given any valid counter argument that crime is not higher in east end vs “desireable†neighborhoods. Are you really being an apologist for increased cancer rates? With all the options to buy a home all over the Houston Metro area, why would anyone entertain even a tiny risk, especially a known and documented risk? Let’s face it, people live in East End (and defend it irrationally) because they can’t afford to live in a better place.
@commensense
I’ve ignored most of your East End bashing until now, but to say that “people live in East End (and defend it irrationally) because they can’t afford to live in a better place” is laughable.
Come to Idylwood and you’ll meet plenty of people who can afford to live in “better place(s).” Heck, even my $275k-300k household income could buy me a decent place in the Heights, or Montrose, or Garden Oaks.
But to do that, I would give up my neighborhood on a hill that does not flood, my 10 minute commute to work, my mortgage payment that is half of what it would be in those areas, and a refreshing lack of hipsters. I would probably also have to lease a BMW, starting attending a trendy spin class, and sit on Memorial trying to get to work every morning. No thanks, I’ll just sit back in my little bungalow while everyone the west side of town tries to prove to their neighbors how rich they are and wait for MD Anderson to cure cancer.
@commonsense, if you were capable of accepting that you read the east end market wrong you would do a lot better investing in the future. Everyone makes mistakes, there’s nothing wrong with that. Not accepting and learning from them is the real sign of weakness. I wouldn’t advertise your views to potential investors if I were you.