- An Interactive Map of Where Texas Home Values are Rising and Falling [Houston Business Journal]
- Construction Begins on Shenandoah’s First Full-Service Hotel [Prime Property]
- Liberty Kitchen To Open a Memorial City Location Late Next Year [Houston Business Journal]
- West Houstonians Discuss Future Transit Options in Burgeoning Burbs [Houston Chronicle]
- Houston-Galveston Area Council Hopes To Decrease Percentage of Region’s Solo Commuters By 12-15% in 2015 [Houston Public Media]
- Doctors Beat Architects in AIA Gingerbread Build-Off [Culturemap]
- Holiday Lights, Decorations Making a Comeback on Oak Forest and Shepherd Park Plaza Houses [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of River Oaks Blvd.: Bill Barfield via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
In the article on West Houston and in the presentation posted on MyWestHouston.com, there’s a lot of talk on meetings, “sponsors”, “steering committees”, councils, commissions, reports, ad nauseum. What there isn’t is any concrete plan, or even any concrete options to choose from. There’s a major area, that has been growing for years and years, in the 4th biggest city in America and apparently every person and organization who is supposed to be in charge of the transportation issue is glacially twiddling their thumbs.
The sort of things that are mentioned (roads, BRT, transit, bike paths) should have already been built years ago. Instead, the area will continue to be choked with even more cars and even more ugly sprawl.
It wasn’t mentioned in the article, but I’m looking forward to the bus “reimagining” due next summer. It appears that it will help access to West Houston, and for me, make it feasible to commute by bus from inside the loop to the Memorial City area. Still, I can’t help shake the feeling that we just can’t do anything anymore.
I find the numbers in that map rather suspect in inner loop west. Many neighborhoods that have “median” home values in the $300s had almost no listings that low in 2013, with actual medians closer to $500,000. Perhaps they are relying on tax values, which often severely lag actual values.
The home value map is based on Census data and for a variety of reasons it bears little or no resemblance to activity in the marketplace. Although journalists and new media types like it because it is free to them, offers comprehensive geographic coverage, and is easy to work with — take this dataset with a nugget of salt.