Whitmire = Bob Lanier, Vision Zero doesn't work, people prefer sprawl over walkability, and more

[Tory]

 Clearing more from the smaller items backlog this week:

• This Texas Observer piece on Houston's northside is so scattershot and random and socialist/left-wing biased it's hard to know where to start. Houston is bad because... it has gentrification, inequality, racial tensions, and suburbanization/sprawl like every other city in America?? Because it has the most affordable housing among the nation's major metros, but not affordable enough for the very poorest populations??

At the end, he calls for communities to control their own fate vs. developers, but isn't that what every other over-zoned and over-regulated city in the country has done resulting in a massive national housing affordability crisis?? The fact is that we called it right when we said Houston had the right formula for housing supply and affordability, and the rest of country is finally catching up to that. This incoherent, woke, down-with-capitalism/free-markets rant adds nothing helpful to the conversation. 

• Why so many Americans prefer sprawl to walkable neighborhoods in the Washington Post piece (no paywall archive link).

  • While walkable neighborhoods like Clarendon offer convenience, they can be expensive and lack living space compared to suburban "sprawl."
  • Despite the benefits of walkable neighborhoods, surveys show that many Americans prefer the spaciousness of suburban sprawl, especially older, less-educated, and Republican-leaning individuals.

• Portland City Auditor: Vision Zero Doesn’t Work by Randal O'Toole (The Antiplanner).

'This seems to be the basic pattern of vision zero plans across the country: impose a bunch of auto-hostile policies, ignore the fact that they don’t work, and then blame others when fatalities rise. As Lewis & Clark law professor Jack Bogdanski says, “the bureaucrats are great at spending money to make life miserable for people who drive cars, but they don’t bother to see if any of their spending actually makes any difference in improving traffic safety.”'

• I got quoted! 'In many ways Whitmire is, in the words of longtime Houston blogger Tory Gattis, “the second incarnation of Bob Lanier: focused on running a good city, not caught up in the urbanist dogma"...Apparently, Bayou City voters aren’t chomping at the bit to see their city become the next Portland.” From "These Mayors Understand How to Run a City" in the City Journal.