[Houston Strategies] Houston=Brooklyn? plus rankings, not-so-smart growth, an...

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Nov 16, 2009, 10:44:16 PM11/16/09

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Clearing out some smaller items:

In case you missed it, Randal O'Toole had a must-read Sunday Chronicle op-ed on how smart growth would not save Houston from future Ashby high-rises, and in fact would create more.
New Geography: Smart Growth loses Houston mayor's race. Hat tip to Josh.
Has anybody seen a chart similar this one for Texas or other states? Note to politicians: incentives to stay in poverty are not good.
An older Dallas Morning News article I recently came across on the difficulty of filling the ground-level retail space in mixed-use projects, which seem to be more popular with planners than with retailers, usually because of the difficulties of access/parking. The upper-floor residential is not enough to support the shops or restaurants. This may become more of a problem in Houston as development happens under the Urban Corridors ordinance near the LRT stations. Hat tip to Neal.
From the national DMIBlog: Is Houston becoming the new Brooklyn? Not much news here, but might be of interest if you want to see an outsider's perspective. Hat tip to Jessie.
The Milken Institute has released its 2009 Best Performing Cities list. Houston scores very well at #5, up from #16 last year and by far the largest metro in the top 10. Austin is #1, and Texas has 9 of the top 25. Hat tip to Neal.
Continuing the rankings theme, a few cultural ones from Travel and Leisure magazine (out of 3o cities):

A nice sweep of our in-state rivals, and not a very close one at that. Hat tip to Brian.