In other news..... July 26, 2012 Houston Tops Our List Of America's Coolest Cities......"The Bayou City may not be the first place you associate with being hip or trendy. But Houston has something many other major cities don’t: jobs. With the local economy humming through the recession, Houston enjoyed 2.6% job growth last year and nearly 50,000 Americans flocked there in response — particularly young professionals. In fact, the median age of a Houston resident is a youthful 33.
The result? Over the past decade, the dreary corporate cityscape has been quietly transforming. Stylish housing developments have popped up downtown, restaurants have taken up residence in former factories and art galleries like the Station Museum have been inhabiting warehouses.".....
They need to run the data looking at education, age, crime (vics and perps), IQ, etc.
Well, at the Reverend Ike used to say: the best thing you can do for poor people is to not become one of them.
Having said that, I canceled my subscription to the Chronicle rag 7 years ago. It is your typical editorial board gaggle of fetus killing, pervert loving, God mocking and ChickFiLa hating Obama voters.
So what they found out is that rich people don’t build mansions in the middle of the hood, and that poor people don’t rent shacks on the ocean.
Wow, this is groundbreaking stuff.
Well, we certainly can’t have that!
Obviously, we must all share the misery. Except, of course, for the commissars, who will get the penthouse with the view, the mansion by the beach...
What they need to do is force the rich people move into the slums and “bus” the shiftless...I mean disadvantaged into the gated communities. Problem solved.
Looking across the tracks at the nicer neighborhoods used to provide incentive and motivate people to work harder and smarter and pull themselves up the economic ladder.
Now the difference in economic strata just provides a reason to whine about “social justice” and clamor for more socialistic wealth redistribution.
I’m sorry...I couldn’t read much beyond the first few paragraphs when the shocking revelation that rich people liked to live in rich neighborhoods was announced.
Bill Clinton is a racist who lives in a wealthy neighborhood.
Apparently they’ve never been to Detroit, where crossing 8 Mile Road is like crossing the Mexican border.
Wonder how many of the poor were deposited in Houston from New Orleans after Katrina. Bet they’re still waiting from Uncle Sam to load them up on a bus and take them back.
Residential Income Segregation Index ?
I guess that means they don’t have any section 8 housing in River Oaks?
Of course, there are still plenty of wealthy neighborhoods in Harris County, closer to the center city, but many folks with the means to move out of the county have done so. In all likelihood, they view declining schools, increasing property taxes, and increasing crime rates as the inevitable consequence of Houston's transformation to a minority-majority city run by liberal Democrats.
Similar population patterns are evident in many other metro areas. My home is in Union County, NC, just outside the increasingly blue Mecklenburg County (Charlotte). It is no coincidence that Union County is the fastest growing county in the state. Lower property taxes, better schools by all statistical measures, large-lot single-family residential zoning, lower crime, and solidly conservative/Republican residents (yes, even our Northern friends who have flooded in); but still convenient to the assets Charlotte has (at least for now).
The fastest growing county in Tennessee? That would be Williamson County, which adjoins Davidson County (Nashville). An almost identical dynamic applies there.
Political and business "establishment" leaders in Charlotte, in Nashville, and in many other growing Sunbelt cities are constantly talking up "regional co-operation," even suggesting multi-county tax overlay districts, multi-county school boards, and multi-county central planning. Residents of peripheral counties are justifiably skeptical.
Pap, right? Not the way he put it. He said that the above secret should be implemented by living well below your means in a neighbourhood with houses less costly than what you can afford.
He lives in a neighbourhood where the average family income is somewhere around $120,000 per year. He himself clears a lot more than that. As a result, he's less stressed than his neighbours when it comes to ye olde treadmill.
Admittedly, his advice isn't practical for many. In a nutshell, it's this: see how much house you can afford, see what neighbourhood it corresponds to, and then knock it down one level and move into a neighbourhood corresponding to that lower notch. The trouble with this approach is that it only works if you wear your wealth lightly, which he does. (He drives a sporty Saturn.)
But there is something to it if you can find a safe and reasonably well-kept neighbourhood where you can live quietly below your means. I know of another fellow who was the national vice-president in charge of retail sales for a big Canadian brokerage firm who lived contentedly in a 2,000-2,500 square foot Toronto house with 40' frontage. The way he lived, you'd never know who he really was unless you knew him personally.
Several years ago I met a young couple filled with liberal idealism and verve who just arrived in our metropolitan area. They informed me that they chose to buy a home in a lower class neighborhood near downtown (not Houston) so their children could experience the rich diversity of the surrounding area. Not being one to call a man a fool to his face, I managed some remark such as “That’s interesting”.
Well, this wide eyed quest for diversity lasted about a year before they moved. They discovered they didn’t want their kids exposed to the type of diversity the neighborhood offered in abundance: crude behavior and language, not to mention the crime and depravity (and that was just the school atmosphere).
I’m old enough to remember when poor didn’t mean criminal but all too often it does in cities.
In my informed opinion, it’s impossible to live in Houston and NOT be miserable, regardless of income.
Sorry, but Texas heat is enough without high humidity, traffic gridlock, and dirty air.
But Houston does have jobs. Only reason to stay there.
This is a plea for one of two things - to either hand those who cannot afford luxuries more, or to take away luxuries from those who can afford them.
Once upon a time, living within one’s means was an admired trait in this country. Now, “moving on up” (I hope Sherman Hemsley has reached a lofty new place!) is being supplanted with “give it to me for free”, despite that “free” means stealing from those who have earned it.
Who writes this garbage? My neighborhood is economically mixed, and we have the gangsta graffiti on the fences of nice houses to prove it! One of west Houston’s larger gang battles was fought in front of my house a few weeks back. At least 88 gun shots were fired, judging by the spent brass that the police picked up. It sounded like a war. Yet, it never made the news that I am aware of.
Well, yes. Rich folks don’t live in trailer parks, and poor folks don’t live in mansions - unless they’re getting Section 8.
Have the Pew people FReepmail me and I’ll introduce them to Chicago-style segregation.
It’s one of the little problems Obama never had time to clean up before becoming President.
Thank Obama, though, at least the water levels in Lake Michigan are falling.