Archive for the 'affordability' Category



Different cities have different competitive advantages, from climate to geography to industry clusters to amenities, but Houston has one that stands apart from every other major city in the world: our free market in land use. Brian at the Live Oaks bl…

The new 2008 Fortune 500 list is out, and Houston and Texas continue to be big winners. As I predicted last year, Texas passed up New York to be the number one state in the nation for F500 headquarters, with 58 to 55 for NY and 52 for CA. Just 3 year…

Just caught this story on HAIF before heading to sleep. Kiplinger has selected Houston as it’s overall #1 Best City to Live, Work, and Play for 2008 based on factors like population growth, percentage of workforce in the creative class, income growth,…

This columnist from Orange County, CA recently visited Houston for the Preserving the American Dream conference, and he liked what he saw here. I was originally planning to just highlight excerpts, but I liked so much of it, it ended up being pretty m…

Business Week touts Houston

Some great stuff in here. Hat tip to Mark for the heads up. BusinessWeekAre You in the Best City for Your Job?A high salary goes only so far if the cost of living is even higher. If you want your dollar to go further, maybe it’s time to relocateFriday…

Sorry for the late post this week. Busy, busy. Some smaller items to pass along:The Austin Contrarian is skeptical that higher gas prices will dramatically reshape cities, and he uses Houston as part of his case.MSNBC combines the results from 5 othe…

Again, the smaller miscellaneous items have stacked up beyond one post, so here’s half of ‘em:Houston has a near ideal combination of higher-than-average wages with lower-than-average housing costs. Go to this academic paper (pdf), search on “Houston”…

Harvard prof on Houston over NYC

Ed Glaeser, the famous (in urban policy circles) Harvard prof, has a great column this week in the NY Sun on Houston over NYC. His analysis covers all the angles. I highly recommend reading the whole thing, but here are my favorite excerpts:Houston, …

Some more smaller misc items for your weekend enjoyment:Stories of zoning run amok, with amusing commentary.The Austin Contrarian hilariously dismantles James Kunstler’s anti-suburban arguments (really more rants), even better than when I did it a few …

Milwaukee commentary on Houston

A while back, an editorial columnist from Milwaukee called me to talk about Houston’s free-market land use and development philosophy. His column finally came out last week in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and it has some great stuff in it.This noti…