Jun 27, 2009 | Luke Gilman 0
DockDogs rolled into Houston today. One of the downsides of an office overlooking Discovery Green is that when something really interesting comes along you’re supposed to try to ignore it. But who can ignore dogs jumping 22-24 feet in Extreme Vertical, Speed Retrieve and Big Air events? It’s going on all weekend. Details over yonder.
Apr 21, 2009 | Luke Gilman 0
County Seat Blog posted this 1960’s KPRC news documentary by the consummate Houston newsman, Ray Miller, from Mitt Dawson, himself a retired broadcaster. Embedded video following: Read the rest of this entry »
Apr 20, 2009 | Luke Gilman 0
Brilliant!! Chuck; aka the Poetic Prophet, aka The SEO Rapper raps in my language.
Dec 9, 2008 | Luke Gilman 1
Houston is notorious for having no zoning; though with covenants and deed restrictions, some say it has zoning without zoning. This leads to a wild west of sorts, where battles over competing uses of real estate spills out of the bureaucrats office and into the streets.
Case in point: one of the large real estate developers here in town recently plowed under an historic (for houston standards) shopping center to make way for a new Barnes and Noble/Starbucks retail multiplex. Things got heated when a revision in the plans revealed an open air wine bar jutting out from the complex that will be rented for private parties. To the neighbors, whose quiet, residential neighborhood lies, in true Houston fashion, just across the street, this raised the spectre of live bands and raucous wedding parties rocking in the open air wine bar until 2am. The developers had to get a variance for the porch and the neighbors are launching an appeal to the public at StopShepherdNoise.org - if you’re within earshot, I suggest you take a look.
I live down the street from another proposed development that raised the ire of local residents. See Stop Ashby High Rise. I declined to take up my pitchfork to storm the castle, but when a ‘Stop the Tower of Traffic’ sign showed up in my yard, I had no trouble leaving it there. This has lead to some surprisingly interesting conversations; it turns out people have more strongly held and varying beliefs about zoning than one might assume from the fact that you’re talking about well… zoning. For many native Houstonians, no zoning is a point of pride. For some it’s the price of progress - which is true, I guess if you count progress as urban sprawl and neighborhoods that rise and fall like fashion trends. Sharpstown, anyone? As a 2003 Newsweek article notes:
What is unique about Houston is that the separation of land uses is impelled by economic forces rather than mandatory zoning. While it is theoretically possible for a petrochemical refinery to locate next to a housing development, it is unlikely that profit-maximizing real-estate developers will allow this to happen. Developers employ widespread private covenants and deed restrictions, which serve a comparable role as zoning. These privately prescribed land use controls are effective because they have a legal precedence and local government has chosen to assist in enforcing them.
When I moved back to Texas from New England where I did most of my growing up, I found Houston to be a difficult town to get to know. I suspect the no zoning policy is a part of it, though there are others. Not having zoning, of course, doesn’t mean Houston is doomed to sprawl, storefrotn shopping centers and gated apartment complexes necessarily, but it means there is greater civic responsibility to stay involved in the development of the city. When a developer makes a choice that negatively impacts those already there, it’s incumbent to make ones voice heard, to internalize the entire cost of that decision and look for ways to work cooperatively to make Houston a better place to live and work and raise a family.
Sep 16, 2008 | Luke Gilman 0
Hurricane Ike came through Houston on Sept. 13th forcing mandatory evacuations of coastal areas and knocking out the power for over 3 million people. The major effects in Houston proper were relatively minor compared to the storm’s destructive potential, but the collateral effects have been severe for some with many left without power, ice, food and water and in some cases severe property damage. Here’s a recap-
Hurricane Ike was already claiming casualties even before landfall.
Although many residents refused to leave following the false alarm of 2005’s Hurricane Rita which the effects of the evacuation were worse than the storm damage, Ike carried a tremendous amount of destructive potential.
Galveston and the surrounding coastal areas bore the brunt of the storm and remain uninhabitable.
Though not approaching the scale of devastation on the coast, Houston sustained most of its damage from flying debris.
One of my favorite Houston restaurants burned down on the first night of the storm, apparently after a transformer exploded. This photo and other great shots available from Charlie McRae.
Jul 9, 2008 | Luke Gilman 0
Charlie Rose featured an interview with Wendy Kopp, the Founder of Teach for America (official website) last week. For anyone interested in education the conversation is a fascinating one, following the recent publication of her book One Day, All Children…: The Unlikely Triumph Of Teach For America And What I Learned Along The Way.
I’m fascinated with Teach for America as a program. It’s most impressive accomplishment in my opinion, is not teacher recruitment or classroom performance, on which most commentators in educational circles understandably focus, but on Kopp’s more ambitious purpose in raising a generation of leaders who understand teaching from the inside. I’ve run into a number of Teach for America alums here in Houston, most of whom are no longer teaching but who remain deeply committed to the issues they were exposed to through the experience. Kopp’s original inspiration, to create an alternative to allow America’s top graduates to explore careers that offered a more meaningful impact on their society than the corporate jobs many were being recruited for, has been a wild success.
Those who have stayed in teaching are doing some remarkable things. KIPP Academy, a charter school founded by Teach for America alums Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg and Chris Barbic’s YES Prep have become widely recognized as exemplary schools. I’ve taught in KIPP’s saturday school as part of the Street Law program at the University of Houston Law Center and the mindset of the kids is remarkable.
Jul 5, 2008 | Luke Gilman 0
Daniel Gross has nominated Houston as the poster child for bucking the recent downturn in the economy in Newsweek’s Houston, We Have No Problems: Houston has become a sort of Silicon Valley for the global energy industry. Urban cowboy? Think suburban geek.
To find a hot spot where soaring oil and commodity prices, and the booming economies of the developing world, are keeping cash registers ringing and construction crews fully employed, you don’t have to trek to Dubai or Moscow. You need travel only as far as Houston. In May, the unemployment rate in the nation’s sixth largest metropolitan area was a measly 3.8 percent. In the past year, Houston-based companies, which include 26 Fortune 500 firms, added 71,000 jobs to their payrolls.
It’s not an altogether unfamiliar role, as the soaring energy prices that sap the margins of industries in other parts of the country tend to fill the coffers of the energy complex that dominates Houston’s economy. As Gross notes, however, Houston has outgrown it’s rough and tumble wildcatter heritage to become an engineering haven built on the minds oil has attracted over the years. For instance, this statistic surprised even me - “The city’s biggest employer: the Texas Medical Center, the nonprofit megaplex that runs two medical schools and 14 hospitals.”
Similar sentiments lead Kiplinger magazine to vote Houston the Best City to Live, Work and Play for 2008 in their annual rankings. The reasons it cites are heavy on the economic scale, with Houston’s higher than average average income and lower than average cost of living tipping the scales in its favor.
Population: 5,542,048
Population Growth Since 2000: 14.9%
Percentage of Workforce in Creative Class: 31.3%
Cost-of-Living Index: 88.1 (100 being national average)
Median Household Income: $50,250
Income Growth Since 2000: 13.1%
Other links of interest: Houstonist, Houston Strategies
Jun 23, 2008 | Luke Gilman 0
This Houstonist post brought back fond memories. Since my elementary school had a giant hill behind the playground cardboarding was a frequent pastime in the spring and fall, as was sledding in the winter. How we didn’t break our little faces I’ll never know.
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