Tag Archives: Houston

More Houston residents want to move from suburbs to city than vice versa

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Data from the most recent Houston Area Survey suggests that more Houston area residents would prefer to move from the suburbs to the city than vice versa:

Thirteen years ago, the Houston Area Survey started asking people who lived in urban areas if they’d prefer to live in the suburbs.  It also asked people in the suburbs if they’d like to move into the city one day. Survey founder Stephen Klineberg, a Rice University sociology professor, says the survey has revealed a clear shift in opinion.

“In 1999, twice as many people in the city said ‘I want to move to the suburbs,’ than people in the suburbs saying ‘I want to move to the city.’ Those lines have crossed now. And in this year’s survey, significantly more people in the suburbs said ‘I would be interested in, someday, moving to the city,’ than people in the city saying, ‘I want to move to the suburbs.'”

The most obvious reason is the rise in gasoline prices. But Klineberg says shifting demographics are also at play...

And that change in the makeup of households is also reflected in the type of houses people in Houston aspire to own.  The percentage of people who say they’d like a traditional house with a yard in the suburbs has dropped from 59% four years ago, to 47% today. While the proportion who would like a smaller home in a more walkable neighborhood has risen dramatically over the same period of time — from about a third, to more than half.

These findings mirror larger rumblings about where Americans would prefer to live: more people appear to be interested in moving to walkable, denser communities. Are these sentiments primarily coming from those of middle age and above plus young adults?

Two methodological questions:

1. Should we expect that the findings from Houston would be similar to what would be found in other metropolitan regions? Would the sentiments be the same for non-Sunbelt (i.e. Rust Belt) cities?

2. Additionally, how many of those who express an interest in moving from the suburbs to the city will actually follow through on this? Of course, these perceptions matter and could help shape future policy decisions such as building denser developments within the suburbs so that there are pockets of walkability. At the same time, does this indicate long-term behaviorial changes or simply attitudinal shifts at this point of time?

 

In review of Triumph of the City, summary of how city dwellers view the suburbs

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As he reviews the new book Triumph of the City, a reviewer summarizes how city dwellers view the suburbs:

But look past the rhetorical flourishes, and you see an ambivalent verdict on post-1960s urban policy: It is often the actors most philosophically “urbanist” in intent that are the most deleteriously anti-city in effect. Mr. Glaeser brings us, in striking detail, a gated subdivision in the Houston outskirts called “The Woodlands.” The city dweller’s inborn cultural revulsion to the place is the stuff of any number of Sundance dramas: the sterility of the McMansions, the moral vacuity of the micropolitics, the ecological nihilism of the SUVs. But the appeal of such prefab townlets—one million people have moved to the Houston area since 2000—has little to do with culture; the Sun Belt beckons because urban California and the Northeast have radically distorted the market for any city’s most crucial commodity: property.

These complaints about suburbia do seem to be commonly found in Sundance-type dramas, books, and music. This is practically its own genre: the “average person” (often middle to upper class whites) finds emptiness in sparkling (but shallow) suburbia yet comes alive when encountering something different than white, crass, depressing suburbia. But as the reviewer notes, there are reasons that people move to places like Houston.

(A condensed version of this book’s argument, particularly about how skyscrapers will help the city thrive,  can be found here.)

Texas population trends, the “demographic revolution,” and comparing Chicago and Houston

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Census data regarding Texas has been released and there are several demographic changes underway:

1. Texas is growing, particularly compared to some other areas of the country:

The first results of the 2010 Census were released in December, showing that Texas’ population grew more than twice as fast as that of the nation as a whole, to 25.1 million.

As a result, the Lone Star State will gain four additional congressional seats, more than any other state.

2. The cities are growing as our minority populations:

Texas’ largest cities grew larger and more diverse, as did many suburban counties, part of what Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg calls “this accelerating demographic revolution.”

“The number of Anglos is falling more rapidly than one would expect, and the number of Latinos is rising more rapidly,” Klineberg said.

Latinos accounted for 35.3 percent of the total [population growth in Houston] — 41 percent in Harris County alone — while the number of Anglos dropped to 39.7 percent.

African-Americans made up 17.3 percent of the metro area’s population, while Asians made up 7 percent…

Statewide, the number of Anglos grew by just 4 percent, according to Rice sociologist Steve Murdock, a former director of the Census Bureau.

The number of Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians grew exponentially more rapidly.

“I don’t think most of us expected the absolute amount of Anglo growth would be so low,” Murdock said.

3. Shedding light on my question from a few days ago about what Chicago’s population drop looks like compared to Houston’s growth or loss, here is the answer:

The city of Houston’s population grew to 2.1 million, up 7.5 percent over the past decade, and the metropolitan area — which now encompasses a 10-county area — surged to 5,946,800 people. The area’s incorporated cities are included in the count.

Chicago’s population dropped by 7 percent, but it remained well ahead of Houston at 2.7 million and No. 3 in the national rankings.

4. This will affect what Texas suburbs look like in the coming years:

And if the lessons of the 2010 Census are any indicator, the new residents will be a diverse lot.

“The idea of predominantly white suburbs” no longer holds true, Murdock said.

Texas’ growth has some similarities and differences compared to the rest of the country. The main difference is the overall population growth. The similarities are that the population growth is being driven by immigrant and minority populations and the urban areas, particularly the suburbs, are becoming more diverse.

How race effects chosing a house

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The Houston Chronicle contains an interview with sociologist Michael Emerson about a forthcoming study (to be published in Social Forces) regarding housing choice and race.

First, a bit about the methodology of the study:

Researchers for the Institute for Urban Research at Rice University asked that question to 1,000 whites, 1,000 African-Americans and 1,000 Hispanics in Harris County to determine whether race makes a difference when they select homes and neighborhoods, independent of crime, housing prices and schools…

The housing questions were part of 30-minute interviews conducted for the annual Houston Area Survey. Respondents were asked to imagine they were looking for a house and found one they liked in their price range. They then were presented with computer-generated, random scenarios of school quality, property values, crime rate and racial makeup, and asked the likelihood that they would buy the house.

By using hypothetical situations, researchers were able to isolate the effect of certain factors, such as the racial composition of a neighborhood or the crime rate.

Here is a quick summary of the findings, according to Emerson:

For whites, the percentage of African-American or Hispanic matters significantly. They’re more and more averse to buying a house in a neighborhood as the percentage of African-Americans or Hispanics increases, even when crime is low, property values are increasing, and the local schools are of high quality.

The other result we found was for African-Americans in the Houston area, they’re sensitive to the percent Asian. So as the percent Asian increases, the less likely they are to say they want to buy the house.

And for Hispanics, the racial composition did not impact their preference for buying the home.

One other way to understand how strong the impact is, for whites: The likelihood they wouldn’t want to buy the house when there was racial diversity was equal to the likelihood they wouldn’t want to buy when the crime rate was high.

These findings are similar to those of other studies: Whites prefer not to choose a neighborhood with a certain number of African-Americans and Hispanics, even if the neighborhood has other positive features. The findings about other races are interesting as well – a lot of the housing literature focuses on the preferences of whites which makes sense as they are still the largest group and historically and today tend to have more wealth. But it is important to know the preferences of African-Americans and Hispanics, particularly as the Hispanic population grows.

Interestingly, the racial composition of the neighborhood does not appear to matter to Hispanics. I am curious to see what Emerson and his co-authors suggest is behind this.