June 4, 2005
G U L F  C O A S T  G R O W T H  N E W S
A publication of the Gulf Coast Institute

NOTABLE QUOTES
“The economists all think that if you show up at the cashier's cage with enough currency, God will put more oil in ground.”
- Princeton University geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes, in a Chronicle story on “peak oil.” http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ap/fn/3202666

“You've got to do really big things in order to dent the problem. And if you're on the backside of the supply curve you're chasing the train after it's already left the station.”
- Robert L. Hirsch, an energy analyst at Science Applications International Corp., quoted in the same story

LIVABLE HOUSTON INITIATIVE
Westchase Long Range Plan to be discussed
June 22 event will hear about urban proposals
Representatives of the Westchase District will show the draft community-wide vision plan for the District. The plan comes from an elaborate, on-going process that has involved stakeholders, public agencies, and nonprofit community organizations, and imagines a walkable, mixed-use urban area. The meeting is Wednesday, June 22, noon-1:30 pm, Houston-Galveston Area Council, 3555 Timmons, second floor. Bring your lunch. For more information call 713-523-5757. The Gulf Coast Institute and the Houston-Galveston Area Council host Livable Houston/Smart Growth bring-your-own-lunch meetings that are open to the public on the fourth Wednesday of every month. http://www.gulfcoastinstitute.org

REGIONAL NOTES
Forbes ranks best and worst metropolitan areas for business and careers
Houston ranks 13th overall, 7th among 20 most populated areas
Forbes Magazine released its rankings of the best and worst metropolitan areas for doing business. Factors include doing business, education attainment, population, and job growth. The top 10 areas were Boise, ID; Raleigh-Durham, NC; Austin, TX; Washington, DC; Albuquerque, NM; Huntsville, AL; Fayetteville, AR; Norfolk, VA; Atlanta, GA, and Madison, WI. Dallas ranked 19. Los Angeles 106, and New York 120. http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome.shtml

Envision Houston Region 2035
Six workshops in six different locations, Sep 15 – 24
The Houston-Galveston Area Council's (H-GAC) regional visioning exercise for the 2035 Regional Transportation Plan will hold workshops at the following times and places: in Sugar Land on Thursday, September 15; in Katy Friday, September 16; in Houston Saturday, September 17; in Conroe Thursday, September 22; in League City Friday, September 23; and in Baytown Saturday, September 24.  For the Houston workshop, H-GAC will partner with Blueprint Houston to hold a large event at the George R. Brown convention center. A related Citizens' Congress will be held by Blueprint Houston in December. The consultant for the H-GAC process is John Fregonese, a partner in Fregonese Calthorpe Associates. Fregonese has led regional vision projects in Austin, Salt Lake City, Nashville, Chicago, and Los Angeles. http://www.blueprinthouston.org and http://www.frego.com/index.html.

Lents new CEO of Center for Houston’s Future
Co-founder of Quality of Life Coalition succeeds Calaway
The Center for Houston’s Future has named Ann Lents to be its new President and CEO. Lents was co-founder of the Quality of Life Coalition, which advocates tree planting, park development, and litter and billboard abatement. She is President of the Park People and serves on the Boards of Scenic America and Houston Wilderness. Earlier in her career, Lents was a partner with Vinson & Elkins and practiced in the areas of antitrust, securities, and commercial trial law. Lents succeeds James Calaway, who led the Center from November 2001 to May this year. http://www.centerforhoustonsfuture.com

TEXAS NOTES
SUV sales down in Texas
State follows national trend
Texas has been the nation’s most enthusiastic consumer of SUVs, but sales in early 2005 indicate that Texans, like other Americans, are cooling toward the oversized vehicles. According to the Wall Street Journal, sales of the Chevy Suburban fell 18 percent in January and February 2005, compared to the same months in 2004. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that, nationally, SUV sales dropped 15 percent in the first quarter of 2005, compared to the same quarter last year. Ford’s Excursion and Expedition sales fell about 28 percent. The Chevy Suburban was down 30 percent nationally, and Tahoe sales fell by 22 percent. At the same time, sales for Toyota’s fuel-efficient Prius doubled in the first quarter of 2005, compared to 2004. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/05/08/MNG44CLV291.DTL&type=printable

NOTES FROM OTHER PLACES
URBANISM
35-year plan for metro Chicago unveiled
Plan calls for directed growth
The Northeast Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC), the planning authority for metropolitan Chicago, released its 2040 Regional Framework Plan.  According to the Kane County Chronicle, the plan calls for growth to be directed into compact, mixed-use “centers” with pedestrian-friendly design and a range of housing choices. The centers would be connected by ”corridors” of efficient highways, arterial roads, train lines, bus routes, and trails. Finally, the plan calls for “green areas” such as parks, farms, nature areas, and wetlands.  Now NIPC is calling for public response to the plan. “The true purpose of NIPC is to set a regional vision,” said one NIPC commissioner. “We feel one of the very best ways to do that is to get as much public input as possible.” The plan is an attempt to deal with greater Chicago’s projected population growth from 8.3 million in 2004 to perhaps 11 million in 2040. http://www.kcchronicle.com/MainSection/341305386151114.php

Quality of life planning in Chicago
Residents propose small ideas for improving neighborhoods
The first phase of Chicago’s New Communities program ended as residents of 16 neighborhoods presented their “outside the box” ideas for improving their areas. According to The Chicago Tribune, the suggestions included one for turning two South Side vacant lots into an “urban agricultural zone” that grows produce and creates jobs.  A West Side community suggested converting a former convent into student housing. The neighborhood projects are to be funded with about $22 million in seed money promised by the MacArthur Foundation in Chicago and other groups. One resident said that improving one's community doesn't have to be expensive. She pointed to a New Communities initiative that installed lights in a plaza that had been a haven for panhandlers.  Today, “the bums have been replaced by families,” she said. “It's a miracle.”  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/west/chi-0505190241may19,1,6036096.story

Pentagon to move jobs to suburbs
Plan contradicts DC smart growth policies
Metropolitan Washington DC’s efforts to pursue smart growth policies and reduce sprawl are threatened by Pentagon plans to move tens of thousands of jobs outside the Beltway, according to the Washington Post. These are jobs that until now have been transit accessible. “This single decision by an isolated federal agency contradicts all the vision and planning and progress of the region over the past decade . . . in terms of smart growth,” said a board chairman in Arlington County. Besides increasing already congested traffic, the shift will heighten stress on suburban schools, housing, and taxes. Officials are calling on the Pentagon to pay for extending the rail line. “It's gridlock now,” said Congressman James Moran. “The Army has got to help us get a Metro station. I don't see any way to avoid it.” The Baltimore Sun says the Pentagon moves are “disruptive” to regional efforts to contain sprawl, traffic and air pollution, because security-driven relocation will take more than 25,000 military and civilian personnel from the district and its densely populated suburbs to Virginia and Maryland bases some 18, 20 and 40 miles away, with little or no transit options.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/14/AR2005051401190.html and http://www.smartgrowth.org/news/article.asp?art=4767&state=9

TRANSPORTATION
Bay Area transit authority charged with discrimination
MTC spends more on commuter rail than inner city bus service
Low-income residents of Oakland are suing the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), charging discrimination because MTC spends most available transit funds on providing rail service to affluent white neighborhoods, while bus transit in poor minority neighborhoods lacks funding. The suit points out that MTC's regional transportation plan failed to provide $700,000 for bus transit improvements in a black neighborhood, but still spent $1.5 billion for commuter trains and $4 billion for a BART extension to San Jose. This suit resembles a 1990s suit brought by the NAACP against the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority that forced that agency to cut back on its rail transit plans in order to restore bus service to minority neighborhoods. http://tinyurl.com/8otrw

Public outcry forces changes to planned Georgia toll road
Consortium of builders offers to sweeten deal
Widespread opposition to plans to convert Georgia Highway 316 (between Athens and Lawrenceville) to a toll road have led the Parkway Group, a group of highway contractors including the three largest in the state, to suggest making the proposed tolls more flexible, and in some cases lighter. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, these proposals include optional toll lanes for drivers who would pay to get out of traffic jams in otherwise free lanes on the 39-mile highway, unspecified discounts for frequent toll payers, variable peak travel-time fares, and free use of the toll lanes by some drivers, such as University of Georgia students. Parkway officials argue that it could take decades to fix one of the state's most congested and dangerous routes, but that with tolls, the $1 billion project could be finished in five to seven years.  http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/0505/11ga316.html

Transportation bill called flawed
Editorial says current bill reveals lack of clear transportation policy
The $284 billion transportation bill that the House of Representatives passed in March is deeply flawed, according to a Boston Globe editorial written by members of the Brookings Institute Metropolitan Policy Program.  The Brookings representatives say that Congress may look on their bill as “a jobs-creating, economy-boosting, and congestion-easing panacea,” not to mention the largest public works project in US history, but in fact the bill is “anachronistic, and ultimately wasteful.”  Furthermore, the bill “represents the result of a policy-free approach that is totally out of touch with the nature of the real transportation issues facing the country.” The bill makes three fatal mistakes, the writers say. It continues to pour more money into a broken system. It assumes that “congressional earmarks, representing over $12 billion, somehow add up to a coherent, fiscally responsible national transportation policy.” And it ensures that America's federal program will function mainly as a “Rube Goldbergian…distribution system for the gas tax it collects.”  The writers urge Congress to write transportation legislation that is transparent, accountable, integrated, and governed by metropolitan areas and market dynamics. http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/katz/20050514.htm

ECONOMICS
Is ‘creative class’ being driven to other nations?
Richard Florida says outsourcing not main threat to US economy
Richard Florida understands why Americans are upset about outsourcing, especially to China and India, but he says that history teaches us this trend is “manageable, if we are able to create a new tier of jobs derived from cutting-edge technologies, ideas and industries.” Writing in a New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial, Florida says that the real challenge comes from “Canada, Australia, and the Scandinavian and Northern European nations that are stealing our real thunder.” Florida finds that highly skilled immigrants are now looking more to these countries than to the US for work and school. In Australia nearly a quarter of highly skilled workers are immigrants, compared with 10 percent in the US. Universities such as Oxford are now getting many of the immigrant applicants that once went to top US universities.  Florida warns that “tolerance,” which is part of his “creative class” formula for economic growth, remains underappreciated. He says that China’s and India’s traditional lack of tolerance will keep those countries from drawing highly skilled immigrants.  But increasingly tolerant Western rivals of the US will continue to thrive. The EU has already surpassed the US in publication of scientific papers. Florida finds the cause for this in a growing intolerance for “scientific exploration” in the US, which is leading even some native-born American scientists to look abroad for work, especially in stem-cell research. http://www.creativeclass.org/_flight_article_starledger042405.shtml

SENIORS
Successful aging
Report looks at ways seniors can remain active members of society
By 2020, the population between ages 50 and 64 will increase by 21 percent, and the population over 65 will grow by 33 percent, according to “Beyond 50.05”, a report of the American Association of Retired Persons. During the same time, the under-50 population will only grow by four percent. The report looks at ways communities can grow and change “to promote independence among individuals and [to] strengthen the civic and social ties among them.”  This process, when focused on seniors, is known as “successful aging.”  The report calls for standards of living for seniors that go beyond health and disability, and which facilitate “low risk of disease,” “high mental physical functioning,” and “active engagement with life.”  Specifically, the report calls for communities to provide affordable housing, good home design, and “effective mobility options,” as well as specific opportunities for seniors to remain engaged with their communities. The report concludes with recommendations for achieving these goals. http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/il/beyond_50_communities.pdf

DEMOGRAPHICS
New source of information on immigrants
American Community Survey gives more up-to-date information than census
Speaking before Congress, an Immigration Fellow at the Brookings Institute explained both how immigration reached “unparalleled” levels in the 1990s, and how officials can use new methods to obtain information on foreign-born newcomers. The foreign-born population grew by 57.4 percent during the decade, with one-third of immigrants living outside the “established settlement states.” By 2000, more immigrants were living in suburbs than in central cities. Observing that the US has “no uniform set of programs or policies to help immigrants integrate” into US society, the speaker noted the challenge communities face in designing service programs without knowing “who is living in their communities, and what their needs are.” The 2000 census data helped officials. Especially useful was the fact that the data was available online for the first time. But by 2005, that information is largely out of date. The speaker said that the American Community Survey (ACS), also available online, “promises to offer more timely data on the foreign born.” ACS offers responses to the long-form census questions on an annual basis. The speaker noted ACS’ shortcomings—it only offers estimates for smaller areas, and smaller countries of origin get lumped together, as “West Africa,” for example. http://www.brookings.edu/views/testimony/asinger/20050510.pdf

EVENTS
REGIONAL
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Hobby Center. June 13. Sponsored by the Progressive Forum. 713-315-2525 or http://www.thehobbycenter.org

NATIONAL
Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) XIII June 9-12, Pasadena, CA. The participants in the 13th Congress for the New Urbanism will show that the trends of the last 50 years - placeless sprawl, environmental deterioration, increasing separation by income and race -are not our destiny. http://www.cnu.org/

Rail~Volution 11, Salt Lake City, Sept 8-11. This year's conference will focus on the importance of partnerships across multiple fronts in shaping livable communities. http://www.railvolution.com

New Partners for Smart Growth 5th annual conference, Denver, Jan 26-28, 2006, at the Adam's Mark Denver Hotel. http://www.outreach.psu.edu/C&I/SmartGrowth/

Prepared by David Theis

Gulf Coast Growth News is a publication of the Gulf Coast Institute. The Gulf Coast Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in Houston. To support the Institute, go to http://www.gulfcoastinstitute.org. To join the Institute's 1000 Friends of Houston, go to http://www.1000friendsofhouston.org