October 12, 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 QUOTE
"I think we were the organisms most at risk [during a hurricane]. Humans have not adapted. Isn’t it time that humans adapted like plants and animals for hundreds of thousands of years? Wouldn’t it make sense for us to become storm-adapted?"
- Harvard ecologist Edward Osborne Wilson, in a Houston Chronicle interview. http://tinyurl.com/a5n8g

LIVABLE HOUSTON INITIATIVE
Trends from Rail~Volution
How is transit-oriented development playing out in America?
Rail~Volution is an important national conference that addresses the idea of creating more livable communities around transit. Several clear trends emerged at this year’s event in Salt Lake City. Time permitting, there will also be discussion of the Katrina/Rita events and what they might mean for Houston and the Gulf Coast. The meeting is Wednesday, October 26, 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
First Envision Houston Region event draws 400
Participants call for greenspace, transit, mixed use development
More than 400 people spent four hours on September 17 envisioning alternative land use and transportation scenarios for Houston’s future. The workshop was the first of five Envision Houston Region events held by the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) in preparation for work on the 2035 Regional Transportation Plan, and was presented in partnership with Blueprint Houston. Several clear themes emerged, including conservation of greenspace, linear parks on the bayous, respect for floodplains, more transit and less new road development, and the idea of a variety of mixed-use “town centers” in a number of sizes. The maps generated by participants will be digitized and combined into a number of possible scenarios that H-GAC’s Alan Clark said will be brought back to the public in workshops next spring. There are still two more events this month, one in Baytown on October 26 and another at the Omni Hotel Westside October 27. For times and instructions, and to register to participate, got to http://www.envisionhoustonregion.org. For a report on the September 17 event, go to http://www.blueprinthouston.org.

I-45  expansion set for approval
Surprise vote postponed until October 21
The I-45 expansion plan is back on the table for approval at the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC). On September 1, the Houston Chronicle reported that the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) had essentially gone back to the drawing board to reconsider how the Hardy Toll Road might play into the eventual toll road plan. In that report, TxDOT’s Gary Trietsch was quoted as saying “We will look at both alternatives. That will probably take us at least a year. We'll see where we are a year from now." So concerned organizations and individuals were surprised on September 30 when the approval item suddenly appeared on the H-GAC Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) agenda for the October 6 meeting. There were many objections that the public would not have time to examine the new proposal, and the meeting was postponed until October 21 at 9:30 am. After TAC approval, the Transportation Policy Council (TPC) will consider approval on October 28. Among the changes in the revised report is the recommendation that TxDOT consider the possibility of moving four proposed managed lanes from I-45 to the Hardy Toll Road. Since its initial TAC presentation on July 13, TxDOT has increased the estimated cost of the project from $404 million to $2.1 billion, or $70 million per mile. (The current Katy Freeway expansion is costing approximately $113 million per mile.) For additional information on the project and its impact on historic neighborhoods, http://www.ghpa.org/update. The complete TxDOT revised report is available at http://www.h-gac.com/HGAC/Departments/Transportation/Committees/TAC/Oct+05_TAC+Agenda.htm, or on the TxDOT Web site at http://www.dot.state.tx.us/mis/mis.htm.

Harris County suspends work on Grand Parkway, 290
Art Storey says issue is revenue sharing with TxDOT
Harris County director of infrastructure Art Storey recently told Commissioners' Court that he has directed the Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) to suspend project development on the Grand Parkway and US 290 until the County reaches a revenue-sharing agreement with TxDOT for tolls. In a letter to the Commissioners Storey said “TxDOT has suggested that Harris County join them in a general agreement for sharing toll road revenues when HCTRA constructs a toll road in TxDOT right-of-way or on an alignment within the TxDOT highway system. …I have been working on such an agreement for several months. The negotiations have been difficult, and more time and effort is needed before we can expect to reach agreement. Accordingly, I have instructed HCTRA to stop work on so- called ‘future’ projects until either such an agreement is in hand or the requirement for one is eliminated.” A brief description of Storey’s actions is at http://www.ctchouston.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10

Neighbors blame Bayport construction for blocking bayou
Port officials cite “natural sediment”
Pine Gully, a tidal creek that flows through Seabrook into Galveston Bay, is blocked by a sandbar and is filling in with silt, according to a report from the Citizens’ Environmental Coalition. Neighbors blame the obstructions on construction at the Port of Houston's Bayport container facility. In July, Seabrook resident Sally Antrobus, of the Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association, notified the Houston office of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that sediment discharges had built a plug of silt that was blocking Pine Gully's flow. According to a complaint filed by attorney Jim Blackburn on September 9, the bayou's main stem is blocked by a 600-foot-long sand bar, and says there is standing water where water used to flow. The Port of Houston filed a report that concludes the conditions in Pine Gully are not the result of its work, and that the sandbar will clear itself naturally in the near future.

RDA civic forum
Sustainability in Houston
The Rice Design Alliance presents the final installment in its “People, Planet, Prosperity: Prospects for Sustainability in Houston” series December 7 at 7 pm. Speakers include writer Jose de la Isla, Houston Advanced Research Center energy group director Karl Rabago, and pastor Jeremy Rutledge. Brown Auditorium, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. http://rda.rice.edu/index2.php?

Texas Bioneers
Conference on “restoring the earth”
A local conference called Texas Bioneers will alternate sessions with the 16th annual national Bioneers Conference beginning this Friday, October 14. Presented by the Blackwood Educational Land Institute, Texas Bioneers promises “visionary and practical solutions for restoring the earth,” while the national event proposes “visionary and practical solutions for restoring the earth and people.” Morning and early afternoon sessions will feature local speakers, and in mid-afternoon the action will switch to a satellite video link from Marin Center in San Rafael CA. The conference also features a concert and a worship service at the Rothko Chapel. St. Thomas University, October 14-16. (713)768-3422. http://blackwoodland.com/texasbioneers.

TEXAS NOTES
Texas ranks 6th in adult obesity
Oregon only state where obesity has not increased
Obesity rates continued to rise last year in every state except Oregon, and current government policies and actions offer little hope of reversing the trend, according to F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America, a new report by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH). In 10 states, over 25 percent of adults are obese, including 7 states in the Southeast. The report notes 64.5 percent of all adult Americans are either overweight or obese. To help combat the obesity crisis, TFAH challenges the research community to increase preventive care, bring about change in food options for school-age children, encourage Smart Growth development, increase physical education in schools, and provide more information and support, among other options. http://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2005/

Texas is now ‘majority-minority’
Census shows Hispanics spreading across US while African-Americans return South
Texas has joined California, New Mexico, and Hawaii in being a “majority-minority” population state, according to USA Today. About 50.2 percent of Texans are now minorities, a trend driven by a rising number of Latinos moving to the state. Recent census data also show that Hispanic and African American populations are moving in opposing directions. Blacks tend to return to the South. But Hispanics are fanning out across the country, moving where the jobs are.  The number of states in which Hispanics make up at least 5 percent of the population has grown from 16 percent in 1990 to 28 percent. More than 17 million Blacks live in the 11 states that were in the Confederacy, up a million from 2000. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-10-minority-populations_x.htm

NOTES FROM OTHER PLACES
URBANISM
The living is easy in Charlotte
Low housing costs, high pay make Charlotte attractive
Economically, Charlotte is an attractive place to live, according to the Wall St. Journal Online. The median household income of $49,228 in 2004 was 11.8 percent above the US average, while the median home price of $169,400 is about 10 percent below the national average. The overall cost of living is 3 percent below average. Some brokers suggest the large number of new homes and condos may be pushing down housing prices. "People have choices," says Brett Furniss, president of Charlotte-based BDF Realty Inc. "It's classic supply versus demand."  http://www.realestatejournal.com/columnists/livingthere/20050824-livingthere.html?refresh=on

Smart Sprawl?
“Retrofitting” suburbs would be faster and easier than completely rebuilding metro areas
Wally Siembab, writing in Planetizen, looks at “peak oil,” and the question of how we’re going to live without cheap energy. He considers several doomsday scenarios, and then says that we have to go “beyond smart growth,” and begin adopting “smart sprawl” strategies to quickly lessen our dependence on oil. He defines a “smart sprawl” neighborhood as “a suburb of any density that has been retrofit so that residents can shop, obtain services and work (at least a day or two a week) all within a mile or two of their home, and where those relatively short trips are completed using transit or vehicles that do not consume gasoline or other carbon-based fuels.” Siembab also calls for the quick conversion to “new technologies,” such as “new alternate fuel, zero emission transportation technologies known as neighborhood vehicles that already exist in abundant varieties.” He also calls for the establishment of a “network of nodes” capable of delivering “virtual” services, further eliminating car trips.  Siembab closes by saying, “Smart sprawl means that residents of suburbia will be able to walk to their neighborhood center where they will find a package of enhanced services; or drive some personal transporter option or neighborhood vehicle to a nearby e-village center of which there will be a couple of choices within 2 to 3 miles of home.” http://www.planetizen.com/node/154

What explains New York’s continued dominance?
After historical factors fade, city’s density leads to information edge
Why has New York remained the US’s biggest and most powerful city for over 200 years? According to a report by the Harvard Institute of Economic Research, there are solid historical reasons, based on the advantages offered by the city’s port, and by the city’s location on the Hudson. Both factors, along with the constant arrival of immigrant labor, combined to make New York the ideal manufacturing and distribution hub of the 19th Century. But while many of these advantages have lost their potency, New York remains the only major city in either the Northeast or the Midwest with a larger population than it had 50 years ago. The report attributes this continued growth to the city’s dominance in finance, business services, and corporate management.  Each of these industries benefits from the city’s density, which makes it ideal for quick, face-to-face communications. Technological advances may eventually cause this advantage to fade, but, according to the report, these same advances have in the short term only heightened the city’s communications advantages. http://post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2005papers/HIER2073.pdf

The feminizing of British cities
Government hopes to “civilize” street life
British deputy prime minister John Prescott has been charged with “civilizing” the UK’s city centers. According to The Times, Prescott’s ideas include making city streets more female friendly. Responding to surveys that show many young British women fear being raped, Prescott is considering introducing better street lighting, and repainting alleyways and underpasses to make them brighter. Public hedgerows will be clipped at top and bottom to deter anyone from lying in wait under them. Further suggestions include giving women priority for taxis after 10 pm, having a range of toiletries in public conveniences, separate areas for women on trains and buses, and placing hairdryers and chargers for mobile phones in public lavatories. The Labour government hopes that having more women on the streets will help reclaim the streets from “rowdy teenagers.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1743811_1,00.html

Metro areas continue to grow
New analysis from Brookings
An analysis of population and migration change from 1960 to 2004 for the newly-defined metropolitan areas announced by the US Office of Management and Budget OMB is available from the Brookings Institution. In general, the first half of the 2000s mark a slowdown and reshuffling of population growth in metro areas from that found in the 1990s, reflecting the reactions of workers and households to the cooling of the job market in some places and the heating of housing prices in others. Overall, however, the estimates for this new decade show that large and small metro areas will continue to surge as they did in the 1990s. http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20050906_MetroAmerica.htm

ENVIRONMENT
Global land use “most pressing environmental issue”
Human impact on environment no longer a local issue
The widespread conversion of the world's natural landscapes to agricultural and other human uses may soon undermine the planet's capacity to sustain the growing human population, according to a report in Science. "Short of a collision with an asteroid, land use by humans is the most significant impact on the world's biosphere," according to climatologist and lead author Jonathan A. Foley. Nearly one-third of the world's land surface is now used for agriculture, and millions more acres are transformed annually. And many agricultural practices are unsustainable. The Science report reveals a need for closer collaboration between scientists and land use planners, hydrologists, farmers, architects, and health care professionals, to avoid further environmental degradation. Foley says that scientists must consider the whole landscape, including cities, suburbs, agricultural areas, and wilderness, in their assessments of global environmental health.  The report also highlighted examples of sustainable land use practices that offer both economic and environmental advantages, such as New York City's purchase of development rights in the Catskills to increase the city's water supply, which has resulted in a savings of $5-$7 billion.  http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=28536

Entering the ‘bottleneck’
Is everything about to change?
Three concurrent and intertwined transitions - demographic, economic, and environmental - are “what historians of the future will remember when they look back on our age,” according to Scientific American. These “transitions” will transform everything from geopolitics to the structure of families, and they present problems on a previously unknown scale, the article says. Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson says we are about to pass through "the bottleneck," a period of maximum stress on natural resources and human ingenuity.  These challenges can best be confronted by getting the little things right - over and over again. “It is usually in mundane matters that the most profound advances are made. What makes a community rich is not the computers and the DVDs, which you can find nowadays even in humble villages. It is the sewage pipes, the soft beds, the sense of physical and economic security. By helping to bring these benefits of modernity to all, science and technology will have done something more spectacular than building space colonies,” Wilson says. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=00031010-F7DA-1304-B72683414B7F0000&pageNumber=1&catID=2

Preparing for a future filled with Katrinas
More disastrous storms on the horizon
In an article written before Hurricane Katrina, Jane Holtz Kay wrote in Grist that global warming is going to cause “a wet ‘n wild ride,” in the form of more frequent and powerful hurricanes. She cites a study that predicts that parts of her native Boston will be threatened by global-warming-strengthened storms, but she wonders, “Why are Americans paying so little heed?” She writes of developers continuing to build in the flood zones of the future, and quotes an expert who says, “We need an industrial-scale renewal.” Though she finds little public enthusiasm for hurricane planning in Boston, she does see signs of growing consciousness in cities worldwide, including, ironically, New Orleans. She urges coastal areas to not only build barriers against floods, but to also take the initiative in lowering carbon dioxide emissions. http://www.janeholtzkay.com/Articles/shore.html

John McPhee on New Orleans and nature
“Nature will run its course”
In this Salon excerpt from his 1989 book, The Control of Nature, writer John McPhee looks at the challenges that New Orleans, and the Army Corps of Engineers, have always faced in keeping the city dry. McPhee describes the ongoing problems of subsistence in the city. "You put five feet [of levee] on and three feet sink," says one engineer. McPhee also looked at the loss of protective wetlands. “In a hundred years, Louisiana as a whole has decreased by a million acres. Plaquemines Parish is coming to pieces like old rotted cloth. A hundred years hence, there will in all likelihood be no Plaquemines Parish, no Terrebonne Parish.” http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/08/30/mcphee/index.html

The ‘real name’ of Hurricane Katrina
The effects of global warming are everywhere
‘The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming,” writes Ross Gelbspan in the Boston Globe. He continues, “When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was global warming. When 124-mile-an-hour winds shut down nuclear plants in Scandinavia and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland and the United Kingdom, the driver was global warming.” Gelbspan continues in this vein, finding global warming-related catastrophes around the globe. He then tackles the question of why the American public isn’t better informed, and heaps blame on both the oil companies that spend millions to “keep the public in doubt,” and on the media. “When the US press has bothered to cover the subject of global warming, it has focused almost exclusively on its political and diplomatic aspects and not on what the warming is doing to our agriculture, water supplies, plant and animal life, public health, and weather.” http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/30/katrinas_real_name/

ENERGY
UK looks at energy trading
Consumers could trade personal energy rations
The rather radical notion of personal energy rationing and trading has found some influential backers in Britain. According to Grist, the plan, conceived by researchers at the Tyndall Centre (a hub of climate change research), would work as follows: every resident of the UK would receive the same annual allocation of carbon units. Each Brit would also be issued a plastic card. Every time cardholders used carbon-based energy, they'd have to swipe the card, and a number of points would be deducted from their individual quota.  Low energy users would be able to sell their excess units to carbon spendthrifts. At the end of the year, consumers who had exceeded their quota would pay a penalty. MP Elliot Morley, a minister in the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs who has special responsibility for climate change, is seriously considering the idea. "Personal carbon allowances are a very attractive intellectual idea," he said. "The implementation would potentially be very expensive, but that shouldn't stop us from looking at the arguments." http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/08/09/wendling-carboncards/index.html?source=daily

High oil prices affect non-drivers too
Everything from diapers to artificial limbs made with oil byproducts
“Demand for oil is on the increase, and not simply because of the world's unwaning love affair with motor cars,” says the BBC. Oil products and byproducts are found throughout society. They can’t be avoided by simply taking the bus instead of driving. Bus fares will go up as gasoline prices rise, and in any case, people still need to heat their homes and cook their food. Also, thanks largely to our ever-growing dependence on plastics, society has developed a largely unremarked-on dependence on oil byproducts. “Hearing aids, bandages, artificial limbs and heart valves, contact lenses and hundreds of medications are derived from petroleum.” Not to mention disposable diapers. The price of oil also has the cost of raw materials on their fastest rise in 20 years.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4135122.stm

CONSERVATION
The gift that keeps on giving
Some landowners permanently preserve their land with conservation easements
Growing numbers of landowners in Connecticut have discovered the power of the conservation easement, according to the New York Times. A conservation easement is a legal instrument in which a property owner gives or sells his development rights to a preservation group, such as a land trust. The landowner retains full ownership, but is obligated to never develop the property. The easement also applies to future owners of the land, ensuring perpetual protection. These easements appeal to landowners who don’t want to see their property subdivided and developed after their death. While the landowners do miss out on the financial windfall that can result from real estate developments, they get impressive tax breaks, spread out over a number of years. But many donors say that the tax break isn’t the key consideration. One donor said, “I'll tell you, we didn't do it for the money. We did it to protect Bridgewater (CT)." http://tinyurl.com/77e8q

VALUES
Cal Thomas remembers ‘when’
Columnist laments civic and moral decline
Conservative columnist Cal Thomas uses a recent trip with his son to visit some of the DC-area houses he grew up in to wax nostalgic about the America of his youth. He recalls a time when Americans shared their ration books, and when the smaller size of lots and houses kept people literally closer together. But now he sees a country ruled by greed and consumerism. Thomas closes by musing about the day when gas might reach $5 a gallon, and the economy would go in the tank.  “Is there a politician who would dare call for sacrifice and doing without for the greater good? How many people would respond favorably to such a call? Not many, I bet. Not this generation, which has been raised on an entitlement mentality and looking out for number one.” http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/thomas081805.asp

EVENTS
LOCAL
Envision Houston regional meetings. East workshop, Wednesday, October 26 8:30 am, Baytown Community Center, 2407 Market Street, Baytown. Wesy workshop, Thursday, October 27
7:30 am, Omni Hotel Westside, 13210 Katy Freeway. http://www.envisionhoustonregion.org

NATIONAL
Community Planning Collaborative Convention, Bruce Babbitt, keynote speaker. Orlando, Oct 27 – 30. http://www.planningcollaborative.org/

New Partners for Smart Growth 5th annual conference, Denver, Jan 26-28, 2006. 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
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