Klineberg: There’s a clear consensus

New Houston Area Survey

Jay Blazek Crossley, Apr 26, 10.

“There’s a clear consensus that we need to start reconsidering what kind of place we want to be…We’re always going to need a car, but we might not need 3 cars for every house in our future,” said Stephen Klineberg at a Texas Economic and Demographic Association event on Thursday, April 22, on the release of the 2010 Houston Area Survey and the attitude of Houstonians toward transit and urbanism.

The overwhelming message of Dr. Klineberg’s recent presentations has been the negative opinions of Houstonians about the economy, balanced only by a growing belief that Houston is a great place to live. The West University Examiner, Houston Chronicle, Texas Tribune, Houston Business Journal, and ABC Channel 13 Eyewitness News explain that Houstonians are “worried about their jobs and their future,” as noted by the Houston Chronicle.

The Houston Chronicle noted in an editorial that amongst this pessimistic economic forecast, Houstonians like Houston: “82 percent of residents rate this as an excellent or good place to live. That’s up from 75 percent a year ago.”

Culturemap Houston picked up on Dr. Klineberg’s view that Houston’s changing demographics show the diversity that will be reflected across Texas and California in the next 5 years and the nation as a whole after several decades. Culturemap quotes Dr. Klineberg saying “The city’s balanced racial diversity is singular among other bustling ports — LA doesn’t have the African-American contingent, Miami lacks the Asian population and San Francisco’s Latino community pales in comparison to Houston’s. Just as Chicago was considered the American city of the 20th century, the American future will be worked out in Houston in this century’s remaining nine decades.”

Dr. Klineberg says that there is a “clear consensus” on urbanism and transit in the Houston region with a majority of respondents preferring public investment in transit over public investment in roads as a solution for the Houston region’s access and congestion problems. More Houstonians see urbanism as an important component of the future of the region. From the Rice University Press Release:

Support for more urban lifestyles is reflected in the 41 percent of area residents who indicated that they would prefer to live in “a smaller home, in a more urbanized area, within walking distance of shops and workplaces” rather than in “a single-family home with a big yard, where you would need to drive almost everywhere you want to go.” The percent of respondents in the suburbs who said they would someday like to move to the city is now equal to the numbers in the city who said they would someday like to live in the suburbs.

A strong majority are in favor of infill and continued development of existing urban areas to accommodate expected future growth rather than continuing to expand the urban area in the Houston region, as noted in the survey highlights:

“During the next 20 years,” the respondents were told, “Harris County will need to build new housing, shops, and workplaces for more than a million additional residents.” When asked about the best way to accommodate that growth, 80% called for “redeveloping older urban areas to build the new housing and shops where services, streets, and sewer lines already ex-ist.” Only 15% preferred to “continue to build new suburbs on the edge of existing suburbs.”

Dr. Klineberg also highlighted the growing acceptance of diversity in the Houston region, including opinions of immigration, race, and sexuality.

2010 Houston Area Survey Results
2010 Survey Highlights