While the comparison of Cleveland to Houston isn’t exactly one-to-one, considering Houston’s growth versus Clevelands (both metro and inner city) gradual decline. I don’t see there being a mass exodus from the burbs to the inner city in our lifetime, unless some equivalent economic, philisophical, and innovation kicking off an equivalent “flight from the city” happens. Crazier things have happened, espcially with the younger generations cultural changes.
There’s going to be a moderate increase in people moving into the city (especially Houston) over the next few decades, as articulated in my post above theres been a repairing of the urban farbic back to, and past its summit. At its previous peak (493k in the 60’s) to its new peak and growing (estimated 515k in 2025) shows that while, yes the metro is growly rapidly, the inner city is coming with it.
Lots of things need to get fixed if you want people to move back inside the beltway.
HISD improves
The street flooding disappears
The houses inside the loop are affordable and in decent shape.
The streets conditions gets improved.
The traffic is less congested.
I think reversing course is an individual choice for people, as individually many do move back to the city centers. Will the majority, I think is where you are saying no.
A couple thoughts:
At some point the miles to get into work become too much for the majority as you start to get 2 hour commutes instead of 1. That is not sustainable.
On the other end, living in the suburbs is generally cheaper so the inner city housing needs to have reasonable options (that is not the same as cheap)
Next, at some point the suburbs simply become rural or independent cities and not suburbs. While not apples to apples entirely, look at DFW. It is two major cities with their own sets of suburbs. Does Sugarland or Woodlands, for example, at some point just become its own city and is no longer a suburb of Houston? Now they, the residents, are back in a city center, just a smaller city.
At some point the miles to get into work become too much for the majority as you start to get 2 hour commutes instead of 1. That is not sustainable.
This point (very good one btw) is going to become wildly more apparent with the NHHIP, especially around the Downtown and Herman Park areas. Traffic is going to be horrendous, so why not move closer to where the action is?
20 years of massive highway construction in the heart of our city, and the compounding effects on commute time will be dramatic
I like living in the city. Hated growing up in the burbs.
I think one major mistake Houston made was not building the monorail or something similar back in the 80s and 90s to connect the suburbs with a good path in to downtown that would help reduce traffic. The highways alone really make it a bottleneck for outward growth.
It did not even have to be that complex, just bring people in from stations in Woodlands, Katy, Clear Lake, and Sugar Land to Galleria and Downtown. Could have dropped 30-50,000 cars off the roads each day.
Maybe? Doubt it though, think everybody who wanted to move out of Downtown already has. Even with the construction, it’s hard to get out of a floor lease.
I like living in the city. Hated growing up in the burbs.
I think one major mistake Houston made was not building the monorail or something similar back in the 80s and 90s to connect the suburbs with a good path in to downtown that would help reduce traffic. The highways alone really make it a bottleneck for outward growth.
It did not even have to be that complex, just bring people in from stations in Woodlands, Katy, Clear Lake, and Sugar Land to Galleria and Downtown. Could have dropped 30-50,000 cars off the roads each day.
@EndlessPurple This has more to do with the failure of and tampering by local politicians than anything. We could’ve had good regional and commuter lines from the 1987, 2003, and 2019 referendums but they keep getting modified, delayed, or out right cancelled due to some gripe a politician had. John Culberson and Whitmire are the main culprits in this whole shebang.
Culberson intentionally pulled funding for almost all the 2003 referendum that had a planned 64.8 miles of light rail, commuter line to Fort Bend County and a plethora of other improvements.
Same thing for the 2019 referendum, which had close to 70% support from the voters. While Whitemire has done some good things for the city, his takes on public transit and biking infrastructure need to be reworked. Completely canceling/shelving the 75 miles of BRT, and 16 mile rail extensions while using a large percentage of that money to fix streets that metro doesn’t even have routes down is a slap in the face to voters. Why doesn’t TxDot ever fix surface roads? Isn’t that their whole point, is to build and maintain Texas infrastructure, including city roads.
If the 2003 and 2019 referendum were ever built to spec, Houston would have the most extensive public transit system in the US outside of NYC, Chicago, and Washington.
After Exxon relocated out near the Woodlands and with the Energy Corridor out near Katy, are there still any large multi-national energy firms left in downtown Houston?
Depends on what you consider “large multi-national energy firms”, but Total Energy, Kinder Morgan, and NRG all have some sort of presence downtown, to my knowledge.
If we’re talking strictly headquarters Downtown has 9 of Houston’s 26 fortune 500 companies HQ’ed there. You got Chevron, Kinder Morgan, NRG Energy, etc and then a large swath of Finance, Law Firm, Professional Services, Engineering, etc. with a sizeable presence Downtown.
Whites in the 3rd ward or other city centers left on their own for secondary inner loop areas such as Galena Park, South Park, South Union, etc. hence palm center development -
SW Houston opens up and they run out there such as Hiram Clarke, westbury, etc- then it’s sugar land, then Katy proper (fry rd, mason, west side in general),
Same thing in HISD happens in other places where the older schools turn and certain schools zoned to specific areas are insulated
There’s a big difference in the older suburban Katy isd schools closer to Mayde Creek area and even the newer ones in unincorporated areas that attract the overnight areas than the ones in cinco, Katy Taylor and Katy high zones
Same with cypress - bridgelands is the protected area for now but cy lakes resembles a typical HISD school
Well, I can tell you that Katy Jordan High, where both my next door neighbor’s kids go to school, is about the fanciest, most state of the art public high school I’ve ever seen.
The school serving my Mom’s neighborhood, Katy Seven Lakes, is up there as well.
And even Mayde Creek and Paetow aren’t bad.
People of all races and ethnicities settle in Katy primarily for the public schools.
They often avoid or leave HISD zoned areas because of the school situation there.
It is what it is. And unless and until HISD significantly improves, you probably won’t see a major migration back inside the loop.
That said, I agree with @EndlessPurple that outward urban expansion/sprawl is limited by the distance of a reasonable commute. The likelihood that the cities suburbs will expand much beyond Fulshear to the West seems low, given that.
Why do you think Asians (presumably ones that were born or grew up here) wouldn’t become “traditional” students? I think it’s the same odds as any other undergrad coming in. What do you consider traditional anyway? 4 years student staying on campus?
I can tell you that my mostly residential and very traditional undergad school is about 20% Asian and 25% (by some estimates; I’ve seen numbers lower, but still in double digit percentages from all sources) foreign students at the undergraduate level.
In other words…there’s NO reason to believe that Asians or foreign students won’t become “traditional” students.
