Mexico is much lower on the GDP per capita list. And India substantially behind them.
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Houston isnât for everyone but itâs a fine city. The biggest knock on it is the weather. If you can get past that then itâs a great city to make a living.
Sometimes your own people are the most critical.
If the country has ever hosted a FIFA World Cup or a city in that country hosted the Olympics, then you canât be considered a 3rd world country.
Mexico is a third world country
If your city has hosted a Super Bowl, NCAA football championship game, final four, G4 Summit, Republican National Convention, Democratic National Convention, itâs not that bad of a city. Some guys are just self loathing malcontents.
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I agree 100%
Houston CAN be a great city. Right now, there are tons of liabilities that havenât been fully realized yet. However, itâs starting to.
Houstonâs urban sprawl is not sustainable, because the property taxes that suburbs pay are merely to cover the development costs of the suburbs. They arenât covering the maintenance and repairs for infrastructure (roads, schools, water, pipelines, etc.).
Suburban property taxes really should be 5x higher than what they are, and even then, people still complain about high property taxes. So instead of fixing the infrastructure, you get the cycle of people leaving for newer suburbs and then lower income people take over the suburb that the wealthier folks just left, resulting in declines.
The problem Houston has right now is that it is running out of room to sprawl. Once growth stops, then major problems are going to occur because the actual liabilities are hidden via this unsustainable sprawling.
As long as we keep up this strategy, taxes will continue getting higher, and services/infrastructure will continue getting worse due to budget cuts. Itâs already happening as we speak, but the outer suburbs donât see it yet because they keep running away from it.
Luckily, Houston has industries (chemical plants, med center, energy transition hub) to remain afloat unlike Detroit, but itâs not going to fix the looming financial crisis that Houston will be dealing with in the future
Show me you donât know how city of finances work without showing me you donât know how city finances work.
The suburbs have their own city entities. The link you mentioned only deals with the city of Houston and whatever deficit suburban cities have is irrelevant to the city of Houston.
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MAGA
No. Youâre just not getting it.
People who live in suburbs such as Katy and Sugarland still depend on the Houston Metro Area (everything within the Beltway) for work. Not all, but many.
The highway system, which is funded by gas, state and federal taxes, are paid for by everyone including those living within the Beltway and 610 Loop. Without these people, highways that allow people to get from Katy/Sugarland/Woodlands/Cypress into Metro Houston would start to fall apart.
The suburbs, like I said, are paying property taxes that merely cover the initial development (construction costs) costs that built said suburb. They do not cover the cost of the eventual maintenance and repairs of roads, sewage systems, underground pipelines, school infrastructure, parks, etc.
Just look at HISD, Aldine ISD, the oldest CFISD schools⊠that decline is going to continue spreading outwards
The only way to keep suburbs afloat is to pay more taxes, densify, or leave and let other people deal with the expenses. What do you think most people will do?
Once Houston stops sprawling outward, which if you look at a simple map, you can clearly see that we canât keep doing this because Highway 99 is already far enough, and construction costs are getting higher and higher. Once the sprawling stops, there will be a cascading affect where itâs impossible to run away from infrastructure problems anymore, and essentially every suburb will start to decline because nobody can afford the higher taxes.
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Again, the highway system is paid for by TxDOT. It does not affect the City of Houstonâs budget.
How does that even make sense?
My mom grew up in the projects in Brooklyn to a father who was the son of immigrants.
Except for the fact that the highest valued properties, in Houston city limits , are inside HISD.
Of course, there are extremes but last i checked, Upper Kirby + River Oaks + Museum District + Rice U area were all zoned to HISD
How do you think TxDot gets funded?
And given that suburbs are furthest away from city centers (suburbs cannot exist without cars), who do you think pays the most via gas taxes? Dense city centers? Or far away suburbs?
Yes, but most of those folks send their kids to private schools, not HISD schools.
Outside of a few select public schools which are the ones located within expensive neighborhoods
Weâve gone over this before, actually, but Iâm happy to remind you.
Gas taxes, registration fees, sales tax, and oil & gas production taxes, along with state and federal appropriations. Which of those comes out of the City of Houstonâs coffers?
Who pays those taxes?
Where are those oil and gas companies headquartered?
The city budget revenue is acquired through taxes from people living in the city, yes.
The people living in suburbs, depend on the urban job centers of said cities, via highways that are majority paid for by tax payers, living in and/or nearby city centers.
The city centers, largely and indirectly subsidize, the ability for suburbanites to get into and from the city
Drivers throughout the State of Texas pay those taxes. Those Oil and Gas companies are headquartered throughout the US, but often in the City of Houston. Itâs not a Headquarters tax, though, itâs a production tax. Do you know where the Oil and Gas is produced in this region?
Whether they send their kids to private schools, or not, they still PAY to fund HISD and their house valuations are greater than other school districts.
You arenât exempt from paying property taxes because your kid goes to a private school.
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