Oak Forest / Garden Oaks is another exception.
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Agreed, but not in the way you might think.
Oak Forests/Garden Oaks is a preview of what will eventually happen to every other neighborhood within the beltway. Itâs going to take a long time though.
Contrary to Bellaire, where Bellaire has maintained its wealth since its inception.
GO/OF was gentrified, and much of that gentrification is slowly spreading north into Acres Homes. Indepedence Heights is also being gentrified.
I predict that the entirety of North Houston will eventually be gentrified between the Beltway and 610.
PS: the biggest evidence of this, is the lack of sidewalks in Garden Oaks/Oak Forests despite the modern looking homes
Bellaire is its own city. And has zoning.
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Gosh you really donât know what youâre talking about. Stop spreading nonsense.
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Yes. Lack of sidewalks are the precursor to the downfall of western society.
We really just need a good theme park in the area again. The theme park can be in the outskirts of Houston. We have Galveston so weâre just lack a good theme park.
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Prove my wrong?
Lack of sidewalks are reflective of the post-WW2 housing boom that coinciding with the mass development of car-dependent infrastructure.
Thatâs my point.
Garden Oaks have some of the nicest houses because they priced out people of the neighborhood and built nicer houses. There are a lack of sidewalks throughout most of that area.
The newer suburbs built from the 80s/90s all have sidewalks
Yes I know that.
That has nothing to do with why itâs remained wealthy. Bellaire is adjacent to River Oaks, and therefore, instead of leaving that area for a new Houston suburb, the residents chose to stay there.
Cypress, Katy, Sugarland, even Aldine have forms of zoning restrictions via deed restrictions and minimum lot sizes / parking lots
Those arenât between 610 and the BW.
I never said they were?
Bellaire and Cypress have restrictions on how infrastructure is built.
The difference is that Bellaire kept its wealth within Bellaire instead of leaving for a newer suburb
I got sidewalks. City just repaired the whole sidewalk. Said we had extra money but weâre voting on a school bond.
The garage apartment I lived in at Shepherd and Richmond was torn down a few years ago for condos/townhomes.
Bellaire, West U, Southside nĂ©ven kept any wealth. They were strictly a working class/middle class town that didnât get developed until the 90s-2000âs. Thatâs when people started to tear down old stock homes and turn them into the million dollar homes they have today. It wasnât always like that. I know youâre to young, but I remember.
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Who lived there before the 90s? Where did they go?
Who turned the old homes into new homes?
The earliest suburbs of Cypress were built in the 90s. Many of those residents move further outward.
My point. The wealth stayed in Bellaire just like it will with Garden Oaks.
My mom grew-up in Bellaire and her neighborhood looks nothing like it did when she was young or Iâd visit my grandparents in the 80âs. Her house is one of the few old ones still standing.
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The trend in lower birth rates is real and likely to continue for decades. It will hurt universities across the country. An example:
https://www.kosu.org/education/2021-10-27/college-enrollment-appears-to-be-dropping-in-oklahoma
Texas draws people from all over the country. That is not new. I went to work in a Houston office in 1960. There were 14 people in that office. Only 2 were native Texans. Others were graduates from universities in other states.
People coming to Texas for opportunities will continue. Projections for largest cities in the US in 2100 include: #1 Dallas, #2 Houston, #3 Austin.
That trend will not affect UH negatively unless there are dramatic changes in the Texas government.
UH admination is working to get UH in the AAU. Admitting low performing students would kill that goal. That would harm the university, the city, and high performing students. If low performing students perform well at some other school they can apply for and probably get a transfer to UH.
No body has the right to hold others down.
Inner loop in the 80s and early 90s, except for River Oaks, was nothing like today
The Townhouses didnât start popping up till the late 90s.
Urban inner loop apartment buildings started in the early 2000s/2010s
Dilapidated houses were way more common inside the loop.
The suburban flight, post WWII, was text book in Houston
Say what??? No it isnât.
If you build a new home you have to put a sidewalk. THATS the reason, not because they priced people out. Sidewalks are indicative of the years they were built in and the building laws for those yearsâŠnot the cost of a home.
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/transportation/article/sidewalks-city-hall-19747511.php
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Yes. Exactly. That is my point - What became of Garden Oaks/Oak Forest is what will eventually happen to other lower-income inner-Beltway neighborhoods, but itâs going to take a very long time.
The reason this is the case, is because Houstonâs âgrowthâ right now is primarily via suburban sprawl. In order for this type of growth to sustain itself, you have to continue sprawling indefinitely or else the entire suburban ecosystem will collapse in on itself.
This happens, because suburbs are not dense enough to pay for its long term infrastructural maintenance, and the tax base is inconsistent due to wealth going out of old suburbs and less wealth moving into those same suburbs; whereas areas like River Oaks, West U, Bellaire, and now GOOF, have a consistent foundational tax base.
The problem Houston will have, and Iâm talking anywhere from 15-30 years from now, is that it canât continue sprawling outward because itâs running out of land space. Given that the people living closest to the core city pay for most of the highway infrastructure via taxes (higher density), the more Houston sprawls outward, the more money is milked from the core city (such as the expansion of I45 and completion of 99). Houston is already near broke right now per Whitmire.
Almost 20% of TxDOT is funded by oil production tax, which is a finite source of revenue (something will eventually have to replace this). The rest is via gas tax (which is paid the most by suburbs because suburbs require cars), state and federal taxes.