Are Texas cities bloated?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Can you really drive for 1.5 hours and still be in the city of Houston? The longest distance I'm able to measure across Houston is about 41 miles.

Yes. Easily.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

Yes. Easily.

Without traffic congestion?

[Buckeye Native 001]

I believe it. It felt like at least a half hour's drive without traffic from IAH to downtown even though IAH is technically Humble.

Ditto to Johnson Space Center from near IAH on the Sam Houston Parkway and I-45.

[JManc]

IAH is in Houston. Humble is just north/ east of it.

@ihearted. Without traffic, much faster but it's rare. My wife was able to cut her 45 minute commute to downtown to about 25 minutes during height of Covid. Still, it takes me about an hour in good traffic to go from my house in Kingwood (north of IAH) to my other place in Clear Lake (NASA area) and both in city limits.

[ChiSoxRox]

Right now, Google Maps has 1 hour 7 minutes between the NASA end and an apartment complex in one of the northern tendrils. Take the Beltway, and it's 1 hour 20 at the moment.

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by JManc

IAH is in Houston. Humble is just north/ east of it.

@ihearted. Without traffic, much faster but it's rare. My wife was able to cut her 45 minute commute to downtown to about 25 minutes during height of Covid. Still, it takes me about an hour in good traffic to go from my house in Kingwood (north of IAH) to my other place in Clear Lake (NASA area) and both in city limits.

Officially, yes, but Humble is more or less directly across I-69 from IAH. We go to a couple of dog shows there a year, and I always get a kick out of seeing the heavies land since three of the runways put Humble in the direct flightpath.

[cabasse]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

interesting. So Texas cities are now more or less frozen in size.

But the state will remain well-represented among the largest land area cities in the US.

With the exception of some low population cities with giant land areas, like Anchorage or Augusta, GA, there are 15 major cities in the US with land areas over 300 Square miles. 5 of them are in Texas - Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin.

i never realized augusta had such large city limits. (300mi^2) it actually has a lower population - 202k - than other columbus™ (pop 207k, in 216mi^2)

also interesting - atlanta is only the 7th largest city in georgia by land area.


now back to texas

[L41A]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

interesting. So Texas cities are now more or less frozen in size.

But the state will remain well-represented among the largest land area cities in the US.

With the exception of some low population cities with giant land areas, like Anchorage or Augusta, GA, there are 15 major cities in the US with land areas over 300 Square miles. 5 of them are in Texas - Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin.

Georgia counties are small (on average 360 square miles). Generally, the cities are contained in those counties.

So you hardly ever see a city in Georgia with a larger land area unless it is consolidated with the county.

Augusta which is consolidated with Richmond County (310 sqmi).
Or Macon which is consolidated with Bibb County (250 sqmi)
Or Columbus which is consolidated with Muscogee County (216 sqmi) in which 1/3 of that contains the massive Fort Benning Army Base which also spills into another county.

These city/county consolidations took place in recent history.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

Is this a debate over population size rankings or about the pros and cons of large core city boundaries?

I disagree very very strongly with those who think a city on Houston’s scale is a reasonable way of structuring local government. It’s just too big. Houston politics is very partisan and not particularly inclusive of all citizens. There is an urban black north side and sunnyside political machine and a rich white river oaks machine and nobody else matters.

I understand the arguments over balkanized municipalities but let’s get real, that pertains to teeny tiny places around St Louis or Cleveland with like 3,000 residents and no tax base. Sure, consolidation would be helpful.

But I think a happy medium exists. 100,000 to 1,000,000. Bigger than that there needs to be more devolution. Like how NYC has boroughs. I also think we have counties and regional entities like transit agencies or airport authorities for a reason.

you are probably right, that there is a limit, but hey its a modern world and i would think the bigger the better. anything to prevent those tiny fiefdoms. better the problems be kept in city than wasteful and needlessly expensive repeated governments and services. strong neighborhood community boards or councils are the mitigator.

[Trae]

Originally Posted by The ATX

Contrary to popular belief, the Texas State Legislature virtually stopped Texas cities from annexing populated areas along their borders in 2018. People living in areas to be annexed must vote in favor of being annexed. And that doesn't happen because people don't vote for higher taxes.

This stops the annexation of populated areas yes, but not commercial areas. Since that time Houston has continued to annex commercial areas as far as 35-40 miles from downtown (some of the retail complexes in the Katy area). Then due to Texas ETJ law, these populated areas behind the commercials ones that just got annexed can't form cities because now they fall into the ETJ of another. A big reason why Houston didn't want to annex back in the day was city council didnt want republican voters. but now with harris county always going blue, I wonder if city council would be open to a city-county merger. it makes more sense in Houston's case than this unincorporated garbage that is going on right now. either that or release the ETJ and allow them to form cities so there can be more local control.

more people now live in the houston etj than the city of houston, which is causing all sorts of problems. only benefit has been it has kept housing prices down because there is often no hard boundaries for places and you never really know what will be built around the corner from you. also aging of the neighborhood becomes more of a problem in unincorporated areas for this very reason. because of this DFW has it set up the right way. Houston could be setup more like the Phoenix metro with even bigger suburbs but still a huge central city. the Katy area alone has 400,000 people not in any city. that would be a huge suburb. the Cypress area is another 300k.

Originally Posted by JManc

Yes. Easily.

not starting from central houston. you will only still be in the city if you're trying to go from one suburb on the far end to one on the other far end, but that would be true for any large metro area in the top 10. you can easily get to nature within two hours of Houston. right now downtown houston to lake livingston/sam houston forest is 80 minutes. downtown houston to the beaches ranging from 60-90 minutes depending on which one. and of course all those slower paced quaint towns between Houston and Austin (Brenham, La Grange, Bastrop) are all under two hours.

Originally Posted by cabasse

i never realized augusta had such large city limits. (300mi^2) it actually has a lower population - 202k - than other columbus™ (pop 207k, in 216mi^2)
also interesting - atlanta is only the 7th largest city in georgia by land area.
now back to texas

because Augusta, like Athens, Jacksonville, OKC, Nashville, etc., are all city-county mergers so their city limit sizes will be bloated.

[JManc]

^ we were talking about driving for an hour and still be in the city limits which is feasible going from Kingwood to Clear Lake or either of those two to somewhere like Westheimer/ Beltway 8.

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Officially, yes, but Humble is more or less directly across I-69 from IAH. We go to a couple of dog shows there a year, and I always get a kick out of seeing the heavies land since three of the runways put Humble in the direct flightpath.

There is a mall in Humble (Deer Brook) which is in the direct flight path of one of the runaways and they are pretty low at point. A huge shadow moving across the parking lot.

You go to Humble Convention Center on Will Clayton. That's literally just across the freeway from IAH.

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by goat314

I don't think so. I honestly think that they are doing a better job administering services and attracting economic development than many legacy cities. Having too much local government can actually be very bad for a region. My hometown of St. Louis is prime example of what a disaster lack of regional cooperation can be.

💯 Well said