Last week I returned from Houston after presenting a paper “Why Planned Integration of Land Use and Transport Policies will Not Achieve its Goals” to the conference, “Preserving the American Dream.”

You can read a fairly comprehensive review of the conference by a Bolivian born Houstonian engineer. Just Google search under Houston, American Dream, and McShane. (My name gets you to the right page.) This was a splendid conference and I shall be reporting on what we can learn both from this great city and from the multitude of expert economists, engineers, and analysts who attended or gave presentations.

I must say I had low expectations of Houston as a city. We tend to think of Texas as a desert state and hence assume Houston will be various shades of brown. Also, when anti-planners point out that zoning-free Houston has the most affordable housing in the US, the planners always retaliate with counter-claims that it is also the most unattractive city in the US.

I arrived at my hotel at 3.00 am so had no idea of what to expect of the view from my 7^th floor window.

You can imagine my surprise when I woke to find I was looking out on one of the greenest urban landscapes I have seen. Every neighbourhood, or group of tower blocks, was interspersed with substantial groves of splendid trees. Later, our day-long bus tour of the city revealed that, presumably to provide shade from Houston’s vicious summer heat, the trees had been allowed to form archways over the residential streets. Our bus drove through miles of green tunnels. Houston was built on a drained swamp, and it rains a lot, so the gardens are as green as anything in Auckland or Christchurch. Magnolias and other flowering trees dominate the streetscapes.

The sheer prosperity of the city makes its own contribution to Houston’s style and presentation. Houston may not rank as high as San Francisco and other cities in terms of gross household incomes but the low taxes (Texas has no State Income Tax) and the low cost of housing means that families’ net disposable income is much higher than in those apparently wealthier cities. And it shows. Out tour took us all over the city and we saw no graffiti. None. If you have pride in your city, you are more likely to keep your city clean.

We drove through regular school districts and the kids were smartly dressed, walked rather than shuffled, and there was not a hoodie in sight. People greet strangers in the street, and service staff are genuinely friendly.

Maybe wealth brings happiness after all – especially if we are allowed to keep it.

This general attitude is reflected in the high quality of care and maintenance throughout the city. The only “blighted areas” were along those streets which the Council has designated for light rail. This “blighting” is intentional so that government will not have to pay full price when it finally exercises its “rights” under eminent domain – another name for theft.

We also tend to think of Houston as being an oil town and hear much about its air pollution from the refineries. Like Los Angeles, the clean air legislation has worked, but the anti-car brigade maintain the myth of air pollution because they insist it is caused by the cars driving merrily along the multi-lane motorways and toll roads which make Houston such a mobile city.

It’s true that the City was founded on the wealth of the great oil families. But today the Texas Medical Centre alone employs 60,000 people, and the surrounding medical neighbourhood contains every kind of medical activity you can think of and must boost the total “medical” payroll to 100,000.

Then there is NASA, and the Johnson Space Centre, where you can try to land a shuttle in a simulator.

All these professionals ensure the city is rich in culture, arts and cuisine. The “Museum District” has forty museums, the city has its own symphony orchestra and ballet, and the food is the best I have experienced in the US. There is no shortage of the best New Zealand wine.

The only problem is the summer heat and humidity, which is why the city depends on air conditioning for survival.

Houston’s metropolitan area has a population of 5.5 million and is one of the most rapidly growing urban areas in the US. We have all heard of how expensive housing has been in the US and how the collapsing bubble is destroying life savings, raising interest rates and toppling financial institutions like houses of cards.

So why do Houstonians seem unconcerned? The Texan office of the Federal Reserve explains:

Given that Houstonians had access to the same new types of mortgages as the rest of the country and that Houston has had greater population growth than other large metros, we might expect price appreciation to be stronger in Houston than elsewhere. However, the opposite has been true. Houston’s large supply of [unzoned] land means that demand growth primarily results in more construction, not higher prices... At $155,800, Houston’s median house price is the third lowest among the 12 largest U.S. metropolitan areas and is less than half the average for these cities. Houston’s median price is lower than even the national average, which includes inexpensive rural areas... By comparison, the median house price in metropolitan San Francisco, where zoning laws and building codes are very strict, is $825,400. This result – more zoning bringing higher prices – is a robust one. Economists Edward Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko find that house prices across the country are positively related to the degree of zoning and regulation.... But with plenty of unzoned neighborhoods remaining [in Houston], Houston house prices, on the whole, are restrained near construction costs.

Our own politicians and planners should take note.

The most highly regulated states in the US are California and Florida and they account for eight of the ten top foreclosure cities in the US.

Reducing the Wages Gap between NZ and Australia – it’s Simple Really.

A Texan leading expert on residential real estate argues that housing affordability will be the “most significant growth stimulant” for Texas over the next 25 years. Dr Jim Gaines, research economist for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, says Texas is the most housing-affordable, high-growth state in the nation, and that “So far, skyrocketing home prices common to fast-growing states like California and Florida have not occurred in Texas.”

Gaines argues that this affordable housing explains why Texas leads the nation in job creation. If Texas maintains its average employment-to-population ratio, as expected during the next 25 years, the state will add another 4.5 to 5.8 million jobs.

Furthermore he argues that more people and more jobs lead to higher personal income, and predicts that the 2005 Texas median household income of $42,139 could reach nearly $68,000 by 2030.

If we want to match Australian incomes should follow the Texan lead and make affordable housing a top priority in New Zealand.

We won’t, of course, because we want to stop that evil “urban sprawl” even though the out-migration to Australia means our real concern should be urban shrinkage.