Discouraging Panhandling, Airport Wag Brigade, 6-Figure Incomes, and More
Big Idea of the Week before getting to our smaller items: I think the City needs to hang signs over major panhandler intersections saying:
“Please give to charity, not panhandling.”
I think this could make a major positive improvement in the city over time, both at the intersections and among the panhandling population which would have to go to charities with real comprehensive services rather than just unsafely collecting dollars in the middle of busy roadways from intimidated motorists and doing who-knows-what with it.
One key: making sure to hang them high up near the traffic lights. If they’re down low, the panhandlers will either tear them down or deface them.
Moving on to this week’s items:
- Houston has the 9th-most six-figure jobs in the country, 8th if you combine San Francisco and San Jose. We’re the 5th-largest metro, so we’re punching a little below our weight, with Boston, Seattle, SF+SJ, and DC pushing us down. On the plus side, we still edge out DFW even though they’re a bigger metro than us.
- Super cool: Texas A&M to Build $550 Million Project at TMC
- New Geography: The limits of being “near transit” for low-income workers
- This is pretty freaking cool: See how big the Grand Parkway is compared to other land formations. “Grand” is an appropriate label. Almost all of London, Paris, Chicago, DFW, Mexico City, Rhode Island, DC-Baltimore, or the SF Bay Area – among others – would fit inside! Towards the end, they compare Texas to other landmasses. Spoiler alert: it’s big.
- Man, I hope these babies are cruising Houston streets soon: GM and Honda unveil self-driving car with no steering wheel or pedals. Cool video.
Finally, can we *please* get a wag brigade at Houston airports?! Get a small army of these cuties wandering the terminals and it will give Houston a PR buzz that money can’t buy. It would also encourage more people to connect on flights through Houston as well, which would stimulate United and Southwest to add more service.
Photo: Douglas Zimmerman/SFGate
Tory Gattis is a Founding Senior Fellow with the Center for Opportunity Urbanism and co-authored the original study with noted urbanist Joel Kotkin and others, creating a city philosophy around upward social mobility for all citizens as an alternative to the popular smart growth, new urbanism, and creative class movements. He is also an editor of the Houston Strategies blog.
