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Imagining new currency
This is pretty cool… Have you noticed how every time the Treasury releases new money it’s uglier than the old money? All the layers upon layers of counterfeit protection really take away from the original, classic design. So while our pal Washington is still looking pretty good, some of the other bills (Hamilton!) are hurting [...]
Comparison of Houston Home Prices
Given Andrew’s recent post on property taxes and their effect on housing prices here in Houston (and the relatively intense reaction it garnered among some), I thought I would do a little comparison. I am currently looking at purchasing property here in Houston and my initial reaction has been surprise at how much more expensive [...]
Property Taxes and Home Prices
- – – UPDATE – – - Do to the many, many comments I’ve recieved from people who seem to think I’m somehow bashing Houston here, I thought I’d repeat here what I posted in one of the comments: I’m not arguing that Houston collects disproportionately more taxes than other cities do, because I don’t [...]
Update on Transit Corridors
Alright, I’m back from vacation in Alaska, and I have an update to add to my previous post on the proposed Transit Corridor Streets ordinance. First, if you haven’t read it, Christof wrote a very detailed explanation of what the ordinance does and doesn’t do. If you want to understand the nuts and bolts of this [...]
Common Law, Civil Law, and the Supreme Court
The recent nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has again brought to a head the oft heard words of “judicial activism” and “judge made law.” ”Conservatives” often make the statement that judges should only “apply the law and not make it.” But this begs the question, given the legal history of this country, is this [...]
Constitutions
From the Chronicle: Voters to decide if Open Beaches Act will become part of the Texas Constitution This is one of those funny bits of state politics that I find interesting. For all of Texas’ aversion to big brother and big government, we have declared by law that the State, and only the State, owns [...]
Cultural Traffic Calming
One of the recent discussions on the Streetsblog network was related to an interesting traffic calming measure taken in Germany. In places where speeding near school zones was a problem, the Police have been taking a new approach. Instead of just giving motorists a ticket, they’ve been making the motorists stop and explain to a [...]
ULI-Houston Mayoral Candidate Forum
Today I had the chance to attend the ULI-Houston Mayoral Candidate Forum. Since this was a members-only event for ULI, most of Houston didn’t get to be there (which is a shame, really, because it was a great event!). So, knowing my readers would probably have appreciated knowing what was discussed, I took the best [...]