The Urban Research Center of Houston at Rice University has published the results of their annual Houston Area Survey. For the past 27 years, the Houston Area Survey has tracked our attitudes on topics like economics, politics, immigration, crime and family values. The website links to a summary of the 2009 findings. So what's changed and what's stayed the same? While we are finally feeling the effects of the recession, we're still optimistic about living here. Up from 31% in 2007, 44% of those polled felt Houston is a much better place to live compared to other metropolitan areas. The economy dominates our concerns this year, pushing aside crime, pollution, and our favorite gripe, traffic. Our attitudes towards mass transit have improved, though 54% polled stated that they would still commute to work even if public transportation was more efficient. We have not changed our minds on some hot button issues like abortion. However, negative attitudes towards immigration and gay rights have lessened.
Results tagged “houstonareasurvey”
The United States was built on a foundation of freedom. Unfortunately for Houston, foundations are freely put anywhere for any purpose thanks to the lack of public zoning. However, the Houston Area Survey says that change may be on the horizon. Richard Dawson would have been so proud.
Good morning, Houston. It's June 5 — does that date mean anything to you? It should: Six years ago today, Tropical Storm Allison made landfall on the upper Texas coast, bringing with it more than 40 inches of rain in some areas (and all the flooding that went with it). When all was said and done, the damages totaled $5.5 billion, making Allison the most costly tropical storm in U.S. history. Have any memories of that weekend? We know you do — share 'em in the comments.
For the past 25 years, the Houston Area Survey, directed by Rice University Sociology Professor Stephen Klineberg, has been offering a timely window into the minds of Houstonians. The recently completed 2007 survey especially shows how Houston's attitudes reflect the changes in our post-Katrina city. This year, crime was the number one worry for Houston residents, but immigration is a fast-growing concern. For the second year, the number of people who believe that the racial...
Good morning, Houston. The good thing about having a lovers' spat is that there's almost always someone else out there having one that's far worse — take, for example, the story of a Conroe quarrel that led to a woman ramming her ex-boyfriend's car. Thomas Young-Davis told police that his ex got upset that he had a new girlfriend, so she followed him to a gas station yesterday afternoon, backed into his car twice...
The newest results of the annual Houston Area Survey are starting to appear, showing Houstonians' increasing wariness of lingering Katrina victims and the influence of immigration in the city, among other concerns. The survey, an annual pet project of Rice University Professor Stephen Klineberg, has been tracking city-wide trends of opinions and demographics since 1982. This year, February's results show that sixty-six percent of respondents deem the influx of Katrina refugees "a bad thing",...
The Chronicle today takes an interesting look at Houston's appeal to young, college-educated professionals — and finds that the city really has very little appeal at all. It doesn't surprise us that young professionals don't flock to Houston, especially compared with other Texas cities: They can't as readily live like hippies here as they can in Austin, and they can't as readily live like uppity snobs here as they can in Dallas. What was something of a shock, though, is that Houston didn't show up on the radar screen at all in a recent survey of young workers by CEOs for Cities — it wasn't among the 20 cities young professionals said they'd most like to live in, nor was it among the 20 they said they would hate living in. That's not so good ... and not so bad ... maybe.
Next time you wonder why Houston isn't able to reduce its pollution levels, think about the local lawmakers who voted against legislation designed to protect the public from toxic air pollution. Seems 20 of 34 state representatives from the Houston metro area — all Republicans, some representing industrial districts east of Houston — voted to table five measures that would have tightened health screening levels for pollution, set fines for the periodic release of...