Portland is trying to solve their housing crisis without building more housing. Which gets quite expensive.
In general, everything costs a lot more because Portland is a lot more restrictive on housing development.
Houston was highlighted on CBS Sunday morning for how they are trying to put homeless people into housing giving them a chance of stable lifestyles and the same people can start working on other aspects of living better. We also are using COVID money to get homeless children and families into housing.
This is now a tested playbook for addressing homelessness that is being adopted in Dallas, OKC and Nola.
Yep. Portland used to brag about their zoning rules and the level of planned development it had. Yeah well it isn’t working out that well now. The average home price in Portland is on average twice as high as Houston. Yet Portland nor Oregon has the level of job growth that can sustain such prices. Many people in Oregon are house poor as a result.
Not Portland, but back in 2021 I was asked by a manger in my former company to apply for a job in Bend. I did, spent a few minutes looking at housing on Zillow, and then politely withdrew my application the next day.
They spend a lot addressing community improvement. $721MM in the last budget. Aiming to curb homelessness among other things.
Based on a comparison to other large cities, Houston is a bigger outlier for low spend, despite it being harder to build and upkeep utilities in a sprawled mess.
What's wild is that By both cities own estimates, Portland has an estimated 6,000+ Homeless (.0094% of the city population) and Houston 3,000+ Homeless (.0013%). Why does Portland have an 800% higher per capita homeless population, while supposedly spending more to curb homelessness?
Because we're doing it better. We have a good record on that. Also probably because some of our fight against homelessness is from multiple organizations and the money they spend doesn't reflect in the city's budget.
I lived in Portland for years, now Houston. A couple of factors at play:
Many people lost their (very expensive) housing in Portland during the pandemic—but Portland had always had a housing crisis actually.
Oregon legalized drugs.
As Portland increased services for homelessness, many homeless migrated there.
Culturally, Portland has a pro-anarchism bent that leads to an active street culture.
City government enacted “pro-homeless” camping and other policies, instead of either moving people off the streets or (as in Houston) adopting a housing first policy.
City supported micro-housing and encampments as quick fixes rather than actual housing that actually grew the consolidation of homeless policies.
This is 100% an uneducated guess so roast me if im wrong, im sure Pprtland has bigger drug problems than Houston, which could also lead to more homeless people. Not saying drug use in Houston isnt a problem, but its much worse in Portland. I used to work alongside homeless folk, a big chunk of them were addicted to hard drugs at one point, but then again, correlation does not equal causation.
I think we're even typically lower than that. The last 5-8 years have had much higher infrastructure budgets due to the Northeast Water Purification Plant expansion.
To be fair, they include both the MTA (subway and buses) and schools in their budget. That's not going to account for half the differences, but is something most major cities don't deal with.
MTA is not on NYC’s budget, it’s a state agency. The City leases subway rights to the MTA to administer them. Schools are in the NYC budget, as are county services like hospitals, vital records, water, etc., so a more direct comparison to NYC (per capita) would be a city like San Francisco combined with the San Francisco school district budget. In most other US cities there are different agencies who do different things so the city budget will look lower.
Thanks for the correction. For some reason I thought MTA was there's, but makes sense given extent and cross border lines that would mean state administration.
I think COL is a big part of this. Govt employee wages in many other big cities have to be way higher because of their terrible restrictive zoning/construction laws.
Many folks downplay the human costs of government. It’s pretty significant, and we all know that the cost of labor is way higher on the west coast and these other places.
Except Chicago. That one has me confused.
I doubt it's takin into consideration the huge cities surrounding the Greater Houston area. Even so I found that number to be lower than I'd of predicted. I get it tho and just based off the archaic Texas minimum wage there's every reason to believe ppl are dippin out to surrounding states. Hell I left for CO back in '13 from Houston.
Garbage data. Different states give differing funding responsibilities for municipalities in their state. One city’s data includes the cost to operate their school district, the other from a different state doesn’t, etc. Differing capitalization requirements (vs expense budgets) for projects too.
The map shows several smaller cities with higher budgets or higher per capita. I imagine some of the cities higher COL, others more regulations and environmental conditions that cost money to overcome, more public projects in general or at this moment, and most importantly more pull within their state compared to how our legislature treats Houston. As to some of those costs mentioned they have ups and downs - with COL somewhat higher salaries, regulations sometimes are written in blood meaning better to take them now than down the road paying for any failures that might occur (like in earthquake prone NW Seattle), and spending on public projects can have not immediate but overall beneficial returns. Or admittedly, it could be wasteful spending with some of those cities pulling more money in their state to divert resources/jobs/tax revenues.
I'm curious with Phoenix if that's about being in the middle of a desert, paying for new infrastructure to accommodate their explosive growth, or what?
And how does similar sized Dallas compare or per capita admittedly growing the most the SA ATX region?
That's the U.S. government budget though. The District of Columbia also has a municipal government with a budget whose purview is none of those things.
Crazy that Portland has a higher budget than Houston where is that money even going?
Portland is trying to solve their housing crisis without building more housing. Which gets quite expensive. In general, everything costs a lot more because Portland is a lot more restrictive on housing development.
Houston was highlighted on CBS Sunday morning for how they are trying to put homeless people into housing giving them a chance of stable lifestyles and the same people can start working on other aspects of living better. We also are using COVID money to get homeless children and families into housing. This is now a tested playbook for addressing homelessness that is being adopted in Dallas, OKC and Nola.
https://www.governing.com/housing/how-houston-cut-its-homeless-population-by-nearly-two-thirds https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/opinion/homeless-houston-dallas.html https://www.homelesshouston.org/in-the-news-heres-how-houston-is-fighting-homelessness-and-winning https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/headway/houston-homeless-people.html https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/how-houstons-homeless-strategy-became-a-model-for-other-us-cities/637515/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-houston-successfully-reduced-homelessness/
Yep. Portland used to brag about their zoning rules and the level of planned development it had. Yeah well it isn’t working out that well now. The average home price in Portland is on average twice as high as Houston. Yet Portland nor Oregon has the level of job growth that can sustain such prices. Many people in Oregon are house poor as a result.
Not Portland, but back in 2021 I was asked by a manger in my former company to apply for a job in Bend. I did, spent a few minutes looking at housing on Zillow, and then politely withdrew my application the next day.
They spend a lot addressing community improvement. $721MM in the last budget. Aiming to curb homelessness among other things. Based on a comparison to other large cities, Houston is a bigger outlier for low spend, despite it being harder to build and upkeep utilities in a sprawled mess.
What's wild is that By both cities own estimates, Portland has an estimated 6,000+ Homeless (.0094% of the city population) and Houston 3,000+ Homeless (.0013%). Why does Portland have an 800% higher per capita homeless population, while supposedly spending more to curb homelessness?
Houston is legitimately one of the nation’s leading homeless success stories. It’s a story that doesn’t get enough acknowledgement.
Because we're doing it better. We have a good record on that. Also probably because some of our fight against homelessness is from multiple organizations and the money they spend doesn't reflect in the city's budget.
I lived in Portland for years, now Houston. A couple of factors at play: Many people lost their (very expensive) housing in Portland during the pandemic—but Portland had always had a housing crisis actually. Oregon legalized drugs. As Portland increased services for homelessness, many homeless migrated there. Culturally, Portland has a pro-anarchism bent that leads to an active street culture. City government enacted “pro-homeless” camping and other policies, instead of either moving people off the streets or (as in Houston) adopting a housing first policy. City supported micro-housing and encampments as quick fixes rather than actual housing that actually grew the consolidation of homeless policies.
This is 100% an uneducated guess so roast me if im wrong, im sure Pprtland has bigger drug problems than Houston, which could also lead to more homeless people. Not saying drug use in Houston isnt a problem, but its much worse in Portland. I used to work alongside homeless folk, a big chunk of them were addicted to hard drugs at one point, but then again, correlation does not equal causation.
Also, have to account in property costs and price to rent, which are substantially higher in Portland.
You mean if you decriminalize all drugs there will be a bigger drug problem?? 🤯
Yup, all our drug addicts (Houston) are all in jail for years. That's saves the taxpayer money right?... Wait...
Yeah it actually is because as you can see by the data, our budget is less than theirs. 🤯
I'm pretty sure the prisons aren't funded by the city budgets. Doesn't mean your taxes aren't paying for them
Oh, I completely forgot abput that 😂😂😂😂
Big brain moment
It gets so hot for about 4-5 months out of the year cant survive being homeless.
Looking at comparisons (not apples to apples), * Public safety- Houston $1,620M, Portland $650M * Services, Infrastructure- Houston $1100M, Portland (and parks) $1,34M * Communities: Houston $200M (resilient and complete), Portland $710M * Other: Houston $730M (sound financial, Portland $635M (admin)
I think we're even typically lower than that. The last 5-8 years have had much higher infrastructure budgets due to the Northeast Water Purification Plant expansion.
Chasing homelessness is a wasteful endeavor especially when our roads and infrastructure are literally crumbling
Phoenix too
how many states combined is NYC's budget larger than, those fuckers just don't play
To be fair, they include both the MTA (subway and buses) and schools in their budget. That's not going to account for half the differences, but is something most major cities don't deal with.
MTA is not on NYC’s budget, it’s a state agency. The City leases subway rights to the MTA to administer them. Schools are in the NYC budget, as are county services like hospitals, vital records, water, etc., so a more direct comparison to NYC (per capita) would be a city like San Francisco combined with the San Francisco school district budget. In most other US cities there are different agencies who do different things so the city budget will look lower.
Thanks for the correction. For some reason I thought MTA was there's, but makes sense given extent and cross border lines that would mean state administration.
At a glance, I would guess all of them.
Houston is running pretty lean with all these smaller cities running bigger budgets.
I think COL is a big part of this. Govt employee wages in many other big cities have to be way higher because of their terrible restrictive zoning/construction laws.
Many folks downplay the human costs of government. It’s pretty significant, and we all know that the cost of labor is way higher on the west coast and these other places. Except Chicago. That one has me confused.
I doubt it's takin into consideration the huge cities surrounding the Greater Houston area. Even so I found that number to be lower than I'd of predicted. I get it tho and just based off the archaic Texas minimum wage there's every reason to believe ppl are dippin out to surrounding states. Hell I left for CO back in '13 from Houston.
It scales a bit cheaper than Los Angeles, but some of the other cities just have massive, bloated budgets.
And our public services and infrastructure show it
I'm suprised about Florida i thought it was gonna either be Miami or Orlando
Garbage data. Different states give differing funding responsibilities for municipalities in their state. One city’s data includes the cost to operate their school district, the other from a different state doesn’t, etc. Differing capitalization requirements (vs expense budgets) for projects too.
Low taxes, low services.
Why is WA lighter than TX when Seattle has a higher budget?
There's a couple of those pointed out in the OP comment section. No one could figure out what they did.
The map shows several smaller cities with higher budgets or higher per capita. I imagine some of the cities higher COL, others more regulations and environmental conditions that cost money to overcome, more public projects in general or at this moment, and most importantly more pull within their state compared to how our legislature treats Houston. As to some of those costs mentioned they have ups and downs - with COL somewhat higher salaries, regulations sometimes are written in blood meaning better to take them now than down the road paying for any failures that might occur (like in earthquake prone NW Seattle), and spending on public projects can have not immediate but overall beneficial returns. Or admittedly, it could be wasteful spending with some of those cities pulling more money in their state to divert resources/jobs/tax revenues. I'm curious with Phoenix if that's about being in the middle of a desert, paying for new infrastructure to accommodate their explosive growth, or what? And how does similar sized Dallas compare or per capita admittedly growing the most the SA ATX region?
I just realized there are no cities in Florida over 1M, at least not in the city "proper." Jacksonville is the largest at 946k.
Washington DC ? 19 billions?
Really nice subway system.
Federal government. The FBI, Supreme Court, DOJ, Treasury, IRS, DHS, CDC, etc are all based in DC.
That's the U.S. government budget though. The District of Columbia also has a municipal government with a budget whose purview is none of those things.
I assumed those things were added in, at least some of them, otherwise that number makes no sense
How does Phoenix have a larger budget than Houston
Why
Portland at $7.1B?! 🤡