When the "creative class" gets displaced

If you live in Houston, then by now you might be aware of local writer Anis Shivani ominously-titled jeremiad, How Oligarchs Destroyed a Major American City.

I originally saw the article last week, when a friend of mine posted it on Facebook. Shivani rails against the what he sees as the unyielding march of corporate-driven inner-west-Houston gentrification, which is changing the character of the city and is forcing him to leave his pleasant apartment on tree-lined Steel Street, near the corner of Kirby and West Alabama and only a few blocks away from the mansions of River Oaks. "Houston has transmogrified into a city ruled by a brutal strain of neoliberalism," Shivani laments. "It took only a few short years for developers to displace the original population of the central neighborhoods, while converting the core city into an exclusive playland for the rich."

The first time I read the article, I was sympathetic to his plight, not only because I also rent in a nice part of town (and therefore live with the fear that the landlord will sell this property out from underneath me at any moment), but also because some of the recent development occurring on the west side of downtown truly is ugly schlock that drives up rents for everybody, makes traffic worse, and will likely sit vacant and deteriorating after the next oil bust occurs. I also felt, however, that Shivani's understanding of the economic forces behind his predicament was rather naive. Houston, after all, is a developer-friendly city. It's been that way since the Allen Brothers founded it, and it's the reason why it has such laughably weak historic preservation codes and why it's the largest city in the nation without zoning.

But after giving the article a second, closer look, I realized something: Shivani's not naive. He's whiny, entitled, illogical and generally clueless. As the Houston Press's Angelica Leicht explains in a must-read critique:

Shivani starts right off by saying that the desirability of Steel Street has made him and his neighbors victims of the leveraging of urban space. 

"My neighbors and I are currently being affected by what I consider the most monstrous example of gentrification in Houston," he says. "My neighbors on Steel Street -- at the Kirby and Alabama intersection, arguably the single most desirable location in Houston -- and I have become victims of the grotesque leveraging of urban space by those who falsely assert that the market alone decide outcomes." (Emphasis added.)

But while this argument may work for Shivani, it's hard for us to equate "victims of the grotesque leveraging of urban space" with folks affluent enough to live on the corner of West Alabama and Kirby. 

What Shivani also fails to note is that the area of Upper Kirby has not been any sort of "urban space" since the 1980s, when the average person could afford to live there. Still, Shivani insists that gentrification is taking over the area, and he cites the rising rents -- which, remarkably enough, he compares to those in New York City -- and corporate indifference as having stamped out the area's intimacy.

He even goes so far as to note the changing face of Montrose in the early 2000s as a prime example of a neighborhood surviving a residential change without being gentrified.

"Artists, writers and eccentrics from around the country descended in droves in the 2000s to take advantage of Houston's livability. They flocked to the legendary 'gayborhood' of Montrose and brought other neighborhoods around downtown to life," Shivani says. "I called Houston in those halcyon years 'Austin-plus' because it had a lot of the capital's aesthetic attractions in addition to remarkable diversity and friendliness."

There's a problem with Shivani's Montrose logic, though. While the author may believe that the influx of creatives into Montrose was a positive change, free from the displacement of residents, he's merely reframing the gentrification that took place in the city's now formerly gay area during that time.

The same people Shivani claims were just taking advantage of the area's livability were responsible for the gentrification of that area, a process after which many of the residents in the once-affordable neighborhood had been forced out. What happened in Montrose was the same type of injustice the writer is complaining about, yet he appears oblivious to that.

Shivani then detours into a tinfoil-hat non-sequitur about Memorial Park: he decries the fact that so many of the trees there were "supposedly killed" by the drought, but suggests that the trees were actually destroyed as an "excuse to 'redevelop'." He calls the recently-unveiled Memorial Park master plan a "boondoggle" that is intended to "take down pristine ecological systems and rebuild them for commercial ends," even though the entire purpose of the master plan is to restore a portion of the park to its original, coastal-prairie-like condition so that it can better sustain the ravages of future droughts.

Things get even more bizarre from there, as Shivani singles out the closure of a mediocre Tex-Mex restaurant as proof of the corporate oligarchy's destruction of his neighborhood and its character. Back to Angelica Leicht:

But as misguided as Shivani's arguments are up to this point, they get downright weird when he uses Taco Milagro, which used to sit at the corner of Westheimer and Kirby, as an example of the hazards of gentrification. 

"Taco Milagro, at the intersection of Kirby and Westheimer, used to be a lively public-private space. The food was very healthy and people from all over the city danced the night away and congregated on the large patio. But at the gateway to River Oaks, with condominiums going up all around, this open space was unacceptable, so Taco Milagro suddenly shut down," he says.

The closing of an upscale taco place, which once sat in an upscale strip center with an upscale cigar bar, is not what gentrification looks like, but again, Shivani seems oblivious to that. 

The entire premise of that argument -- the downfall of a Thursday night hot spot with overpriced margaritas, which was never a bastion of inner-city living -- is so entirely privileged that it's laughable, and furthermore, it just doesn't work.

The further you get into the article, in fact, the more you realize that Shivani probably doesn't understand what true gentrification really is.

Shivani never once sells us on the supposed gentrification of Upper Kirby in his article, even with all those words. What he does sell us on, though, is how privileged he is. It's a point that is driven home when Shivani inexplicably tries to differentiate himself from poor welfare recipients.

"We're not homeless, we're not welfare recipients, we're the backbone of Houston, tens of thousands of hardworking residents who put the city in the position of promoting itself as a cultural destination in the first place," he says. "We ride bikes or walk; we loyally support local establishments; we love our neighborhoods and treasure them, yet we are the ones whose lives are destroyed."

In saying this, Shivani seems blissfully unaware that such examples -- bike lanes, a vibrant local business scene -- are luxuries that many longtime residents of gentrified areas only get to enjoy right before they're priced out of their homes.

Which begs the question: how long was the Steel Street apartment complex Shivani's "home," anyway? His bio says that he has lived in Houston for two decades. Has he lived in that complex the entire time? If so, he's been paying rent (and assuming the risks that come with renting, such as being forced to relocate on short notice) the entire time. Sure, buying property is expensive, and people don't always have the financial wherewithal to do it (I'm trying to get to that place right now). But think how much equity he'd have in an actual house by now, if he had brought something like a Montrose bungalow 15 or 20 years ago, when prices were still affordable and before the corporate oligarchs began their onslaught into "the single most desirable location in Houston." The same goes for some of Shivani's displaced neighbors: a guy with a law degree from UT who has lived there for 40 years, and another man who has lived there for 30.

Ironically, when Shivani speaks of some of his displaced neighbors, he unwittingly describes what gentrification truly is:

Mark (a University of Houston graduate student in literature) and his yoga-teaching wife Lisa also grew a vegetable garden; they have since reluctantly departed to east Houston, the reservoir du jour for the displaced.

In other words, educated, upwardly-mobile members of the "creative class" who have moved to the east side of downtown, where homes are still affordable, and are in turn probably displacing some truly low-income family. This is what is known as real gentrification.

Towards the end of his rant, Shivani suggests some "basic initiatives in the spirit of developing a more progressive urban policy" that Houston should consider. Among them:

An arbitration committee should provide a mechanism for future disputes between neighborhoods and developers, to reduce the power of developers working through the planning commission. The planning commission's arbitrary powers should be severely curtailed.

The planning commission's powers are not "arbitrary." They are carefully delineated by city ordinance and state law. Shivani is utterly ignorant of what powers municipal planning commissions in this state have and do not have, as specified by Texas Local Government Code. And then this:

Rents should be regulated in central districts to retain the kind of people who create urban vitality. A plan should be set in place to make aesthetically appealing housing available at modest cost in historic neighborhoods, in order to counter renewed segregation.

Yes. Rent control to "create urban vitality."Because Shivani is a "creative" who "keeps things real," and therefore the rest of us need to subsidize his rent so he can continue to live in the nicest part of Houston. If Shivani thinks that initiatives such as these would ever fly in a place like Houston, he is simply divorced from reality.

Of course, the purpose of his polemic is not to open up a dialogue about how to reform urban redevelopment efforts in Houston; it's simply an article designed to elicit sympathy and outrage from coastal elites who are just as privileged as Shivani and whose opinion of Houston as a soulless redneck hellhole in the middle of flyover country (even though they've never actually set foot in this city) needs to be reinforced. This is why his screed was published by left-leaning outlets like Alternet and Salon.

Those of us who actually live here, however, know better. Leicht, one last time:

The injustice of the redevelopment of Steel Street -- if "injustice" is what you really want to call it -- is hardly interchangeable with actual gentrification. In cases of true gentrification, the displaced aren't allotted options, and they are certainly not allowed a forum like Alternet to air their grievances. 

Just ask some of the original residents of the East End or Oak Forest, where gentrification is actually happening. You might not find too many of them commenting on Shivani's article or blogging in solidarity, though. Perhaps they're too busy working and trying to find a rent that's feasible for their low-income, welfare-recipient asses to care.

There's also a good discussion about this article on Swamplot, although Shivani himself seems to think that those who comment there are merely "boosters locked into the developers' myopic viewpoint." Which makes me wonder if maybe he's just trolling everyone.

Houston 38, Tulsa 28

It was a lot closer than it needed to be, but the Cougars managed to edge out a win over the 2-9 Tulsa Golden Hurricane to become bowl-eligible for the second consecutive season.

The Good: Running back Kenneth Farrow dominated Tulsa’s hapless defense, carrying the ball 21 times for 116 yards and a career-high four touchdowns. Wide receiver Steven Dunbar, a true freshman, had a breakout game with seven receptions for 150 yards. The defense continued its turnover-forcing ways by intercepting Tulsa quarterback Dane Evans three times, all in the fourth quarter, to seal the win.

The Bad: The Cougars jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, but then let their foot off the gas and allowed Tulsa to tie things up in the second half. The Golden Hurricane matched the Coogs score-for-score throughout most of the second half and the Cougars couldn’t put the game away until late in the 4th quarter. The Defense struggled for the second game in a row, giving up 25 first downs and 416 total yards to Tulsa.

The Ugly: The athletics department might have distributed 23,572 tickets to this game, as the box score attendance indicates, but hardly anybody used them. Kickoff time was moved up to 11 am to avoid potentially severe weather, and the skies were gray and threatening throughout. That, along with the letdown against Tulane two weeks before, caused a lot of people to stay home and TDECU Stadium was mostly empty for this game.

What it means: The win assures that Houston can do no worse than .500 on the season. Next up is a Black Friday showdown against the SMU Mustangs in Dallas.

Houston 24, Tulane 31

In what has become a pattern under the Tony Levine regime, the Cougars were upset in front of a large (by UH standards, at least) home crowd by an inferior opponent. This time, it was the Tulane Green Wave (2-6 going into Saturday's game) that came to TDECU Stadium and ruined Houston's homecoming. The Cougars, to their credit, did have a chance to send the game into overtime after a late score and recovered onside kick. But Greg Ward threw an interception - his third of the day - as time expired to seal the embarrassing loss.

The Good: The Cougar defense did manage to extend its streak of creating a turnover to 32 straight games. Safety Adrian McDonald recovered a Tulane fumble in the endzone for a Cougar touchdown late in the first half. On the Green Wave's very next possession, he picked off Tulane QB Tanner Lee to set up a Houston field goal. The Cougars went into the locker room at halftime up 17-14, but that was the only time they led the game.

The Bad: Where shall I begin? The Cougar defense, which had been the team's bright spot, gave up 361 yards and 22 first downs to the Green Wave, who converted 10 out of 16 third downs. Lee gashed the Cougar secondary for 237 yards and three touchdown passes. The Cougar running game that looked so good against South Florida last week looked horrible against Tulane; RBs Kenneth Farrow and Ryan Jackson managed only 40 yards between them. Greg Ward rushed for 59 yards, but most of those were on scrambles after his protection broke down. He completed 31 of 49 passes but looked indecisive at times; in addition to his three interceptions, he was also sacked three times.

The Ugly: Again, where shall I begin? Deontay Greenberry fumbled on the Cougars' very first play from scrimmage, which more or less set the tone of the game. Kyle Bullard missed two field goals. While the Coogs "only" committed six penalties for 51 yards, they were penalties of the type that sustained Tulane drives and killed Houston ones. And the team simply did not look focused or prepared for this game. This was truly a team loss.

What it Means: The Coogs still only need one win to become bowl-eligible, but this loss - their first to Tulane since Dana Dimel was head coach - probably prevents them from winning a share of the conference title. Moreover, it's just another black eye that is going to cost the program credibility and fan support it simply can't afford to lose.

As for me, I've seen enough: Tony Levine isn't going to get the job done here, and needs to be relieved of his duties as head coach. 

But it comes with a free printer!

I recently found this advertisement in the business section of the July 8, 1993 Houston Post that had been used by my parents to wrap and store something:

That's right, folks: back in the summer of 1993, you could go to Bizmart (soon to become OfficeMax!) and get a state-of-the-art Compaq 486 with a VGA monitor and a 240 MB hard drive for the equivalent of $4,080 2014 dollars.

For purposes of comparison, the 128 GB iPhone 6 with an A8 Processor is 21 times faster, has over 530 times as much storage, and costs about one-tenth as much.

But it doesn't come with a free Epson dot matrix printer.

Houston 27, South Florida 3

The Cougars went to Tampa last Saturday and came away with their third win in a row over struggling South Florida Bull squad.

The Good: The Cougar ground game was the story of the day, gaining 217 yards and three touchdowns on 47 rushing attempts. Kenneth Farrow had 112 yards and one TD on 22 carries; he also caught a Greg Ward pass for another touchdown. Ryan Jackson contributed 62 yards and 2 more scores on 14 carries. The UH defense, meanwhile, kept South Florida out of the endzone.

The Bad: The Houston offense started out slow; their single touchdown in the first half was assisted by a huge USF penalty on fourth down. Kyle Bullard missed an extra point. Otherwise, there wasn't much to complain about this time around. The Cougars even managed to get flagged for only one penalty the entire game.

What it means: The Cougars are now in a five-way tie for the American Athletic Conference lead with East Carolina, UCF, Cincinnati and Memphis. Next up is Tulane at TDECU Stadium.

Two quick election observations

1. Not to belabor the same thought that is being made all over the rest of the internet today, but I think we can forget about Texas being a "purple" or "battleground" state anytime soon.

Yes, this was an election that the Republicans were going to dominate, both nationwide and at the state level. But when the Democratic candidates for statewide office can't even break forty percent against sleazeballs like Greg Abbott or Dan Patrick - or moreover, when statewide Democratic candidates actually lose vote share compared to four years ago - then all the bluster about demographic trends or better voter identification and turnout methods or Battleground Texas or whatever just looks silly.

I'm sure we'll continue to hear about "Texas turning blue" in 2016, and 2018, and 2020. I'm equally sure that state Democrats are not going to have any luck getting their candidates elected to any statewide office in any of those years. If ever. 

2. The state might well be solidly conservative, but my former home of Denton is clearly becoming more liberal. First, there's this:

Denton became the first Texas city to ban hydraulic fracturing Tuesday after a citizen-driven proposition cruised to a landslide victory at the polls.

Final returns showed the fracking ban passing by a whopping 59-41 percent margin all night long. While dozens of cities in New York and elsewhere have banned fracking, Texas is oil and gas country. So Denton’s proposition over the rights of a Texas city to police what happens within its borders pushed it into the national spotlight.

Ed Soph, treasurer of Pass the Ban, said the turnout sent a message.

“The responsible citizens of Denton have spoken — loudly and clearly,” Soph said.

When I worked for the City of Denton, and the Barnett Shale play exploded, everybody was rushing to get special gas well plats approved so that they could drill in and around the city. It was simply the "Texas" thing to do and was largely without controversy. I do remember Mr. Soph being one of the few people who spoke against drilling, and I also remember that he was regarded by local business leaders and elected officials as a tree-hugging jazz professor from UNT whose opinion didn't matter. Looks like times have changed.

The fracking ban will be challenged in court, but yesterday's election result is nevertheless noteworthy, especially considering how opponents of the ban outspent proponents by a massive margin but still lost by a margin of almost 20 percentage points.

Then there's this:

Liquor sales are now legal in Denton, after thousands of voters chose to make all alcoholic beverages legal to sell.

The vote means that Denton bars and restaurants no longer have to get special permits as private clubs to sell hard alcohol, and that businesses can start selling bottles of hard liquor starting Jan. 1.

I've written about the "wet-dry line" in the City of Denton before: basically, beer and wine sales at grocery stores and restaurants were limited to the city's 1977 boundaries, and any land annexed into the city after 1977 was dry. I spent many a meeting trying to explain to prospective convenience store owners why they could not sell beer in wine at their prospective location, even though the convenience store on the other side of the street was already selling alcohol. It was confusing, to say the least, but I was told that it would never change: the the city's churches would fight any attempt to move the wet-dry line, and the city's conservative voters would fall in line behind them. The same went for liquor stores ever being allowed inside Denton city limits.

Well, the wet-dry line was finally erased by a local election in 2006, which was amazing enough. Yesterday's vote, which allows liquor stores inside the city as well as does away with the city's silly "private club" permits for mixed drinks at restaurants and bars, is nothing short of miraculous.

Again, it appears that times have changed.

A Devil in the house

This commercial is apparently a few years old, but I had never seen it before it made the rounds on Facebook this week, so...



Happy Halloween, everyone!

North Texas 21, Rice 41

With the Cougars taking the week off, and the Mean Green making a trip into town, I decided to go to Rice Stadium to watch them take on the Owls. However, Rice scored a touchdown on the very first play from scrimmage - an 88-yard pass from Driphus Jackson to Jordan Taylor - and that set the tone of the game.

The Good: The Mean Green managed to keep the game close - at least for a half - by managing some big plays of their own. Darvin Kidsy ran a kickoff back 100 yards for a touchdown, and North Texas also scored on a 51-yard touchdown pass. The Mean Green actually led this game at halftime, 21-14.

The Bad: The Mean Green fumbled the opening kickoff of the second half, which led to a Rice field goal, and it was all downhill from there. On the very next possession, the Owls picked off UNT quarterback Andrew McNulty for a sixty-yard interception return. The Owls scored 27 unanswered points in the second half, while the Mean Green offense sputtered. North Texas would manage only 23 rushing yards for the entire game.

What it Means: I was hoping that the Mean Green would be able to build on last season's bowl win and have a successful 2014. But they are now 2-6, meaning that they need to win out - not likely - in order to avoid their ninth losing season out of the last ten. The Owls, on the other hand, have won four games in a row.

Monarchs again

I've previously written (see here and here) about the loss of monarch butterfly habitat and the resultant effect on the insect's population, before, but as the monarchs make their way back to Mexico for winter hibernation, it's worth nothing that concerns about the species' well-being remain:

For years, the worry about monarch butterflies has focused on the loss of habitat in their winter home in Mexico.

But as the butterflies make their way south through Texas this month, there's even more concern about where they spend their summers.

The loss of habitat in the Upper Midwest's Corn Belt has many worried about the monarch's ability to keep making the 2,000-mile trek to Mexico each year. Every year, the monarchs overwinter in Mexico, then fly to the southern United States, where they mate and produce a new generation of butterflies before dying off.

Even with favorable weather conditions this year, the monarch population, which ebbs and flows, isn't looking good, said Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas.

"It's an uptick, but it's not a massive uptick," Taylor told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "What I've been predicting is a doubling of the population, but that's still a small population and one of the smallest on record."

Last year, an all-time low of 0.67 hectares, or about 33 million monarchs, were documented in the mountains west of Mexico City. The average population of monarchs in the last 20 years is about 6.39 hectares.

In the northern U.S. and southern Canada, the habitat loss is taking its toll.

"What we really have to deal with is the habitat issue," Taylor said. "We're losing over a million acres a year. If that trend doesn't stop, the population will continue to decline."

Overall, Taylor estimates, about 165 million acres of summer breeding grounds — nearly the size of Texas — have been lost.

"Given that loss of habitat, it's not at all surprising that the population has gone down," Taylor said. "If we want the numbers to come back up, we have to address the habitat loss issue."

Individuals can do their part by planting milkweed - the only plant that monarch larvae eat - in their gardens, but saving the monarch is also going to require assistance from agricultural interests (whose use of pesticides and herbicides is taking a toll on both the insect as well as its host plant) as well as state departments of transportation, who maintain landscaping along highways including the I-35 corridor that monarchs generally follow:

All of the monarch population east of the Rockies funnels through Texas on its way to Mexico.

Taylor said there needs to be a corridor along I-35 to keep the monarchs migrating from the Upper Midwest and southern Canada.

"Monarchs are basically on that I-35 corridor in both the spring and fall," Taylor said. "How do we treat roadsides to make them a more friendly place?"

Milkweed is a key feature of my little gardens, and over the past month or so the plants have been doing their intended job as monarch breeding grounds. Whenever possible, I collect the fifth instar caterpillars and put them in a tupperware container so that they can safely pupate away from the elements, predators, lawnmowers, etc. Once they emerge and their wings have dried, I release them. So far I've released four monarchs, including this beautiful lady:

I'm uncertain if any of these butterflies will make their way down to Mexico or if they will overwinter here, and in any case they're not going to make much of a difference in the species' overall population numbers. Still, I find raising these creatures to be enjoyable, and I like to think I'm doing my part, however small, to keep the monarch viable.

I'll plant more milkweed early next spring, in time for the migration back north. I urge anybody reading this to do the same.

Houston 31, Temple 10

The Cougars managed back-to-back victories for the first time this season, getting past the Temple Owls in an oftentimes-sloppy game last Friday night at TDECU Stadium.

The Good: The "Third Ward Defense" continues to be a turnover-creating machine. They savaged Owl quarterback P.J. Walker for three interceptions, one of which was run back for a touchdown by Trevon Stewart, and denied the Owls another touchdown by forcing a goal-line fumble. On the other side of the ball, Greg Ward, Jr. seems to be settling into his new job as quarterback. Ward was remarkably efficient, completing 29 of 33 passes for 268 yards and two touchdowns. He, along with running backs Ryan Jackson and Kenneth Farrow, also managed a healthy 171 yards and one TD on the ground.

The Bad: The Houston defense gave up a couple of big plays to Temple wide receiver Jahad Thomas, who had gains of 74 and 72 yards on a pair of well-executed screen plays. Neither play resulted in a touchdown - the Houston defense held Temple to a field goal the first time and forced the aforementioned goal-line fumble the second time - but I can't help but wonder if the absences of cornerback Lee Hightower and linebacker Derrick Mathews, both of whom sustained season-ending injuries last week, played a part in those big plays. Kicker Kyle Bullard continued to struggle, as one of his field goal attempts hit the uprights. And that offensive line... Ugh!

The Ugly: The game was marred by penalties: Temple was flagged 11 times for 93 yards and the Cougars were penalized 10 times for 102 yards. Several Houston penalties resulted in stalled offensive drives, including two holding penalties that negated what would have been excellent Kenneth Farrow runs. Honestly, the Cougars should have scored more than 31 points in this game, and probably could have if they had not kept shooting themselves in the foot with penalties on offense.

What it Means: Houston is now above .500 for the first time this season and is 2-1 in conference. They are technically still in the hunt for the AAC title, but they'll need some help to get there.

The Cougars get a week off before traveling to Tampa to take on the South Florida Bulls.