Texas

Texas Two Step

Jonathan Bowles — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:30:11 -0500

There has been a huge spike in the number of New Yorkers relocating to Texas in recent years, even at a time when fewer city residents were departing for Charlotte, Atlanta, Philadelphia and other traditional destinations.

Borough Breakdown: NYC Residents Moving to
Houston, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio (2004/05 to 2009/10)

Migration from Bronx to...
	2004/2005	2009/2010	% Change
Dallas County	77	92	19.5%
Harris County	202	310	53.5%
Tarrant County	28	58	107.1%
Travis County	22	27	22.7%
Bexar County	29	66	127.6%
Fort Bend County	31	33	6.5%
Total	389	586	50.6%

Migration from Brooklyn to...
	2004/2005	2009/2010	% Change
Dallas County	132	152	15.2%
Harris County	271	351	29.5%
Tarrant County	64	71	10.9%
Travis County	83	224	169.9%
Bexar County	76	64	-15.8%
Fort Bend County	40	62	55.0%
Total	666	924	38.7%

Migration from Queens to...
	2004/2005	2009/2010	% Change
Dallas County	146	166	13.7%
Harris County	412	404	-1.9%
Tarrant County	117	125	6.8%
Travis County	56	89	58.9%
Bexar County	80	99	23.8%
Fort Bend County	67	90	34.3%
Total	878	973	10.8%

Migration from Manhattan to...
	2004/2005	2009/2010	% Change
Dallas County	311	356	14.5%
Harris County	346	508	46.8%
Tarrant County	51	107	109.8%
Travis County	167	303	81.4%
Bexar County	96	91	-5.2%
Fort Bend County	15	54	260.0%
Total	986	1419	43.9%

Migration from Staten Island to...
	2004/2005	2009/2010	% Change
Dallas County	N/A	N/A	N/A
Harris County	36	55	52.8%
Tarrant County	N/A	N/A	N/A
Travis County	N/A	N/A	N/A
Bexar County	N/A	N/A	N/A
Fort Bend County	N/A	N/A	N/A
Total	36	55	52.8%

Source: IRS Migration Data. For Staten Island, data was only available for migrations to Harris County.

This piece originally appeared a tthe Center for an Urban Future data blog.

Texas High Speed Rail: On the Right Track?

Wendell Cox — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:09:06 -0400

The Central Japan Railway (Note 1), which operates one of only two high-speed rail segments (Tokyo Station to Osaka Station) in the world that has been fully profitable (including the cost of building), proposes to build a line from Dallas to Houston, with top speeds of 205 miles per hour. This is slightly faster than the fastest speeds now operated. This line is radically different from others proposed around the nation and most that have been proposed around the world. The promoters intend to build and operate the route from commercial revenues.

There is the understandable concern that eventually, the promoters will approach the state or the federal government for support. Not so, say Texas Central High Speed Railway officials. According to President Robert Eckels, not only is there no plan for subsidies, but "investors would likely walk away from a project that couldn’t stand on its own." He also told the Texas Tribune “If we start taking the federal money, it takes twice as long, costs twice as much,” Eckels said. “My guess is we’d end up pulling the plug on it.”

Eckels is a former Harris County Judge (Houston), a position the equivalent of a county commission or county board of supervisors chair in other parts of the nation. Eckels developed a reputation for fiscal responsibility during his tenure at the county courthouse.

The Texas project is in considerable contrast the California High Speed Rail project, which if built, is likely to require a 100 percent capital subsidy and perhaps subsidies for operations. It is also different from the Tampa to Orlando high speed rail project, which would have required a 100 percent capital subsidy and was cancelled by Florida Governor Rick Scott. The Texas project can also be contrasted with the Vegas to Victorville, California XpressWest high speed rail line that would require at least a $5.5 billion federal loan and a subsidized interest rate. Our recent Reason Foundation report predicted that XpressWest would not be able to repay its federal loan from commercial revenues and could impose a loss on federal taxpayers of up to 10 times the Solyndra loan guarantee loss (see The Washington Post, "Solyndra Scandal Timeline").

From the horrific record of private investment in startup high speed rail lines and the huge losses that have been typical, I am certainly skeptical. The Taiwan high speed rail private investors have lost two-thirds of their capital investment and debts are guaranteed by the government. The Channel Tunnel rail line to St. Pancras station has been bailed out by British taxpayers. However, if any company can make money at high speed rail in the United States, it would be the Central Japan Railway.

So far the Texas Central High Speed Railway seems to be doing it right. Like the other intercity modes, the airlines system and the intercity highway system (Note 2), this project would be paid for by people who use it.

Without government subsidies or loans, the Texas Central High Speed Railway will certainly have an incentive to get the sums right. If they are not, it sounds like the plug will be pulled. If they are, high speed rail could be on the right track in the United States for the first time. More power to them.

------

Note 1: Central Japan Railway, and other companies purchased the assets of the Japanese National Railway in the late 1980s. The nationalized railway had run up a debt of nearly $300 billion, which was eventually transferred to taxpayers.

Note 2: There is a small subsidy to the airline system from the Federal Aviation Administration. Intercity highways have been financed by users until contributions from the federal general fund in recent years. However these contributions have been far less than diversions over the past 30 years from highway user fees, principally to mass transit a major transfer of highway trust fund interest to the general fund and now ongoing interest transfers.

Photograph: Central Japan Railway corporate headquarters at Nagoya Station (by author)

Thoughts on High-speed Rail and Buses

Tory Gattis — Thu, 31 May 2012 22:58:09 -0400

I’m back from a California trip – beautiful state, beautiful weather, completely dysfunctional government. For example, even with massive fiscal problems it’s still trying to build a vastly expensive high-speed rail line from San Francisco to San Diego. On a related note, a private group is exploring building a Houston-Dallas HSR line with no subsidies of any kind. I’m totally okay with private efforts. I’m probably even okay with a little eminent domain to get the right of way at a fair price. I hope they can make it work.

Here’s a great alternate perspective on HSR: a TED talk on the value of perception and psychology vs. economics and technology. Go to the 6:12 point to see a great example of the Eurostar train, where they spend a vast amount of money to reduce travel times by 40 mins, when for 90% or 99% less money they could have improved the experience instead and actually gotten higher rider satisfaction. I believe the absolute same principle applies to bus vs. rail, whether intra- or inter-city: spend 1% or 10% of the same money improving the bus service and get higher customer satisfaction than the rail line would generate. (hat tip to Karl)

And Greyhound is doing just that, learning from Megabus and upgrading their service with wifi, power plugs, and nicer seats with more leg room. With that kind of service option available at say $30 one-way within the Texas Triangle, how many people do you think would pay $150+ to go on HSR? On second thought, maybe nobody should mention this possibility to the Texas HSR group… ;-)

Major Texas Metro Areas Are Confirming Failures in Rail Transit

Tory Gattis — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 17:13:37 -0400

Despite the success of the Main St. line, I've been concerned for a long time now that the next set of rail lines will essentially bankrupt Metro while providing minimal benefit (except for possibly the Universities line, which has moderate benefits, but may not get built anytime soon because of the money drain of the other lines being built first). Now the Coalition On Sustainable Transportation (COST) has come out with the numbers from other cities (especially Dallas) that don't bode well for Houston at all. Some key excerpts (I know it's a lot, but there are some really good points in here):

---------------

For example: Dallas will pay increasing debt service for many years and has 30 plus year bonds and commercial paper for its almost $4 billion of debt. Their debt service is considered annual operating costs in the chart below, because: By the time current bonds are paid, the rail system will be at the end of its service life and will need replacement through the creation of a new round of bonds, continuing this high bond expense for as long as the system operates. While other Texas cities have not yet reached this Dallas level of bond debt and expense, Houston is rapidly moving in the same direction and Austin’s planning is pointing in this direction. Currently Dallas’s debt service is about 3 times Houston’s and almost 40 times Austin’s.
...
One may look at the data in the table above in many ways, but, none of the conclusions seem to be positive for rail transit. Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin are all among the top 20 fastest growing major cities in the nation. However, the three cities with various levels of rail transit, Dallas, Houston and Austin, all have declining transit ridership trends and have fewer absolute transit riders today than they had a dozen years ago. They have spent billions to implement and promote transit with a heavy focus on rail transit.
...

These data highlight a number of broader Texas Metro Area negative transit trends:

1. Metro areas with more rail transit have significantly higher costs and higher taxpayer subsidies per ride.
2. Metro areas with more rail transit have fewer total transit boardings per capita.
3. Metro areas with higher densities have fewer transit riders (boardings) per capita.
4. Dallas has the largest population and greatest population density but the least cost effective transit system: Higher cost per ride (boarding) and fewer boardings per capita.
5. Increasing the proportion of a region’s transit funds being spent on rail transit leads to less cost effective overall transit and degraded transit for the majority of transit riders who still ride busses.

Some Major Texas City Metro Areas comparisons/observations regarding transit data:

1. Dallas-Ft. Worth Metro’s population is more than 3 times San Antonio’s and Dallas’ annual transit operating expense is 4.4 times San Antonio’s but Dallas has only 1.6 times the transit ridership of San Antonio.
2. Dallas-Ft. Worth Metro’s population is 3.8 times that of Austin and Dallas’ annual transit operating expense is 3.7 times the transit expense of Austin but Dallas-Ft. Worth has only 1.9 times Austin’s ridership.
3. Dallas has the most invested, more than $4 billion, in light rail and it has the highest cost per transit ride at 2.8 times San Antonio’s costs and almost 2 times Austin’s. Dallas has the least boardings per capita, about one-half of San Antonio and Austin.
4. San Antonio’s bus only transit system has 1.2 times Austin’s ridership but only 82% of Austin’s annual operating expense.
5. San Antonio’s ‘cost per transit rider’ is about one-third of Dallas-Ft. Worth’s and San Antonio has 2 times as many transit riders per capita as Dallas-Ft Worth.
6. Dallas’ 2011 net debt service (principal and interest) budget of $153 million is greater than San Antonio’s total 2011 budgeted operating costs of $141.3 million and almost as much as Austin’s $168.2 million.

...
It is no surprise that Dallas has hit a transit financial wall causing it to pause and curtail, at least temporarily, further light rail expansion. It seems, the more light rail Dallas implements, the more inefficient and expensive its transit becomes. This is an often occurring trend when regions implement rail transit and is a serious problem trend now developing in Houston and Austin. The result is overall degradation of transit service as exorbitantly expensive rail transit and resulting debt absorb increasingly higher percentages of transit funds. This, in turn, results in increasing transit fares and reductions in bus service which have disproportionately negative quality-of-life impacts on lower income citizens. Almost everyone forgets that the majority of transit riders still ride busses even after such massive investments in rail transit such as in Dallas or in Portland, the Mecca of train transit, where well over one-half of the transit rides are on busses. More importantly, this wasteful spending on ineffective trains ‘bleeds dry’ taxpayer funds which could be used to make positive contributions in serving communities’ many, higher priority needs for all citizens. (like express commuter bus services from all neighborhoods to all job centers, as I've been advocating)
...
Much experience has shown that once a cycle of high cost rail transit is implemented, the agency becomes heavily burdened with debt for a very long time. It is highly probable that the very high debt service (principle and interest) will become a permanent and major part of the transit agency’s annual operating costs. When one issue of bonds is paid down, it becomes time for another round of debt to replace aging equipment. This, in turn results in very poor cost effectiveness and degradation of the overall transit system as it serves fewer riders at higher costs. This high debt can never be paid-off without major increases in local taxes. Transit agencies cannot responsibly project and achieve enough ridership to make rail transit cost-effective. This has even less credibility in light of the national declining trend in the use of transit and the fact that the use of transit in Texas’ major metro areas has a declining trend over the past dozen years. As Dallas and other major cities have experienced, this results in a spiraling decline in transit performance and effectiveness, degradation of mobility for low income citizens and, often, cutbacks in other higher priority city services. This results in reducing overall quality-of-life.

----------------

Is this the future we really want for Houston? Because it's not too late to stop it now, but it will be too late very, very soon, and then we will be stuck with the same harsh reality as Dallas for decades to come...

This post first appeared at Houston Strategies

Despite Exhortations, San Antonio Suburbanizes

Wendell Cox — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:01:42 -0400

"Despite years of effort by city leaders to revitalize San Antonio’s downtown neighborhoods, thousands of residents flocked to sprawling subdivisions on the far North and West sides in the past decade, while the inner city lost residents."

That is how John Tedesco, Elaine Ayala and Brian Chasnoff of the San Antonio Express-News described the continuing dispersion of the San Antonio metropolitan area's core Bexar County in an analysis of census tract population trends between 2000 and 2010 (we had reported more generally on the continuing dispersion of San Antonio a few months ago).

Referring to the "siren song of the outlying suburbs," the authors note that the strongest growth in Bexar County occurred in suburban areas outside the outer beltway (the "Anderson Loop" or state route 1604). The growth, largely on the north and west sides of the county was nearly one-half of total county growth. At the same time, the inner city lost population.

The Express-News analysis indicates that the population increased 233 percent in the northern and western areas outside the Anderson Loop. Inside the inner loop (Interstate 410), the population increased 7 percent. This includes the inner city area, where the population declined three percent. In the rest of the county (between the inner and outer loops and the outer suburbs of the east and south), the population increase was 24 percent.

Outside core Bexar County, the metropolitan area added 34 percent to its population, more than any of the three major sectors of Bexar County.

The reporters noted that "Every San Antonio mayor who served in the past decade preached the virtues of life in the inner city. For many people, it’s an appealing message — in theory. “Most people agree,” former Mayor Phil Hardberger said. “And then they drive out beyond 1604 to their houses.”

Norman Dugas, a residential subdivision developer and past president of the Real Estate Council of San Antonio told the Express-News “The reality is, market forces are much more important than any planning emphasis or desire to shape development.” Put another way, "preaching" is not enough. People will likely follow their preferences unless forbidden to do so, which is regrettably a policy direction in some places.
Subsidies to the core areas (often plentiful) and exhortations by public officials (few, if any of whom have themselves moved permanently to the inner city from the suburbs) are unlikely to change how people prefer to live.

Sizing Up Texas’ Job Growth Under Rick Perry

Joshua Wright — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:00:56 -0400

Now that Texas Gov. Rick Perry is officially in the running for the Republican presidential nomination, journalists and econ bloggers from almost every national news outlet have examined the Texas’ economy in excruciating detail. The fact that Texas has produced nearly 40% of all new jobs in the US since 2009 has been regurgitated over and over again, and the state’s remarkable population spike has repeatedly been cited as a reason for the big employment growth.

But more than those shared story lines, writers have offered another strikingly similar theme in their Texas critiques: many have pointed to the wave of oil and gas jobs as the key driver of the state’s economic boom.

To be sure, energy employment is part of Texas’ growth, as EMSI highlighted in June. But it’s far from the biggest part. CNNMoney did a nice job laying out the super-sectors that have done well in the Lone Star State, and we’re going to drill down even further using EMSI’s detailed data to see which specific industries are fueling the state’s growth.

How Texas Stacks Up

It’s true that Texas has accounted for a large share of new jobs in the US, and that’s not just the case since 2009. Going back to 2001, Texas has added more than 2.1 million jobs, according to EMSI’s latest complete dataset, while the rest of the nation has combined for 6.2 million new jobs.

But Texas is a massive state, of course, with a population of more than 24 million. So to even the playing field, let’s look at percentage job growth.

As it turns out, there are only four states that have grown from 2001 to 2011 and from 2009 to 2011.

Like Texas, Wyoming and Utah have also had 18% growth since 2001, but no state has performed better since 2009 than North Dakota. Its employment base has grown 5% in the last two years, compared to 2% for Texas. But because North Dakota has a much smaller population — and workforce — than Texas, its growth typically doesn’t get mentioned in discussions like these.

Energy is a Big Player — But Not the Biggest One

Oil and gas extraction employment in Texas has more than doubled in the last 10 years, and support industries for drilling have also boomed. Altogether, the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction sector has jumped from over 230,000 jobs in 2001 to just under 490,000 in 2011.

But that’s only a fraction of the 14.2 million jobs in the state, and the oil and gas growth accounts for slightly more than 10% of all new jobs in the state since 2001.

What have been the biggest job gainers? Health care and social assistance (421,000-plus) and government (nearly 282,000) have made the largest additions to their payrolls in the last decade. It should be noted, however, that government jobs have declined in the last year — and were growing stagnant before then.

Yet once you extract federal government jobs, it’s clear that state and local government employment is doing considerably better in Texas than other states. Texas is one of 10 states that have seen increases in state and local government jobs since 2009, and its growth (29,287) is nearly nine times that of the state with the second-most growth, Kentucky (3,327).

These numbers don’t exactly bolster Perry’s small-government agenda claims.

State and Local Government Job Change (2009-11)

In terms of detailed sub-sectors, temporary health services, crude petroleum/natural gas extraction, and home health services have been the strongest performers in Texas since 2009. Overall, 19 industries have added at least 5,000 jobs since ’09, of which electric power distribution has had by far the largest percent growth (111%).

NAICS Code	Description	2009 Jobs	2011 Jobs	Change	% Change
561320	Temporary Help Services	171,096	204,456	33,360	19%
211111	Crude Petroleum and Natural Gas Extraction	290,638	317,388	26,750	9%
621610	Home Health Care Services	240,018	263,099	23,081	10%
930000	Local government	1,240,713	1,261,970	21,257	2%
213112	Support Activities for Oil and Gas Operations	89,179	108,765	19,586	22%
221122	Electric Power Distribution	11,840	25,038	13,198	111%
722110	Full-Service Restaurants	371,893	385,081	13,188	4%
814110	Private Households	113,106	125,148	12,042	11%
621111	Offices of Physicians (except Mental Health Specialists)	198,795	210,077	11,282	6%
622110	General Medical and Surgical Hospitals	265,013	274,810	9,797	4%
920000	State government	354,190	362,219	8,029	2%
551114	Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices	90,157	98,159	8,002	9%
213111	Drilling Oil and Gas Wells	34,826	42,562	7,736	22%
425120	Wholesale Trade Agents and Brokers	58,575	64,461	5,886	10%
452112	Discount Department Stores	63,272	69,137	5,865	9%
561720	Janitorial Services	152,316	157,919	5,603	4%
623110	Nursing Care Facilities	99,246	104,651	5,405	5%
561110	Office Administrative Services	88,376	93,599	5,223	6%
522110	Commercial Banking	112,482	117,698	5,216	5%

Key Regional Industries

We also looked at the most concentrated industries in Texas, as compared to national employment concentration, to see which industries are unique to the state and tend to be export-oriented. Oil and gas extraction — and the production of equipment for extraction — figure prominently among this group of industries.

Crude petroleum/natural gas extraction is more than 4.5 times more concentrated in Texas than the nation, and it accounts for more than 300,000 jobs. Other industries with high LQs and large employment bases: support activities for oil and gas operations; engineering services; and office administrative services.

For more on Texas’ economy, be sure to read Tyler Cowen’s post at Marginal Revolution. And for more on Texas’ growth, check out this piece on the top cities in the US.

Illustration by Mark Beauchamp

Krugman's Muddled Argument Against Texas

Tory Gattis — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 10:56:40 -0500

Last week NYT columnist and economist Paul Krugman wrote a very popular column pointing to Texas' revenue shortfall and declaring it an example of the failure of conservative government. I found the whole piece a muddled mess and dismissed it, but you can't believe the notes I've gotten from people requesting a response.

The thing is, I don't really get his point. The bad national economy was going to cut state revenues no matter what. Is he saying we'd be better off if we had a fat government with easy cuts, instead of a lean government with tough cuts? How much sense does that make?

The nice thing about delaying my response is that others have already made great cases against the column (saving me the work). Kevin Williams at the National Review is a bit sarcastic for my tastes, but makes several great points - the main ones being:

there's no such thing as a shortfall in Texas, since we use zero-based budgeting (i.e. we start from nothing building every budget with no assumptions from prior years), and
our unemployment rate, which is better than the national average, is even more impressive when you consider our huge population gains and the jobs we've had to provide just to keep up with it.

Bill Watkins here at New Geography also lays into Krugman's fuzzy thinking:

"People are not as stupid as many Nobel Prize winners might think; they move for opportunity, not just for cheap houses or low-paid work."

Then he comes up with a great new acronym:

"A business moves to or expands in a region based on a whole host of reasons. These include available infrastructure, resource availability, market size and location, labor supply and costs, worker productivity, facilities costs, transportation costs, and other costs. Those other costs include what I call DURT (Delay, Uncertainty, Regulation, and Taxes)."

Conveniently, the Wall Street Journal made the case for Texas' growth and opportunity the next day:

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Great Lone Star Migration

Today one out of 12 Americans lives in Texas—the same proportion that lived in New York City in 1930.

...Finally there is Texas. In 1930 there were (rounded off) six million people in the Lone Star State versus 13 million in New York. In 1970 there were 11 million in Texas and 18 million in New York: Each had grown by about five million. But in 2010 there were 25 million in Texas and 19 million in New York.

Back in the 1930-70 period, liberal political scientists hoped and expected that America would become less like Texas and more like New York, with bigger government, higher taxes and more unions. In one important respect—the abolition of legally enforced racial segregation—that has happened. But otherwise Americans have been voting with their feet for the Texas model, with its low tax rates, light regulation and openness to new businesses and enterprises.

Today one out of 12 Americans lives in Texas—the same proportion that lived in New York City in 1930. Metropolitan Dallas and metropolitan Houston, with about six million people each, threaten to overtake our fourth largest metro area, San Francisco Bay (population about seven million), in the next decade.

That doesn't seem to be much of an indictment of Texas' approach to governance...

That's not to say the next budget is going to be easy. A lot of hard tradeoffs will have to be made. But it's pretty clear Texas is a very far cry from being a failed state.

Anti-Smart Growth Governor Wins Primary

Ed Braddy — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:35:13 -0500

There are many factors and issues that go into winning a political campaign, and the ones swirling about the Texas Republican Primary were numerous. Incumbent governor Rick Perry cruised to an easy victory over sitting U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and activist Debra Medina on Tuesday to set up a general election showdown with former Houston mayor Bill White, a Democrat.

It’s worth recalling that last year Perry distinguished himself as the anti-Smart Growth governor, bucking a trend in which political leaders at all levels embrace this command-and-control planning doctrine. In June 2009, Governor Perry vetoed SB 2169 - a bill relating to “the establishment of a smart growth policy work group and the development of a smart growth policy for this state.”

In his veto message, Governor Perry said:

Senate Bill No. 2169 would create a new governmental body that would centralize the decision-making process in Austin for the planning of communities through an interagency work group on “smart growth” policy…. This legislation would promote a one-size-fits-all approach to land use and planning that would not work across a state as large and diverse as Texas.

I’m not sure if this was on many minds as voters headed to the polls, but there does seem to be a strong sentiment among Texans against top-down centralized planning. The recent mayor’s race in Houston grabbed national attention because of the winner’s sexual orientation. But earlier Annise Parker had soundly defeated über-Smart Growth advocate Peter Brown, setting up her run-off with Gene Locke. Brown had made zoning and central planning a centerpiece of his campaign.

Texas has out-performed most other states in terms of economic vitality, housing affordability and other quality of life indicators, and its cities crowd Business Week’s top ten list of metros least touched by the recession.

When it comes to Smart Growth and centralized planning, political leaders at all levels and in all states should embrace the Lone Star attitude: Don’t Mess With Texas!

The Essence and Future of Texas vs. California

Tory Gattis — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:38:09 -0500

I know there have been a lot of articles and references to Texas vs. California recently in this blog, but, well, there's a new one with some genuinely new contributions to the argument ("America's Future: California vs. Texas", Trends magazine, hat tip to Jeff). And it says some nice things about Houston too, so how can I pass on it? The beginning of the article is here - including an overview of both states' situations - but here are some key additional excerpts:

...Both the Brookings Institution and Forbes Magazine studied America’s cities and rated them for how well they create new jobs. All of America’s top five job-creating cities were in Texas. It's more than purely economics and regulation can explain, though. Texas – and Houston in particular – has a broad mix of Hispanics, whites, Asians, and blacks with virtually no racial problems. Texas welcomes new people and exemplifies genuine tolerance. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Houston took in 100,000 people. Not surprisingly, Houston has more foreign consulates than any American city other than New York and Los Angeles.
...
But, how did this happen? What’s wrong with California, and what’s right with Texas? It really comes down to four fundamental differences in the value systems embodied in these states:

First, Texans on average believe in laissez-faire markets with an emphasis on individual responsibility. Since the '80s, California’s policy-makers have favored central planning solutions and a reliance on a government social safety net. This unrelenting commitment to big government has led to a huge tax burden and triggered a mass exodus of jobs. The Trends Editors examined the resulting migration in “Voting with Our Feet,” in the April 2008 issue of Trends.

Second, Californians have largely treated environmentalism as a “religious sacrament” rather than as one component among many in maximizing people's quality of life. As we explained in “The Road Ahead for Housing,” in the June 2009 issue of Trends, environmentally-based land-use restriction centered in California played a huge role in inflating the recent housing bubble. Similarly, an unwillingness to manage ecology proactively for man’s benefit has been behind the recent epidemic of wildfires.

Third, California has placed “ethnic diversity” above “assimilation,” while Texas has done the opposite. “Identity politics” has created psychological ghettos that have prevented many of California’s diverse ethnic groups and subcultures from integrating fully into the mainstream. Texas, on the other hand, has proactively encouraged all the state’s residents to join the mainstream.

Fourth, beyond taxes, diversity, and the environment, Texas has focused on streamlining the regulatory and litigation burden on its residents. Meanwhile, California’s government has attempted to use regulation and litigation to transfer wealth from its creators to various special-interest constituencies.

They go on to make six forecasts:

...expect to see California’s loss of jobs to Nevada accelerate...
...expect to see a backlash in California and across the country against regulations, especially green initiatives that can’t clearly demonstrate a positive ROI...
Watch for the smart money, including venture capital, to begin migrating to Texas for start-ups in many areas, including energy, info-tech, manufacturing, and biotech. Just as Delaware’s tax laws once encouraged numerous businesses to incorporate there, even when they had no connection to the state, Texas will become a magnet for new businesses by offering cheap land, a favorable regulatory environment, a business-friendly culture, and a large supply of skilled labor. Unless California revamps dramatically, expect to see its economy languish, even as the recovery takes off.
To make its business climate even more business-friendly, Texas will invest heavily in secondary education and work hard to attract the best talent to its research universities (note the recent Tier 1 proposition and funding). Keep an eye especially on the University of Texas, which already has a first-rate campus and faculty. Within 10 years, UT, as the locals call it, may well rival Stanford or Berkeley.
Other states will adopt tort reform measures pioneered in Texas. Unlike California and most other states, Texas has been aggressive in minimizing the enormous burden of frivolous lawsuits...
Look to Texas to become a cutting-edge cultural mecca. Houston has always offered a vibrant cultural scene, ever since the Alley theater company was founded there in 1947 by Nina Eloise Whittington Vance. In the 1950s, John and Dominique de Menil moved to Houston with one of the most significant private collections of art in the world and began donating art and money to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Both institutions have grown to world-class status since then. In the coming years, this trend will spread to the major cities of Texas (take that, Dallas!), attracting the best talent and money and shifting the cultural balance of the nation away from New York and San Francisco.

I can personally vouch for #5. I was just visiting my brother out in CA, and a friend of his with a small store was being hit with a large disability discrimination lawsuit for a minor oversight (handicapped parking was marked on the ground and had the requisite walkways and ramps, but lacked a pole sign). Evidently this has become a cottage industry in California, where lawyers guide the disabled through stores looking for very minor violations of a vague law (things like high shelves or tables), then sue (expecting a quick settlement, of course). Under CA law, discrimination guilt is assumed if there's anything in the store the disabled can't do that a normal customer can do, regardless of the availability of employees to provide assistance. His friend was clearly exasperated with the unwinnable situation. Just plain nuts.

As Jim Goode says, "You might give some serious thought to thanking your lucky stars you're in Texas."

Smart Growth Bill Vetoed

Wendell Cox — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:51:11 -0400

Texas Governor Rick Perry has vetoed a bill that would have created a state level “smart growth” program. The veto message is below.

June 19, 2009

Pursuant to Article IV, Section 14, of the Texas Constitution, I, Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, do hereby disapprove of and veto Senate Bill No. 2169 of the 81st Texas Legislature, Regular Session, due to the following objections:

Senate Bill No. 2169 would create a new governmental body that would centralize the decision-making process in Austin for the planning of communities through an interagency work group on “smart growth” policy. Decisions about the growth of communities should be made by local governments closest to the people living and working in these areas. Local governments can already adopt “smart growth” policies based on the desires of the community without a state-led effort that endorses such planning. This legislation would promote a one-size-fits-all approach to land use and planning that would not work across a state as large and diverse as Texas.

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have signed my name officially and caused the Seal of the State to be affixed hereto at Austin, this the 19th day of June, 2009.

RICK PERRY
Governor of Texas

Reference: http://governor.state.tx.us/news/veto/12632/