Jeff Reichman
This is our monthly series Houston Maps and Data, where we provide a roundup of interesting Houston stories using maps and data that help us understand the region by the numbers. In mid-April, the Houston area saw unprecedented flooding. There are a lot of attempts to explain why, but before you go down that rabbit…
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Every year, the City of Houston goes through a capital planning process where they allocate about $8 billion over five years. I wanted to know where these projects are, and how much we’re spending on them. I became curious about this process after last year’s discussion about equitable distribution. So I extracted a bunch of data from the…
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Last week, I published an article outlining what the City of Houston can do to promote broadband competition. I was responding to a group of citizens who came to Houston’s city council public comment session and asked our elected officials to do something about net neutrality. While the City of Houston can’t do much about…
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A few weeks ago, I attended a civic club meeting where we talked about minimum lot size restrictions. Many of my neighbors were concerned about townhouse developments in the neighborhood, and the City of Houston Planning Department was on hand to teach us how to apply for minimum lot size protection. Minimum lot size restrictions…
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Immediately after Hurricane Harvey, everyone in Houston figured that evictions were going to be a problem. There was a lot of media coverage about evictions of vulnerable populations, including some heart-wrenching stories about low income tenants and elderly residents of a Harris County subsidized living facility. The Mayor of Houston pushed back, asking private landlords…
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Last year, we partnered with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition to develop the first version of the TCJC Dashboard. Since then, we’ve been working behind the scenes to push the limits of what we can learn from these data. Thanks to generous funding from Microsoft, we developed a new version of the dashboard and a…
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This post is a collaboration between Xin Tan, Lara Haase, and Jeff Reichman. On the surface, the hotel occupancy tax (HOT) is an unlikely hero in the battle over funding for the arts. But Houston devotes more HOT funding to the arts than any other city in Texas. Every time we rent a hotel room, 17% of…
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This is the story of how we helped the City of Houston visualize and communicate the impact of Hurricane Harvey. You may have already seen these maps on Harvey by the Numbers. This isn’t a story about designing the maps and choosing the colors (although that was a lot of fun). This is a story…
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Over the summer, we worked with Children at Risk to develop a map of child care deserts in Texas. The map shows where there aren’t enough child care providers, as well as where there is a lack of subsidized seats or high quality providers. Then, using the map as a jumping off point, Children at…
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This map updates each week. Check the map credits for the last updated date. Every county in Texas is divided into voting precincts. The two major parties have precinct chairs who serve as election judges, as well as manage a ton of on-the-ground activities for the party. A precinct chair is the lowest level of…
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