{"id":4914,"date":"2015-03-16T02:08:51","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T02:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/?p=4914"},"modified":"2016-08-22T23:30:19","modified_gmt":"2016-08-22T23:30:19","slug":"permits-issued-new-housing-units-houston-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/permits-issued-new-housing-units-houston-2014","title":{"rendered":"Explaining The Economist’s stat about new housing permits in Houston"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent article on Houston’s growth, The Economist wrote:\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, perhaps the city\u2019s biggest strength is its sprawl. Unlike most other big cities in America, Houston has no zoning code, so it is quick to respond to demand for housing and office space. Last year authorities in the Houston metropolitan area, with a population of 6.2m, issued permits to build 64,000 homes. The entire state of California, with a population of 39m, issued just 83,000.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The source of the numbers is the US Census Building Permits Survey, which estimates the number of new housing starts across the US based on responses from a sample of local building officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"survey\"<\/p>\n

According to the Census, California authorized 82,925 new housing units while the Houston metropolitan area authorized 63,678 for 2014.<\/p>\n

The City of Houston provides public access to their building permits. A query\u00a0for residential permits issued by the City of Houston in 2014, reveals a total count of 97,734.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"permits=1\"<\/p>\n

As you can see in the small example above, many building permits are issued for new unit construction. In fact, only about 13% (~ 12,700)\u00a0of permits issued in 2014 were for the construction of new single family dwellings or apartments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"houston-permits-by-type\"<\/p>\n

Of this number, only\u00a054% reference actual structural work; the remainder reference specialty work (e.g. plumbing, electrical, etc.).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"building-permits-by-class\"<\/p>\n

We’re left with about 6,800 building permits that refer to structural work on new single family homes or apartments in the City of Houston.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Census figure (63,678 starts) provides estimates for the Houston metropolitan area, which includes nine counties (the largest of which is Harris County) and five principal cities (including Houston).<\/p>\n

The City of Houston only accounts for about 35% of the population within the greater metropolitan area so for the 64k number to hold weight, around 90% of the new permitted units in the metropolitan area would have to be authorized by permit offices outside of the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent article on Houston’s growth, The Economist wrote:\u00a0 Paradoxically, perhaps the city\u2019s biggest strength is its sprawl. Unlike most other big cities in America, Houston has no zoning code, so it is quick to respond to demand for housing and office space. Last year authorities in the Houston metropolitan area, with a population […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.buildzoom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}