Waiting on Texas
New poll shows Houstonians are super optimistic about Houston, but not the U.S.
In Italian they call it campanilismo: the love of the sound of one's own clock tower, loyalty to one's town, region or even neighborhood over state or country. And it seems like Houstonians have a case of it.
The new KUHF-KHOU poll shows locals think Houston is doing better than Texas and the United States.
The survey questioned 500 Houston voters. Sixty five percent of them said Houston is moving in the right direction, with only 20 percent saying is was headed in the wrong direction.
These positive numbers far outpace Houstonians' opinion on whether Texas is heading in the right direction, with just over 45 percent believing it is. Thirty-five percent said Texas is heading in the wrong direction, with a high percentage of responders (almost a fifth) saying they weren't sure — we'll take that as an "Ask me after the election."
The pessimism was even more apparent when asked about the direction of the country, with an almost even split saying the United States is headed in the right or wrong direction— 43 percent and 42 percent, respectively.
Rice University's Robert M. Stein, who directed the survey, said the unusually high numbers for Houston have data to back them up.
"Some of this is borne out — unemployment, foreclosures, housing values, migration — all of these conditions are much better in Houston and Harris County than they are in the state and, for that matter, in the nation," he told KUHF. "So maybe what we're seeing here are voters who can see the reality. They're seeing people come here for jobs. They're seeing individual home values, if not appreciating, not declining rapidly. What they're seeing is very few foreclosures like you've seen in states like Nevada or the midwest."
Houston's economic resilience has been noted over and over again. Can you blame us for noticing it?
