Houston Chronicle Editorial: Houston’s shadow governments divide the haves from the have-nots

Ever wondered why so many of Houston’s streets are gouged and crumbling while others have coherent sidewalks, obedient cross signals and expertly sculpted landscaping? Every major city has its rough patches where buildings are worn down. In Houston, though, it’s not just the private property but the public realm that is uneven. Why? The answer has to do in large part with tax increment reinvestment zones, or TIRZs. Houston has 27 of them and they form a set of shadow governments that keep roughly $270 million out of the city’s general budget. Should Houston shut these entities down, as some demand? The answer isn’t as clear-cut as we’d like, although clearly, some TIRZs are outliving their purpose and others never seemed motivated by the seminal goal for the zones: to improve blighted neighborhoods.

A lack of transparency makes it hard to monitor the entities and hold them accountable for their use of taxpayer money: While TIRZ board meetings are open to the public, information about complex deals is spread across too many reports to comprehend. As it is today, Houston could have inspired Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities.” Take a ride on the Silver Line — buses running along a fixed guideway — and you’ll see the stunning contrasts for yourself. Where it runs along Post Oak Boulevard in Uptown, near the Galleria, the street was rebuilt with sidewalks paved with custom designed pavers and lined with more than 1,000 cathedral live oaks. One of our board members rides this line to the office and the experience walking along Post Oak is superb, though most of the bus seats are empty. Uptown Houston, which includes a TIRZ, lavished $192 million on the project. When the bus leaves Uptown, however, crossing under the Southwest Freeway and arrives at its final stop, the streets often have no sidewalk. The short walk to the Chronicle building is a terrifying live-action version of Frogger. These contrasts are common across the city. The very streets teeming with pedestrians and bus riders often have narrow sidewalks that end without warning and bus routes without shelters.