Hank Lewis - Lone Star College Economics Professor Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yeah, Palla County is having some growing pains out there.
Their population, yeah, let me find this. Their population in
twenty twenty was fifty six, seven hundred and ninety four.
By twenty twenty three had gone up to sixty five thousand,
five hundred and thirty three, and I'm guessing it's exponentially
grown since then. Joining us to talk about Hank lewis

(00:23):
lone Star College economics professor, I mean, we're seeing a
lot of growth, not just in Waller County, but all
over Southeast Texas and even central Texas at this point,
are we Hank.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Oh, Absolutely, The growth of what we'd like to call
the exurbs, the extreme externalurbs has been phenomenal, and COVID
kind of helps spur that along, not to mention the
real estate industry, and so this is going to be
continuing as long as there's jobs to be had and
people need.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
A place to live. Okay, there are people moving out there.
Do you think because they're looking for more land? Are
they looking for cheaper housing? Maybe a little bit of both.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
It's a bit of both, actually, I think. But when
I first moved to Houston, the exerbs were like Cyprus,
Richmond Rosenberg. And then like you drive out those areas,
these days, you got every franchise you can imagine. You've
even got some skylines buildings in those areas where you
didn't used to see that kind of stuff before. This
kind of a pattern that follows here, and typically what
happens is these massive farms reach a kind of point

(01:19):
they're no longer reviable. They sell, a builder buys them up,
they build all these MC mansions and houses everywhere. People
start moving there because the real estate prices are cheaper,
but there's no grocery store, there's no services. Then those
start sprouting up. More people start to locate. The thing perpetuates,
and eventually some employers say, hey, wait a minute, why
don't we set up some offices out here instead of
downtown Houston. The land is cheaper, and people love that

(01:42):
because there's less of a commute. So thing kind of
perpetuates itself.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Another words, urban sprawl, Yes, sir, urban it's called exurban sprawl. Yeah,
exurban sprawl. There you go at this point, you know,
Texas is so big, it's only going to get bigger.
I think we all know that there's an economic cost
of that. I mean there's some benefits to it, obviously, Hank,
but there's some economic costs to it. There's infrastructure costs,
there's roadbuilding costs, there's public school costs. There's a lot

(02:09):
of things you have to do when you take a
small community like Waller County and you turn it into
something a whole lot bigger.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Absolutely, you have to have a water system that can
support the population, electricity, natural gas, you name it. Not
to mention, you have to practice flood control. I think,
especially after some of the hurricanes we had in the
last decade, a lot of these asrums that are building
are trying to leave more space in between and more
exposed dirt to absorb the rain, as well as build
more retention ponds and reservoirs to kind of accommodate some

(02:38):
of the runoff. That's one of the things we don't
need to have as a massive flood on top of
all this sprawl. But that also means more property taxes,
more costs as well.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, it does. One of the big worries we have
right now is power. How are we going to generate
enough power for all these new Texans? Are we making
progress there? Do you think are we still way behind.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Let me put it to you this way right now. Now,
the power companies has been spending a lot of time
the last several years, especially after twenty twenty one, upgrading
and ruggedizing the power grid. But they're having to expand
as well. There's going to need to be more power plants.
And although some of the solar and the wind and
hydro is helping, it just isn't going to be enough.
We need to have other options to help generate electricity

(03:18):
there too, Okay, And for a lot of people they
think nuclear may be the answer. Yep, high energy, low cost,
just kind of a bit of a risk at times.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Ank Lewis thank you as always, sir, appreciate it. Lone
Star College Economics professor hank Lewis at six twenty six