[akdetrick]

This is what I believe is the single biggest advantage TX holds over NYC. It's hard to underestimate the power the Historic Districts Council and Municipal Art Society have over the future of the city. Despite the fact that no one elected organizations like these to govern, they have a huge impact on what gets built and what does not. The Municipal Arts Council, for example, is railing against a proposal to upzone Midtown East because it might change the look of the skyline [1].

NYC is already feeling the pinch of a housing shortage, and is so behind in building that the 2030 population projections had to be revised to account for the serious lack of housing [2].

Texas on the other hand, as bad as urban sprawl can be, keeps building. People move there, housing gets built, and supply meets demand much better than it does in NYC.

[1] http://mas.org/urbanplanning/east-midtown/ [2] http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/politics/2013/04/85286...

[itsybitsycoder]

I think you mean "hard to overestimate". "Hard to underestimate" would mean you'd have to have an extremely low estimation to have your estimate be lower than the actual, i.e., that the actual amount of power is quite small. If these orgs have a surprisingly large amount of power, it would be very easy to underestimate.