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First, Houston has pretty strict zoning lawsMaybe in downtown. Get much outside of the tall buildings (which isn't very far tbqh) and you'll find fast food places, breweries, residences, schools, offices, and shopping centers all within blocks of each other. I honestly think this is generally a good thing.
> the metro system is pretty widely used where it is built out
I live in Houston and I don't get the impression that Houstonians understand where bus stops are (they're "there" but where do they "go" and at what times?). Moreover the only person I know who took the bus had to leave the office prior to a specific time: prior to when the bus route stopped. Otherwise she'd be stranded 15 miles away from her home. Everyone else avoids the bus because they don't want their schedule to be dictated by the public transport system and can't afford the occasional taxi/rideshare.
So in my experience: the metro system is mostly used by poor people and it's mostly not built out very much. There's light rail in downtown but the bulk of public transportation going into downtown from outside the 610 loop is via bus. That's a sliver of people compared to people driving by car.
> is one of the blue-est (and some areas are the red-est, to be fair) cities in the state, with a pretty wide spectrum of political opionons represented in between.
Being "one of the blue-est cities in the state" doesn't mean much when the rest of the state is very bible-belt red outside of Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.
And being "one of the blue-est cities in the state" ignores the fact that we're gerrymandered to hell. We're so gerrymandered that we're made fun of on social media. Of course, the mockery usually excludes the fact that the gerrymandering occurred 20 years ago. But it's still a mockery nonetheless.
> 'https://houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/'*
I think there's an issue with Hacker News' autolinking. As-is your link returns 404. Remove your single-quotes and the link works.