Kinder Institute survey finds Houston residents\u2019 feelings on marijuana, death penalty, other political issues<\/a><\/p>\nSOCIAL DIVISION<\/p>\n
Despite concerns about polarization, residents often misunderstand each other\u2019s views. <\/p>\n
Across political, racial, and religious lines, people performed no better than chance when guessing others\u2019 beliefs.<\/p>\n
In reality, there is strong agreement on several issues:<\/p>\n
More than 90% support universal background checks for gun sales <\/p>\n
Broad agreement exists on issues like contraception <\/p>\n
The findings suggest that perceived division may be driven more by misperception than actual disagreement.<\/p>\n
CHANGING ATTITUDES<\/p>\n
Acceptance of LGBTQ+ individuals continues to rise.<\/p>\n
About 65% accept homosexuality <\/p>\n
Roughly 52\u201357% accept being transgender <\/p>\n
The survey emphasizes that personal relationships matter \u2014 those who know someone who is LGBTQ+ are significantly more likely to be accepting.<\/p>\n
CONNECTIONS AND ECONOMIC MOBILITY<\/p>\n
Social networks play a key role in economic opportunity.<\/p>\n
About 42% of residents say they lack the connections needed to get ahead. <\/p>\n
Those who feel connected are more likely to earn higher incomes, feel financially secure, and believe they have opportunities to advance.<\/p>\n
Notably, the sense of connection is a stronger predictor of perceived upward mobility than income itself.<\/p>\n
HEALTH AND SAFETY BENEFITS<\/p>\n
The benefits of social cohesion extend beyond economics.<\/p>\n
Residents with strong social ties report:<\/p>\n
Better physical and mental health <\/p>\n
Greater feelings of safety <\/p>\n
Lower perceptions of crime <\/p>\n
The survey concludes that strong social connections can have an impact on well-being comparable to \u2014 or greater than \u2014 significant increases in income.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 The Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University has released its 2026 Houston Area Survey,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[356,918,2327,584,56,58,57,64971,66,2349,223,287,514,16762],"class_list":["post-268634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-data","tag-economy","tag-environment","tag-health","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-kinder-institute","tag-local","tag-money","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-rice-university","tag-survey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}