Lisa Falkenberg writes:
Quality of life would improve later, after Houston grows up to
become a center for commerce and trade. (I thought we already were.) … Yeah, but if the place is dirty, boring and smothered in concrete, who the heck would want to live here?
Her story is here (and after the jump). The full report is here.
I’ll bite my tongue for the time-being, but would love to know what you think – not just on the report but on what might underlie the Partnership’s apparent change of course.
What kind of ‘city of tomorrow’ should Houston be?
Houston Chronicle
A good stroke of the ego is something we can all appreciate from time to time.
And I can’t think of a more worthy recipient than Houston, a city
constantly panned by outsiders, and even some of its own inhabitants,
as ugly, dirty and fat — a place where, some would argue, refinement is
found only along the Houston Ship Channel.
Last week, urban historian Joel Kotkin released a report indicating that Houston was getting something right.
The report, commissioned by the Greater Houston Partnership,
heralded Houston as a beacon of what he calls "opportunity urbanism,"
which he defines as a roomy, affordable sort of place with a healthy
entrepreneurial spirit, low taxes and limited regulations that help the
city nourish a diverse array of new businesses and cultivate a strong
middle class.
Houston’s secret, Kotkin writes, is "an opportunistic spirit embedded in the city’s DNA."
All this, he reasons, makes Houston an antidote to pricey, snobby
"superstar" cities like San Francisco, Boston and Seattle, where only
the wealthy can afford to live.
Focus on ‘the basics’
This much I followed. But it didn’t take long before I was leaping from Kotkin’s bandwagon, which seemed to jolt in reverse.
He urges Houston leaders not to be tempted by strategies to lure a
"creative class" of hip, young professionals to cities. Houston’s
place, Kotkin seemed to argue, is to accommodate middle-class families
by keeping the city cheap and accommodating sprawl. Rather than
focusing on quality-of-life issues such as parks, arts districts and
entertainment centers, priority should be placed on "the basics,"
expanding highway capacity and improving roads, sewers and drainage
systems.
Quality of life would improve later, after Houston grows up to
become a center for commerce and trade. (I thought we already were.)
"It may not be glamorous," Kotkin ends his paper. "But Opportunity
Urbanism offers a growing America the most promising path to creating
successful and sustainable 21st century cities."
Yeah, but if the place is dirty, boring and smothered in concrete, who the heck would want to live here?
Kotkin’s argument seems regressive, or digressive, from the progress
members of the Partnership have made in recent years to balance
business concerns with concern about quality-of-life issues such as air
quality, congestion and green space. This past session, the Partnership
helped the mayor lobby for a bill to improve Houston’s air. It failed
because of politics, not because of complacency.
Few solutions offered
Kotkin argues that he’s not
advocating business-as-usual. Rice University sociology professor
Stephen Klineberg agrees, but he says it’s easy to get confused.
"It’s a misreading of Kotkin to see it as a celebration of the
status quo," Klineberg said. "But it’s a misreading that he brought on
himself."
The problem is that Kotkin spends so much time building up the city
in his paper that he waits until the last chapter to mention the
daunting challenges, like education and diversifying the old-energy
economy. And even then, he doesn’t discuss air quality and offers few
potential solutions.
"It’s going to strengthen those forces in Houston that say ‘to hell
with quality-of-life issues. What matters is private enterprise
success,’ " Klineberg said.
It’s increasingly clear, however, that you can’t have one without the other.
Opportunity cities, by their very nature, Kotkin writes, may tend to
attract and retain fewer educated and technically skilled workers,
including immigrants and minorities.
There’s no "may" about it. More than 20 percent of Houston’s adults
25 and older don’t have a high school diploma, Klineberg estimates.
Close to 50 percent of all black and Hispanic boys in Houston
Independent School District don’t graduate from high school in four
years.
Harris County’s over-60 population is 75 percent Anglo. Its under-30 population is 75 percent non-Anglo.
What kind of opportunity are we creating for these kids if Houston
keeps plodding along without a plan to improve public education and
make major advances to its community college system?
Kotkin maintains that opportunity can only flourish if local and
state governments largely keep out of the way of economic development.
Without a plan, how will Harris County absorb another estimated million
people, and their estimated 750,000 cars, in the next 20 years?
And how can we create a city families come to because they want to, not because they have to?
We need more than an ego boost from the Partnership. We need someone
who can address the hard stuff, like making sure our opportunity city
of today has anything to offer tomorrow.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
I should note that I’m a Houstonian by choice, and think that our city is someplace special and fantastic. I moved here after two decades in Boston and Washington. And I think Kotkin is right that it’s the city’s wide-open spirit – which shows up not just in business and entrepreneurship, but in the way it works socially – is a big part of it.
It’s a very interesting time to live here. People are discovering the value of history in a place known for knocking everything 10+ years old down because it’s too old. I live in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods (Houston Heights) and it’s a constant battle to try to preserve the old houses with front porches and walkable streets that make it such a great part of the city.
There’s a really cult of property right here, too; the idea that what I do with my property affects my community doesn’t seem to have taken hold here. (Until someone is upset about what a neighbor does with her property, of course…)
A few myths that should be dispelled for your readers elsewhere:
1. Houston has no zoning. No, we have about 500 different zoning codes; each subdivision has its own. Mine has basically no restrictions on anything; the neighborhing areas have strict limits of commercial uses of property; etc. What we don’t have is rational zoning.
2. Houston is allergic to transit. No, actually many of our old neighborhoods ARE transit oriented development, laid out when the transit was streetcards.
3. It’s dirty and smothered in concrete. Well, OK, we have a little problem. And yes, the freeways are ugly. But the Houston many of us who live here know is dense in-town neighborhoods overgrown with tropical foliage and old shade trees, where the riot of blooms starts in February. Think New Orleans (with its similar climate). And of course big slabs of concrete are all over the place between those neighborhoods, but when I think Houston, I think greenery.
4. We don’t have a hip creative class. Well, we do, in a big way; and the low housing costs here make it much easier for the actual creative hub of that class to thrive. When you can live in nice place for a third the cost of a big coastal city, you have freedom to do many other things, and it shows in our local theater and arts.
The thing is, our creative class doesn’t dominate, because we have huge numbers of all kinds of people, from blue collar workers to executives. it’s not the intellectual hothouse of a Boston or DC, it’s a lot of every kind of person you can imagine.
5. The diversity issue: lots of people elsewhere see the “TX” after “Houston” and make some terrible assumptions. I’ve never lived anywhere that had such few barriers based on race or economics; this is a city of amazing social and economic mobility. And after living with the constant racial tension of Washington, Houston is a breath of fresh air. And, as a gay man, I find it amazingly comfortable. Check your assumptions at the Texas state line, please.
Thanks for covering this. These are interesting times in Houston.
June 13th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I’m generally skeptical of Kotkin’s views, largely because he tends to promote a lifestyle and economic/social development paradigm that will not work 50 years from now (if it even works today).
Based on this review, it seems Kotkin was hired to say something good about Houston — to put a good spin on the way the city is developing. And Kotkin’s belief in the supremacy of sprawl and single family suburban housing makes him the logical consultant of choice.
Also, there is an argument out there that to get any city residents on side with some major changes, they first have to love their city. Reports that focus on the negative don’t help in this regard. So, a positive review may be a good thing for the long term betterment of Houston.
All this said, I’m highly skeptical that a city can attract and retain a quality workforce and bring in and keep the corporations to hire them without a much better education system and high school and college completion rate. No matter what else Houston residents and city officials may “do right” or “think” they are doing right — without decent education options and success rates Houston will not keep pace with the living standards, lifestyle options, and economic development of other North American and world cities.
June 13th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
I’ve never been to Houston so can’t really comment on what it’s like on the ground, but I notice that it was ranked #7 in the first edition of Rise and is still a respectable #21 among big cities in the paperback. So it’s apparently not all burly high school dropout oil riggers.
Kotkin keeps contradicting himself “Houston IS attracting educated professionals, so there!” “Houston doesn’t want to pay attention to them, so there!”. He also confuses research with advocacy — the SuperStar Cities study observes that some cities property values have outperformed the national average for decades, it doesn’t say that it’s necessarily a good thing for society. And the immigration he celebrates is also a positive in the creative class formula. I think he’s trying to create an argument without looking at data.
June 16th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
There was some confusion on the report, which got reflected in Lisa’s column. The Partnership has in no way made an “about face”. See here for the explanation:
http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/2007/06/
responding-to-critics-on-opportunity.html
June 16th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Sorry, broke the link above:
http://houstonstrategies.blogspot.com/2007/06/responding-to-critics-on-opportunity.html