Future of Houston #1: Differing Views

My wife and I lived in New York City during Covid.  Or at least in the New York Metropolitan area.  We, like many other big city dwellers, had our long commutes set to pause once public gatherings were prohibited.  And we, like many others, realized how unsustainable our prior work life had been.  

Once Covid began to wain it became obvious that we were not prepared to go back to life as it was before.  As a result, I began to look into work in other places with shorter commute times, lower cost of living, and better overall quality of life.  The first offer I received was in Houston.

I grew up in Houston.  Or at least in the Houston Metropolitan area.  I, like many other big city dwellers, grew up in the suburbs.  In my case it was the middleground between the city limits of Houston and a far western suburb of Katy.  Moving back to Houston, we didn't want to live so far out and my wife and I hoped to preserve our identity as urbanites with a place near downtown.  We hoped to save up, buy a condo or townhouse, and have the easy life we couldn't afford in NYC.

But as we looked at properties, we started questioning ourselves.  How do we know which properties were not flooded in the recent devastating Hurricane Harvey?  How do we know whether future hurricanes won't be worse?  What about Houston's economy: isn't it based on oil and gas?  What's the chance that housing values, in general, won't decline if our national economy moves to a carbon neutral model?  What's to keep all the big oil and gas companies around if they're no longer helping dig up oil and gas from Texas soil?  What about refining jobs going out toward the port of Houston?  And for a city known for low taxes, how will it sustain public services without growth?  Because if oil stops growing, what's to keep the oil companies from leaving with their jobs and paychecks as well?

We're not the first ones to ask these questions.  But for those that do ask, they walk into a highly contentious debate.  On the one side you have the claims that Houston is in fact the future of America.  Literally.  Stephen Klineberg's, founding director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Houston's Rice University, wrote a book amid Covid called, "Prophetic City" in reference to Houston.  He too lived in New York City and upon moving to Houston felt compelled to study it.  And according to the book's dustjacket, he sees H-town as "a microcosm for America's future."

This stands at odds with "Sustainable Urbanism" advocates like Peter Calthorpe.  In his interview with New York Times' reporter Emily Badger he claimed that, "Houston’s middle-class affordability, he argues, has been underwritten by the construction labor of undocumented workers and by insurance programs that subsidize building on cheap flood-prone land."  Further, you have Texas Monthly journalist, and Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Evan Mintz whose recent article was titled "Houston is not prepared for the oil bust."  Further, Mintz's review of Klineberg's book asks, "is Houston a prophetic city?  Or a pathetic city?"

These views show different perspectives not only of Houston's future, but America's.  Here I hope to create the balance sheet of threats, opportunities, strengths, and weaknesses.  And even assess whether there is political will to face tomorrow's odds soberly.  I hope to use an economist's toolkit and all relevant data about Houston's people and their professions.  Ultimately, I hope to better understand what it will take for Houston to survive the shocks of the near future and whether my hometown is likely to do them.

-Brandt Weathers, May 8, 2022