Houston Chronicle -
June 23, 2007
21ST-CENTURY CITY
Trust market to shape the
new Houston
Planners' nightmare is a dream come true in creating an
exuberant, workable hodgepodge
hen
speaking on urban issues, one reliable way to draw derisive comments is to
mention Houston. Perhaps no major city in America has a worse reputation
among planners, urban aesthetes and smart growth advocates.
Yet, to a remarkable extent, Houston may well defy its critics not only
by continuing to expand, but by constructing a new and dynamic model of
American urbanism that transcends all the worn clichιs about ''sprawl'' and
the burgeoning city's inability to attract educated workers.
Houston's critics long have held the upper hand among the chattering
classes. In 1946 journalist John Gunther described it as a place ''where few
people think about anything but money.'' It was, he added, ''the noisiest
city'' in the nation, ''with a residential section mostly ugly and barren, a
city without a single good restaurant and of hotels with cockroaches.''
More than a half century later new urbanist architect Andres Duany chided
Houston for being a city whose ''social center'' revolved around The
Galleria. James Howard Kunstler, another new urbanist icon, has expressed
his hope that, with the inevitable decline of the petroleum-based economy,
Houston's fate is to be ''a city that may become particularly small.''
Ever since early 20th century Los Angeles developed the current urban
archetype based on a decentralized, multipolar model, critics have chafed at
this form. By the 1930s many visitors to LA dissed the city as ''19 suburbs
in search of a metropolis," while others denounced it as "less a city than a
perpetual convention."
Yet over the ensuing decades the Los Angeles model has forged the urban
future. Modern America has produced no new Chicagos or New Yorks, as
magnificent as they might be, but L.A.'s brand of development can easily be
seen in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Dallas and Atlanta, as well as Houston.
Critics often denounce such sprawling places as the ''anti-city,''
inimical to the historic spirit of urbanism. But viewed from the future
perspective, such attitudes surely seem as shortsighted as it would have
been for a Florentine to see the growth of industrial cities like
Manchester, England, as outside the realm of the urban experience.
This new form of urbanism, like those before it, has been shaped by
factors unique to American historical development the vast availability of
land, the burgeoning population growth, the affluence that has allowed so
many to purchase cars and homes. Yet, at the same time, the multipolar model
also harkens back to pre-industrial urban patterns. The great cities of the
past London, Paris, Tokyo did not and to a large extent still do not
revolve around what we think of as ''downtowns,'' a term that did not even
gain currency till late in the 19th century. Instead, cities consisted of
specialized districts dominated by the church, by financiers or by specific
trades such as book-sellers, fishmongers, fashion or entertainment.
The modern multipolar city re-creates this dispersed urbanity, but at
distances defined not by walking but by the time it takes to travel by car.
This, along with the rise of the Internet, increasingly allows individuals,
families and businesses to locate where they wish.
In the future, this new model will allow for the evolution of an
unprecedented development of diverse metropolitan environments. They will
include everything from the ''gritty downtown'' to lower and moderate
density inner-ring communities, as well as new suburban ''villages'' on the
outer ring.
Perhaps no place has been more adept at fashioning this last form of
development than Houston. Rather than impositions by government fiat,
Houston's myriad master-planned communities are largely creations of the
planners' nightmare the marketplace. They reflect a typically pragmatic,
market-oriented, Houston-style approach: building the kinds of housing that
people demand and providing the infrastructure, such as a vital town center,
that binds them to the area.
Houston's outer ring is full of such places Cinco Ranch, First Colony
and Sienna Plantation, to name three but by far the most important has
been The Woodlands. Conceived by oilman George Mitchell in the early 1970s,
the area now houses 77,000 people in what may be the best planned,
environmentally sensitive large development in the country.
The Woodlands reflected George Mitchell's unique personal,
entrepreneurial vision. The Woodlands' name, suggests retired Woodlands
Corp. head Roger Galatas, was seen as more than ''just real estate hype.''
Mitchell hired consultants, such as Ian McHarg, then chairman of the
University of Pennsylvania Department of Landscape and Regional Design, who
worked out plans that allowed the community to grow without destroying the
forest lands and natural drainage.
In interviews, local residents often cite the substantial preservation
effort as one of the most appealing aspects of The Woodlands. Twenty eight
percent of the community is dedicated to nature and there are 135 miles of
hike and bike trails. Someone walking or biking through the woods can often
feel themselves in a forest except when they look out and see one of the
taller buildings. ''There's a feeling of tranquility here,'' notes long-time
resident Vicki Fullerton. ''You don't get overwhelmed with the signs and
billboards like [you do] in so many places. Instead, you see the tops of
trees.''
Houston's tradition as a market-based urban innovator also extends to its
rapidly recovering inner ring. As the city's population grows, it will
inevitably become denser both in its periphery and closer to the central
core. New urbanists and planners need not legislate this change. Demand will
be created by many factors: the overall rise in population and immigration;
energy-related concerns; desire for shorter commutes; and rising land costs.
The evidence shows that Houston's more pragmatic approach essentially
allowing development to follow market demand has worked better to drive
inner ring development than the models beloved by many planners. Since 2000,
only 2.5 percent of all population growth in greater Portland, Ore.,
occurred in the city; in Houston, the city accounted for more than 10
percent. Other cities often praised by ''smart growth advocates,'' cities
such as Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis all lost
population.
In other words, Houston's inner-city boom, while less controlled and
heralded, is doing the job of increasing density the summum bonum of
''smart growth'' over wider areas than most traditional cities. Places
like Chicago, San Francisco or Boston may be gentrifying closer to their
core, but they are also losing people, particularly families with children,
in many neighborhoods.
By contrast, Houston's urban evolution appears to be attracting if not
families then significant numbers of educated workers. In fact, despite
local critics' constant carping about the city's landscape, Houston has been
experiencing a net gain of such workers over the past few years while
''creative'' meccas, such as Boston, San Francisco and New York, have been
suffering a net out-migration.
Lack of rigid land-use controls and the sheer expanse of available land
also have opened the Houston inner ring's urbanization not only for big
national players, but lots of local smaller developers. Jason McLemore,
executive director of the Greater Southeast Management District, located in
the traditionally African-American Third Ward, credits Houston's relatively
low ''cost of entry'' for allowing firms like his to get their ''bite at
that apple.''
An urbanist with an eye for the future cannot help but be excited by how
inner-ring Houston is evolving from its grass roots: a kaleidoscopic,
undisciplined environment spanning predominantly African-America areas like
the Third Ward, recently Latinized or Asian immigrant neighborhoods, as well
as more upscale, largely Anglo areas. Between these dense stretches of
townhomes lie more traditional single-family districts critical to keeping
middle-class families inside the 610 Loop.
Rather than an adherence to the traditional urban hierarchy, the
prevailing characteristic of the emerging inner ring lies in its diversity
and range of functions. One such district, for example, the Harwin Corridor,
has evolved into a kind of wholesale goods bazaar dominated by Asian
businesses along a long, auto-reliant boulevard. Other districts, such as
the one along Bellaire Boulevard, are dominated by various ethnic groups
from Vietnam, India or Latin America.
Even at higher densities such districts will likely offend most urbanists
and planners. For one thing, although transit may play a supporting role,
the car albeit a cleaner, more fuel efficient version will remain king.
Many aesthetes also will gasp at the hodgepodge of architectural style, with
New Orleans style jutting against modernist metal shells, adjacent to faux
Italianate. Paris, Boston or even Portland, Ore., Houston is not nor will
likely ever be.
Yet there are those like architect Tim Cisneros who exult at Houston's
prospects for urban innovation. As he drives down Bellaire, Cisneros even
finds good things to say about Houston's ubiquitous strip malls. These
low-cost areas, he argues, provide opportunity for ethnic restaurateurs and
business people who could never afford the places favored by most urban
planners. They also provide sometimes unique close-by services, and
sometimes the land, for new townhouse developments, which he sees filling up
mostly with skilled workers in their 20s and 30s.
''It's amazing,'' the San Antonio native marvels. ''Every time I go out,
there's something new out there. You have 70,000 people moving here every
year and some of them are young, like the engineer making $80,000 a year
who'd never be able to buy anything back East or in California, but here can
buy a cool condo. Houston is so big that you don't have to worry about the
dream getting too expensive because there's so much new product. It will
take a generation to fill it in.''
Houston's urban development will be powered largely by innovative
entrepreneurs like Cisneros. But it also will require intelligent public
investment. New roads, appropriate transit, an expanding necklace of public
green space, such as linear parks following the bayous, and a network of
Internet-oriented libraries could help assure growth takes place in a more
environmentally sustainable and more people, and particularly
family-friendly manner.
But this evolution can only take place if Houstonians resist the
temptation, in some vain attempt at refashioning Houston into ''Boston on
the Bayou,'' to tamp down on the city's innovative development culture. The
relative freedom given to future developers whether in the inner city or
the outer ring should not be regarded as inimical to creating a successful
21st century urbanism, but as its essential handmaiden.
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