Houston: A Vision for a Livable City
Bob Eury

Houston enters the twenty-first century at a crossroads. For the past century, it has been a boom town, thriving from largess that began at Spindletop: the energy, ingenuity, and risk-taking associated with oil and gas have carried the community to heroic accomplishments and a world stature in medicine, education, space, technology, and culture. But today’s rapid technological change, unprecedented human mobility, and global economy are placing new pressure on Houston and its citizens to maintain that stature.

A key issue of emerging importance is the city’s quality of life. For Houston to thrive in the twenty-first century, it must be a place where people from around the world want to live. I believe that our future depends on how Houston’s leadership addresses this challenge. I am optimistic about the future outcome, as there is much potential, but the challenges are as formidable as those faced by the oil and gas industry a century ago

Throughout its history, Houston’s spirit of exploration, risk-taking, and entrepreneurialism has led to astounding successes. By capitalizing on expertise in agriculture, transportation, oil and gas, medicine, space, and technology, we have transformed a small town of 60,000 at the turn of the twentieth century into a metropolis of over four million people. Its wealth has funded remarkable civic institutions, including universities, medical facilities, museums, and performing arts organizations. The Port of Houston, NASA, and the global energy business have opened the community’s doors to the world, and as a result our population is as diverse as any city in the country. A city of architectural landmarks, Houston is noted for its builders. In all, our citizens can take pride in their “can do” spirit.
Today, however, information technology and new communications are transforming the world. People are not as bound as they used to be: work performed in one place can be used on the other side of the globe seconds later. This means that more and more people can choose where they want to live, making regions with the highest quality of life the most desirable—and most competitive. Cities perceived to have a lower quality of life will find it increasingly difficult to attract human capital, except for those under-skilled workers who traditionally seek economic opportunity in a large city.

A vision for the Houston region exists that could transform it into the nation’s most livable city by the year 2020. Through this vision, once the region’s most significant “livable city centers” have been identified, efforts would be made first to enhance the attractiveness of these centers as much as possible, and then to connect these centers by public and personal transport in corridors that delight the eye.

Realization of this vision would begin with the creation of a coalition among groups having similar or parallel objectives: the Houston Challenge 2000, the Houston 2012 Foundation, activity center associations, the Main Street Coalition, municipal management districts, tax increment reinvestment zones, neighborhood revitalization initiatives led by faith-based organizations, Trees for Houston, the Park People, Scenic Houston, Cultural Arts Council, and many other civic betterment organizations. To make sure that each livable city center has a memorable and appealing character, this coalition would have to work together to amend ordinances to allow new, more prescriptive development standards. Any measure that helps guarantee the design quality of a city center both reduces risk and increases return. And by limiting the application of these standards to the identified centers, the coalition might sway business interests to allow this “experimental exception” to the more laissez faire Houston norm.

The diversity of these activity centers could become exceptional, ranging from the urban feel of downtown/midtown to new town centers at Sugarland, Katy, and The Woodlands. By initiating tax increment reinvestment zones to provide a one-third set aside for affordable housing—targeting funds to assist developers in constructing a broader mix of housing units than would happen otherwise—a variety of residential types and price ranges could be provided in each city center. With its traditional lack of zoning, Houston already has considerable diversity in some of its most desirable neighborhoods. By 2020, the city could offer more choices of living options than any city in the nation.

Streets in the centers would be reconstructed to provide a comfortable pedestrian environment so that walking or trolleys could be a viable alternative to auto travel. Key buildings and public spaces in the identified centers would also be designed for livability. The architecture would reflect the diversity of Houston’s cultures as well as the heritage of the community. As old buildings are redeveloped and new buildings are built, this sensitivity to design would pay off, generating public enthusiasm for one place or another.

The growing popularity of livable city centers would have a spillover effect in neighboring areas, and the accepted development pattern for the region would become one of infill between the higher density centers. This shift toward infill development would result in even more livable neighborhoods and community shopping districts, especially as Houston’s diverse cultures are carried into public arts programs. The result could be a rich tapestry of unique places to live and visit—an asset in selling Houston as the site of the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Funding sources created in the 1990s could be used strategically for this reconstruction effort. More than $500 million could be available from municipal management districts, tax increment reinvestment zones, local and federal transit funds, local municipal capital funds, grants, and other sources. Development density could also be encouraged through tax incentives, such as reinvestment incentives to help offset increased costs of construction.

The second element of this vision, connecting these livable city centers with attractive corridors for public and personal transport, would grow from the increasing density. A light rail transit system running from downtown’s Main Street corridor through the Texas Medical Center to a new Exposition Park (the Astrodome complex) would become newly viable. Although modern rail transit in Houston has been sidelined while the community invests in an extensive system of high-occupancy-vehicle lanes for its freeways, Metro can construct the project without federal funds if it manages its cash flows carefully until 2006. At that time, when most of its other capital commitments would be completed, Metro would be able to dedicate a substantial portion of its sales tax revenue (about $60 to $70 million per year), matched by federal grants, toward expansion of the light rail system in corridors with adequate transit demand. Over thirty years, the system might be gradually extended northward toward the Greenspoint center and Bush Intercontinental Airport, westward toward the Uptown and Westchase centers, and southward through the universities to Hobby Airport and Clear Lake.

At the heart of this vision for a livable Houston would be a revitalized, vibrant, and internationally recognized central city, anchored by the Main Street corridor, an exemplar that could embolden the other city centers and their civic leaders to stay the course. The inauguration of the light rail line in 2004 would be the catalyst for extending this successful downtown high-density development through midtown, the Museum District, and the Texas Medical Center, out to Exhibition Park where the new NFL stadium and exhibition facilities would have just opened. Expanding the transit corridor eastward to the University of Houston and Texas Southern University would link a redeveloped core including all of the region’s major universities, the leading medical research and healing center, the seats of government, and virtually all of the arts and cultural institutions, convention facilities, sports facilities, and entertainment districts. Light rail would bring a new diversity of users to these facilities.

Although Houston has struggled for decades as an also-ran in the tourism industry, this new “supercore” could become the place to visit, aided by the richness of its offerings and the delightful quality of its urban environment. The supercore would help business, too: home to the Houston Technology Center, with an abundant network communications capacity, the supercore could become the place for start-up technology firms, attracted by its mid-rise structures for living and work, and a campus-like urban neighborhood that is active twenty-four hours a day. Large corporations and medical and educational institutions would respond to the same appeal. Over time, Houston would be noted for its leadership in the new industries of digital trading, nanotechnology, high-tech energy, biotechnology, and medical research.

As the livable city centers evolve with their connecting corridors, a greatly expanded library, park, and public space plan would be developed: a three-cent property tax increase could generate over $1 billion of funding for this effort by 2020. The scenic enhancement of major corridors such as Sam Houston Parkway, the Hardy Toll Road, and Interstate 45 would be next, removing massive billboards and lushly landscaping rights of way to give the region’s visitors an initial positive impression of Houston. This visual renewal would be made possible through the Texas Department of Transportation and with $200 million in funding from an innovative state surcharge on takeout drinks served in paper, plastic, and styrofoam cups—long the major culprit in littering streets, highways, and waterways.

A major ally in realizing this vision would be the Houston 2012 Foundation, which is working to bring the 2012 Summer Olympic Games to Houston. The dual efforts of preparing the city for the games and making Houston noted worldwide for its livability would generate a positive synergy: the event could be used to showcase our region, which would further benefit from the economic windfall and promotional value of a successful Olympics. In fact, the clear vision and commitment to making Houston a livable city could become the deciding factor in Houston’s beating out the competition to host the event.

To raise the $500 million needed to prepare the city for the games and to make it more presentable to the world, the city could impose a five-cent local option gasoline tax that would sunset once the bonds sold were retired. Not only would the tax generate over $2 billion, it would contribute to the vehicle mile reduction necessary to improve the region’s air quality—pleasing both local residents and their athlete guests. Preparation for the Olympics could also include an ambitious plan by the business community to link all school systems and every citizen to the Internet and to install copious fiber networks through the region. The resulting unexpected synergies could attract a growing number of new businesses to the region.

Making Houston a livable city would cost billions over twenty years, but to not build the livable city would cost more. It is an investment that would set the stage for Houston to thrive in the twenty-first century. Echoing Daniel Burnham’s proclamation that “we should make no little plans,” civic leaders might propose a regional livable city referendum, launching a campaign to tell citizens why they should demand a livable city. A victory there would then empower legislators, county commissioners, and City Council members to pass the multiple bills and ordinances to finance, provide incentives for, build, regulate, and maintain the envisioned livable city.

By 2020, in a world of highly competitive “city-states,” Houston would be an internationally recognized center of education, culture, and commerce. Its investment in education, infrastructure, and a higher quality of life would forestall the labor shortages and sharply rising costs of doing business likely in competitor cities. As Houston strives to train all its inhabitants, the work ethic of its diverse population would become well known. As more young professionals gravitate toward the urban life style offered by the diverse livable city centers—able to walk to work, catch a cup of latte at the street corner restaurant, shop, see a movie, attend church, or jog in a nearby park—word would get out about Houston, and it would become a location of choice for graduates of our country’s finest universities, including the top students of the region’s own universities.

Houston might be considered a livable city by its loyal inhabitants, but by 2020 it also would look like one to outsiders. And it would feel like one to young people who see new opportunities in the pattern of sustainable development that we could pioneer in the next twenty years.




This essay originated from a livable city scenario written for the Houston Future Business/Civic Leadership Program of the Center for Houston’s Future, October 2000. I would like to acknowledge the ideas, contributions, and critical editing of fellow participants in this exciting effort.

Copyright©2000 Bob Eury