Is Houston the Next Great American City?
A topic of great interest to both economists and urbanists is the prediction of the next great American city.
Houston Skyline.
Joel Kotkin, of The American, makes a case for Houston as the most likely candidate in “Lone Star Rising.” Maybe I’m biased as a former Houston resident, but I need to contradict his arguments.
Mr. Kotkin writes a very informed piece, with many valid points, but I think it fails in two respects.
- Aesthetics and the visual reading of a city are important, especially as our culture becomes more architecturally informed and design oriented (think ipod)
- Rapidly growing cities are not developing the appropriate infrastructure to sustain dense growth. These cities are familiar and comfortable with car dependence. Sprawl has the potential to cripple a city depending on how rapidly oil prices escalate without a solution for alternative fuels.
First, Mr. Kotkin makes the claim, and perhaps rightly so, that “many city planners today focus largely on aesthetics, the arts, and the perception of being “cool.” However, this is largely their charge, and the public should hope their duty is to make our cities not only functional, but aesthetically appealing at the same time. A city still has to be inviting.
So if we take a moment and think like economists, as Mr. Kotkin suggests needs to happen, I think we’ll still find his arguments misdirected.
In 1960, greater New York dominated the corporate world with 140 of the top 500 companies, followed by Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. New York remains first among equals but now the region is home to barely 60 of the largest firms. In addition to Houston, cities such as Atlanta, Charlotte, and Dallas have also carved out a powerful presence in American business.
While, yes, New York and other cities have lost ground in the ratio of Fortune 500 companies, certain coastal cities will always be considered the center of American economic activity. The relative growth of the rest of America has leveled the playing field, think of it as a curve approaching a plateau. Relative growth is one thing, but to completely surpass is another.
Houston infrastructure as aerial show. Courtesy of Texas Hillsurfer.
Even if we combine our economic thinking back to aesthetics, I would still argue that the aesthetics of a city are important. The Guggenheim Museum changed the economy of Bilbao and infrastructural improvements are changing the development in New York via the Highline, Atlanta via the Beltline, and Korea via the CheonggyeCheon. The cycle has returned to a point where the general public is appreciating quality design, and fortunately we’re starting to see this for architecture and not just industrial design.
For the time being, I just do not see Houston carrying a visual appeal. The city, outside of downtown, is largely defined by it’s highways, and with the highways come billboards. It is terrible when someone arrives at the airport in Houston because their first impression is of the billboard landscape on their drive into Houston. Even when you’re traveling by car and used to the highways and billboards as you make your way towards Houston on I-10 or I-45, the billboards start almost an hour outside of the city. Houston’s sprawl is so great that you feel like you’ve reached Houston over 30 miles before you get there, which leads me into my second point.
The visual landscape of Houston is primarily composed of billboards. Courtesy of Xanadu2000.
Houston’s pattern of sprawl cannot sustain a city of the future. Public transportation does not exist in the capacity it needs to and dense development is an after thought. Land is plenty and cheap in Texas. Development happens based on proximity to access roads. The culture is so comfortable being dependent on the car, that many people are willing to drive an extra 30 minutes for their own piece of land for their over-sized house.
Perhaps knowingly, Mr. Kotkin does not address this aspect of Houston. However, his most valuable point in the whole article is related to this notion.
The ultimate winner will come from those that keep up with the infrastructure needed to accommodate their growth. They also will have to deal with issues of education, crime, and creating a skilled workforce— issues that are important anywhere, of course, but can be particularly challenging in a rapidly growing metropolis.
I think this implies that Houston’s capability for success depends on it’s ability to redirect the course of its infrastructural development. It is my hope that someone will point out some examples of how Houston is doing this already. If someone is able to counter my arguments, then I would be very excited for the city of Houston, it is my hometown after all.
Courtesy of The American.
After all my contradictions, however, there is one scenario I could see Houston becoming one of the great American and global cities. Much like New York, San Francisco, and LA serve as hubs because of their East and West coast locations, Houston could benefit from its location on the Gulf of Mexico if South American countries take larger shares of the global economy. One can already speculate given the economic growth of Brazil, and the relatively untapped tourist destinations. South America is waiting to burst onto the scene, and this could be when Houston is put into overdrive, surpassing New York and the likes to become the next great American city.
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Comments
I agree with your rebuttal, but you don’t go far enough demolishing Kotkin’s argument with the point he so studiously overlooks: auto-based sprawl is completely unsustainable. It just is not going to work anymore. The cheap gas era is over. Not to mention, we’ve got to stop destroying the only planet we have before it’s too late. It doesn’t matter how much people (and Kotkin) might like cars or wish that it wasn’t so. The reality is here.
will,
You are correct. In most cities, it is the people not the planners that drive the formation of cities. It is only in cases of broad sweeping gestures, such as Haussmann in Paris or Fredrick Law Olmstead in New York, that planners are more responsible for the character and development. However, perhaps those are instances in which planners are using ‘those desires to shape future city form.’ This would be an interesting debate.
The real impetus behind challenging Kotkin’s speculation is aimed at the patterns and desires of the inhabitants of Houston. I am suggesting that they will actually get in the way of the potential greatness that Kotkin presents. There has to be a cultural shift in Houston that reverses the current patterns of residential development. The economic forces and the willingness of Houstonians to be a car-based city are a powerful force to overcome.
Gizler,
I think you see this point very clearly. In its current trajectory Houston is not sustainable. I may not have been as aggressive in rebutting Kotkin, but you are correct to point out that this is the largest hole in his argument. I do not think we have seen any indicators, technological or otherwise, that suggest sprawling car-based cities are sustainable.
However, I would speculate Kotkin’s response for ignoring urban sprawl relies on future technologies. Most likely, however, he is taking artistic license to craft an argument toward his own agenda in promoting Houston.
Despite the articles’ faults, what if this had been part of Houston’s campaign for the Olympics…
Just wanted to say I like the way you used my little slideshow.
None of the cities I’ve driven through nationwide would survive a major increase in gasoline prices. Not one has a public transportation system that’s capable of handling the full load of commuters.
The only single ‘alternative’ energy source capable of supporting the U.S. economy is nuclear. I don’t know the number of plants it would take to provide power for private and public transportation entirely, but I do know it is several times the number already in use, and many times the number planned (zero? two?).
The single largest reason gasoline prices (and possible diesel by association) are so high, is the arrogant use of energy by people for whom the cost is irrelevant. Gasoline costs what people will pay for it, and for a large number of people in this country, high cost isn’t sufficient incentive to quit trying to impress their neighbors.
Another somewhat related issue with highway infrastructure is the misuse and misguided (politically driven) routing of Interstate highways through cities. Because of this continuing political fiasco, millions are spent on building highways in major metropolitan areas while steadily incresing truck traffic through those areas that does not deliver in those cities continues to increase and add to congestion. With better planning and more spending on coast to coast and border to border highways that bypassed cities, commuters could have the local highways mostly free of truck traffic, and interstate freight could be delivered at a lower energy cost.
Being part of the plumbing, I see more than the average person does about how the whole system works. It bothers me that so much time, energy, manpower, and funding is being wasted to give people what they think they want instead of what they really need.
Personally, I don’t think we should have ever gotten away from rail in the first place…but then Mr. Ford built a cheap car, and the rest is history.
Norbert,
Looking at your flickr profile, I grew up not too far from your current location. Therefore, I assume we have similar understandings of auto-dependency in the states.
You bring up very interesting and valid points relative to infrastructure. The lack of effective bypasses have plagued cities like Austin and Atlanta for the past decade. Austin, appears to be addressing this, but aren’t quite there yet. Atlanta, meanwhile, is just stuck in gridlock.
From your point of view, what measures are being taken in the trucking industry to address poor infrastructure and rapidly rising gas prices?
Finally, as someone who no longer owns a car, I absolutely lament the fact that we do not have a prevalent, efficient, and cost-effective rail network.
All,
On nuclear energy, because I’m not convinced it is a sustainable alternative, from Triple Pundit:
Is Nuclear Energy Sustainable?
On gas taxes and funding infrastructure from Market Urbanism:
Urbanism Legend: Gas Taxes and Fees Cover All Costs of Road Use
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when kotkin talks about thinking like an economist he means taking what we see before us as evidence of intent/desire. aesthetics are not an issue in that perspective.
economists have an idea to fall on called the tiebout theory, which more or less says people choose to go where they want to be – ie, they vote with their feet. its an old theory, and one that is open to dispute, but it is useful…whether it is correct or not is less important than the assumption behind it, which is that the inhabitants of cities shape their habitat in an active way, and are not just passively filling places created by planners.
so, if we think like economists and consider the possibility that people are actually shaping the cities in ways they want then the planner’s job is to use those desires to shape future city form. that can mean accepting cars and dispersed living patterns, but does not mean giving up on sustainability or beauty if those are concerns.
it is a challenge few planners, architects or theorists are happy with, cuz it means we have to be really clever and not rely on old assumptions about what a city should be. kotkin is correct to challenge those assumptions. it would be nice if he had some alternatives to offer though.