I love Houston. For most Americans, I’d assume it’s an easy place to overlook. This is strictly a business city; although it’s the fourth-largest in the U.S., it simply isn’t as interesting as the competitors (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, ect.). Houston doesn’t have the cultural or aesthetic clout to outrank the others on a national or international scale. It seems that the city has embraced this characterization – the mayor, Annise Parker, has fairly noted in past speeches that Houston’s accomplishments are almost entirely economic. Indeed, numerous publications have lauded the extravagant growth of the metropolis over the past few years – The Atlantic recently labeled Houston “unstoppable,” and Forbes enjoys putting us on lists.
However, as I said before, Houston does not have a reputation for aesthetics. At all. Excerpts from the Lonely Planet Guide to Texas (2nd edition, 2002) include two outsider perspectives of the city that, while outdated, point out some unfortunate aspects of the area’s appearance. First:
In his 1979 book The Right Stuff, about the early days of the US space program, Tom Wolfe describes Houston as ‘an unbelievably torrid effluvial swamp with a mass of mushy asphalt, known as Downtown, set in the middle.’
Then, there’s this quote from some European tourists:
Houston does not cater for tourists at all. It was extremely business oriented and couldn’t recover from this because the city has no heart. Unlike say, Austin or San Antonio, there is no one center, just a spread-out urban sprawl.
While these are from many years ago – 1979 and 2002 – there is still quite a bit of truth to them today. Downtown has come quite a long way, with the addition of a few new office buildings, entertainment complexes, the Dynamo’s BVA Compass Stadium, and Discovery Green. However, the district is still recovering at a snail’s pace from the contition it was in in the 1970s:
Downtown Houston, looking southwest from U.S. Highway 59 (the east border of the district), in the 1970s. The city managed to erase some of the surface-level development through tax hikes and the construction of two stadiums and the George R. Brown Convention Center.
This sprawl has left the downtown core devoid of meaningful medium and high density development. One of the most disappointing things about Houston, aesthetically, is its lack of density. It’s simply not attractive in the slightest. While the Lonely Planet did predict a revitalization of the area back when it was published – and, since then, there has been some development – the area is still overrun with weedy parking lots and empty space. The lack of a proper “urban core” is, in my opinion, one of Houston’s greatest weaknesses. It’s a major reason why the city fails to gain the same international recognition as Seattle or other smaller metropolises. While Houston has the larger economy, it lacks the vibrancy to make it meaningful to the outside world. Houston has the nation’s second largest theatre district, renowned art galleries and museums, hundreds of acclaimed restaurants sporting a culturally diverse pallet of foods – yet it continues to give off the image of a bland concrete sprawl. Take this satellite image of the downtown area, with all of the parking lots and unused land highlighted:
While there is an understandable need for parking in a commercial district, the distribution of almost entirely surface level parking lots – downtown contains only a handful of actual multi-storey garages, unlike other cities – causes the downtown district to, aesthetically, stick out like a sore thumb. While most photographers will attempt to get the most dense view of the skyline in a shot, the proliferation of low (or no) density development severely stifles downtown’s appearance. Take this shot, for example:
As opposed to this shot of downtown Seattle:
Although Greater Houston’s GDP is far higher than Seattle’s, and the metro population is twice as large, Seattle appears larger visually simply because of increased density in its CBD. Houston has nine buildings over 700 feet and two over 900 feet in the downtown area, while Seattle only has four over 700 and one over 900 – yet it appears much more lively from the air.
Of course, I can’t claim that Houston and Seattle are similar cities in any way. However, it’s obvious that density makes cities seem more alive. Houston is famous for being the largest city in the United States without formal zoning laws. While the local government does enforce some regulations on land use, ultimately, developers have more flexibility in Houston than in most any other metro area in the country. This is what has caused a lack of density within and around the downtown area. There are benefits to the lack of development restrictions: Houston has many vibrant “districts,” giving the urban area a more unique character than just endless residential subdivisions (although it comes close to that anyway). Places like Uptown (where the Galleria and Williams Tower reside), Montrose, West University, the Museum District, the Medical Center, Memorial City and the Energy Corridor help encourage a variety of commercial and residential development. However, they also keep that development away from Downtown itself. Over the past few years, the Inner Loop (within Interstate 610) has been undergoing densification as the suburbanization trend slowly begins to reverse. If the city wants to encourage this buildup of Houston’s urban core, it needs to impose new restrictions on land use within Downtown.
The city now offers incentives for new development through the Downtown 2025 plan, which calls for turning the district into an internationally recognized cultural hub – with increased density. The plan is exactly what Houston needs, but there has been little publicity surrounding it. Few developers have taken advantage of the new directives. If the city really wants to recreate Downtown, it must enlist both public support for this comprehensive plan and conduct some more focused urban planning. It’s time Houston gets rid of the long-standing stigma of being a concrete sprawl and firmly establish itself not just as an international center of business, but of culture as well. The assets – in the form of museums, theaters, and restaurants – already exist. The infrastructure and aesthetics to tie everything together are what’s missing.
Alternate Amnesiac 