Houston, we love you—as evidenced by all of the gushing causes we’ve enumerated in our “Causes to Love Houston” package deal, exhibiting that we’re nonetheless very a lot head over heels. However typically, you actually know the way to grind our gears. It’s once we grow to be trapped on a gridlocked 610, or stroll on a sidewalk that all of the sudden disappears, or arrive at a blinking purple mild at a busy intersection that our fondness dissipates, leaving us to shake our fist on the sky and exclaim, “Why, Houston? Why?!”
Sure, we love you. However listed here are seven methods we’d such as you to be higher.
1. Plan walkable streets.
Hear, we maintain completely no hope that Houston will at some point magically remodel right into a dense metropolis out of some urbanist’s fever dream. However we expect we are able to moderately ask for sidewalks. That’s it. That’s the ask. Uninterrupted, unbroken sidewalks that make it simpler and safer for us to get from place to put on foot, even when it’s simply from our house to the grocery retailer or the bar. Laying that basis would get us one step nearer to constructing the pedestrian (and biking, and transit…) infrastructure residents have been begging for.
2. Cease increasing highways.
Would somebody please give the Texas Division of Transportation—and the mayor, whereas they’re at it—the definition of “induced demand”? It’s been confirmed time and again that including lanes to highways doesn’t cut back visitors; it truly will increase it. The continued enlargement of I-45 will destroy 1,235 properties, 331 companies, and 5 homes of worship, in accordance with the nonprofit Cease TxDOT I-45. Our coronary heart aches fascinated by every thing we’ll lose (RIP, Kim Son), and all of the house we may reclaim for pursuits that will spark far more pleasure than huge slabs of concrete we’ll nonetheless find yourself getting caught on.
3. Spend money on flood prevention.
The Harris County Flood Management District has constructed many tasks prior to now decade. As a part of Undertaking Brays, the Eldridge and Willow Waterhole stormwater detention basins have been accomplished in 2015 and 2018, respectively, holding a mixed 2.1 billion gallons of water. Nevertheless it’s not sufficient. Low-income neighborhoods are nonetheless clamoring for enhancements to their streets’ insufficient drainage techniques, which put them at excessive threat of flooding even when they’re nowhere close to a bayou. We may lastly construct the “Ike Dike,” the 70-mile seawall alongside Galveston Island proposed in 2009. And we desperately want somebody to do one thing in regards to the quickly intensifying insurance coverage disaster. Certain, we’re sliding into the ocean regardless. However “simply transfer,” as Northerners prefer to say, is neither an choice for a lot of nor a viable resolution for all. Greater than 7 million individuals stay right here. Local weather security can’t be restricted to those that can afford to raise their properties or relocate.
4. Construct inexpensive housing.
Any type of new housing provides to the provision and brings costs down general, however creating really inexpensive housing takes intentionality and public-private partnerships that really ship on what they promise. This was not the case for the Midtown Redevelopment Authority’s Third Ward undertaking. A Houston Chronicle investigation discovered that the company spent 15 years utilizing inexpensive housing funds to purchase tons within the traditionally Black neighborhood with the aim of slowing gentrification, however all they’ve to point out for themselves to date is a $22 million half-vacant workplace constructing.
5. Protect our landmarks.
Whereas our penchant for reinvention is what makes Houston nice, we’d like to see the town pay extra respect to our dwindling variety of landmarks. With no
zoning and little preservation protections, we’ve seen multiple wrecking ball plow into historic buildings over time, the websites typically reborn as one thing soulless and ugly. We’re all for density and modernity, however mass lack of historical past can’t stand. Carry on extra success tales just like the revamped River Oaks Theatre and even Axelrad Beer Backyard, positioned in and round a preserved red-brick constructing that was previously a grocery retailer. And for goodness’ sake, please do one thing—something!—with the Astrodome.
6. Resolve the visitors mild glitches.
In an actual metropolis, visitors lights don’t cease working each time it rains. And typically when it doesn’t rain, too. There’s nothing extra irritating than approaching a serious intersection and seeing that dreaded blinking purple mild, indicating that the sign has failed its method into turning into a four-way cease once more. Good luck! Observing which vehicles adhere to the “taking turns” rule and which don’t ( you, F-150 drivers) is like watching an enchanting anthropological experiment unfold earlier than our very eyes. Professional tip: There’s power in numbers, so buddy up with the automobiles on the entrance of the road with you. And should you’re too scared, simply flip proper.
7. Repair the rattling pets.
We love pets. However we don’t love them after they impregnate different pets. Houston has an estimated 1 million stray animals, thanks partly to heat climate that permits them to breed year-round and a continual lack of animal management funding. Extra assets are wanted to deal with this disaster, which is simply as harmful for the cats and canine roaming the streets as for the people encountering them. Our proposal? Outlaw proudly owning unfixed pets and make all spaying and neutering companies free.
