CEC: Newsletters

During the 1970s, the price of Texas crude oil increased dramatically. Most of the United States was in deepening recession, but Houston was booming. More than 1,000 people per week moved here in that decade, and about 230 vehicles every day where added to Harris County roadways. Few were thinking about the long-term costs that such rapid, unfettered expansion would inflict on the city’s physical features or on the quality of its air and water. In the exhilaration of booming growth, we paid little attention to the public spaces of our city.

Houston was world-famous in those days for having imposed the fewest controls on development of any city in the Western world. We believed that the region’s success was based on its free-enterprise philosophy, its insistence on the freedom of entrepreneurs with vision to put their ideas into practice with minimal interference. This city was showing the world what Americans could achieve when left unfettered by zoning, excessive taxation, and government regulations!

In 1982, the boom collapsed, and Houston emerged from recession into a different world. The “resource economy” had receded into history, replaced by a fully global, high-tech, knowledge-based economy. At the same time, Houston became one of the country’s most ethnically diverse metropolitan areas, and mounting environmental challenges redefined the strategies required for economic success in the new century.

The business community increasingly recognizes that Houston’s urban sprawl and free-enterprise philosophy have contributed to its environmental problems. This city cannot succeed in the new economy if it remains committed to uncontrolled individualism, with little thought to the public consequences. Endowed with less physical beauty and fewer natural amenities than many urban areas, Houston is already having trouble competing for the most talented companies and individuals. How many will choose to relocate here if our city now becomes the smog capital of the United States?

The annual Houston Area Survey, coordinated by Rice University, has documented a steady increase in public support for new pollution reduction efforts. The proportion of area residents who were in favor of “requiring emissions tests on all vehicles in Houston” grew from 38% in 1995, to 56% in 1997, to 70% in 1999. In the 2000 survey, 56% said they were “very concerned” about the effects of air pollution on their family’s health. Two-thirds were in favor of more stringent emissions tests. More than a third were even willing to accept a “no-drive” day once a week.

In a Texas-wide survey completed in January 2001, respondents were asked to identify the best long-term solution to traffic problems. Fifty-six% of the Harris County respondents chose “improvements in public transportation, such as trains, buses, and light rail.” One-fourth called for “developing communities where people can live closer to where they work and shop.” Fewer than one in five thought we should continue to do what we have always done – “building bigger and better roads and highways.” Moreover, 80% called for “better land-use planning to guide development in this area.” Only 14% agreed instead that “people and industry should be free to build wherever they want.”

If Houston cannot come into compliance with federal clean air standards by 2007 and fashion a more livable community overall, that inability will have less to do with any presumed resistance on the part of the general public than with a failure of local leadership. Success is by no means assured. It will not be easy to transcend the narrow business culture and excessive individualism that worked so well for this city during most of the twentieth century, and industry will continue to fight against any further regulations.

Nevertheless, the evidence of ongoing attitude change, both in the Houston population and in the business community, provides a basis for hope. If we work together with courage and foresight, we can surely build a more attractive, unified, and vibrant city – one that fully meets the challenges of the new century.