I have always believed that the two concepts are deeply intertwined. A city or town probably won’t be prosperous unless it has lots of place amenities — things that draw people to the location like parks, good schools, restaurants and stores, cultural institutions, walkable neighborhoods. And a city or town probably can’t afford all those amenities unless it is prosperous.
Street-level design is central to a strong sense of place, and throughout Houston, street design is ordinary at best. The Texas Medical Center, for example, has an employment density comparable to London or Sydney — but it is notorious for its lousy pedestrian environment. That’s part of the reason why Houston has a reputation among urban planners as not a city but ancity.
There’s little question that in the future, Houston will have to become more urban — and more amenity-rich in an urban way — to compete with other cities for the best talent. Up to now, it hasn’t been hard to attract folks to live in Houston.
Quite literally, none of these options existed at the start of this century — not even the fifteen-minute headways for the bus. As a city-oriented person to begin with, and now one who cannot drive, I could not have lived the life I now have as recently as 2000. The miracle of cities — indeed, the miracle of— works to my advantage even here in Houston, seemingly the most suburban of cities.
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