Houston Genetic City

Houston Genetic City offers a vision for a future Houston as a global city, beyond its current petro-economy, its laissez-faire land speculation, and its notorious sprawl. The book speculates about new forms of urbanism that offer resiliency against our changing climate—from flooding to sea level rise to volatile storms—as well as new models for development in fast-urbanizing regions.

No city in the United States is a synonymous with unbridled growth and land speculation as the sprawling Texas city of Houston. The book offers a vision for a future Houston as a global city, beyond its current petro-economy, its laissez-faire land speculation, and its notorious sprawl. It speculates about new forms of urbanism that offer resiliency against our changing climate as well as new models for development in fast-urbanizing regions.

Though Houston is described as a city, its massive size makes it regional or even megaregional in scale—including a patchwork of satellite downtowns and suburbs, a vast floodplain of bayous and coastal prairie, as well as a long stretch of Gulf Coast. Its lack of zoning means ad hoc developments scatter across the landscape with little formal planning, where urban developments are always provisional and negotiable.

Using maps, photographs, timelines, and collages, the book lays out the conditions for new urbanization in this fragile landscape.

Published by Actar Publishers & University of Houston’s Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design