Plan Houston: Planning the Unplanned City
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Learning Outcomes
- Understand the history of growth in Houston and the challenges the city faces as it looks to grow in the future.
- Learn how a nonprofit citizen advocacy group persevered and convinced a city with no history of planning to complete and adopt a general plan.
- Explore how Houston will address a new growth paradigm: growing up, not out, and aggregating rather than subdividing.
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Houston is now one of the nation’s largest, most diverse, and dynamic cities. It has never adopted zoning or conducted comprehensive planning in any traditional sense. Indeed, it is convinced that its unique approach has afforded it a level of market flexibility that is one of the principal reasons for its explosive growth and success.
Blueprint Houston is a nonprofit organization that was formed 17 years ago with the explicit mission of convincing the City of Houston to prepare and adopt a general plan. Somewhat improbably, this quixotic quest culminated in the adoption of Plan Houston in 2015. Some four years later, what is the status of Plan Houston? More importantly, how can this plan help Houston prepare for a projected 50 percent growth in population (from approximately 2 million to over 3 million) in the next 30 years? What about the many other issues the plan should address: transportation, social equity, housing, and resilience from flooding and hurricanes?
Join three of the participants in the Houston general plan process to learn how a city with no tradition of planning arrived at this juncture, and where it will go from here.