Inside Houston’s Massive Growth | Houstonia Magazine

First came the Karankawa, the indigenous people who lived on the Texas Gulf Coast for hundreds of years. Then the Allen brothers, who purchased a plot of land in 1836 for only $5,000. With a misleading brochure that made the land look hilly and picturesque, they set out to convince speculators of this fantastical idea of ​​building a city on a muddy swamp. Even with these grand ambitions, they probably didn’t realize they were creating what would become the fourth largest city in the United States.

One way or another, today’s Houston continues to grow. More than 20,000 townhouses have been built in the past 20 years, dividing lots formerly occupied by single-family homes to make way for denser housing. Residential skyscrapers are becoming taller and more luxurious. Entire crops of meticulously tended master-planned communities sprouted in the prairies of newly formed suburbs around the Houston area, contributing to the city’s infamous sprawl. In these floodplains — you know, the ones that Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen thought were healthy enough to build a city on — many hurricane-affected residents decided not to move, but to build. The I-45 expansion will add lanes to an already gargantuan highway while bulldozing more than 1,500 homes, businesses and places of worship. However, our parks and green spaces are growing thanks to well-funded beautification projects.

What is this not growing up in Houston? Our public transportation system, for example. And opportunities for low-income families, who are often left out of Houston’s growth, sidelined by development that claims to be for them. Here’s a look at the good, the bad and the ugly in Boomtown.