"Prophetic City: Houston on the Cusp of a Changing America" is now available for purchase through Brazos Bookstore and other retailers nationwide.
Kinder Institute Founding Drector Stephen L. Klineberg’s long-awaited book, “Prophetic City: Houston on the Cusp of a Changing America,” draws on nearly four decades of Kinder Houston Area Survey research to provide a comprehensive view of the city’s extraordinary economic and demographic transformations. Klineberg spoke of the city’s increasing diversity, the transition to a high-tech economy, the growing inequalities (predicated on access to a quality education), and rising social and environmental concerns. “We are living in one of the most interesting and consequential cities in all of America,” said Klineberg. “For better or worse, this is where the future of our country is being worked out.”
About "Prophetic City"
Houston, Texas, long thought of as a traditionally blue-collar black/white southern city, has transformed into one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse metro areas in the nation, surpassing even New York by some measures.
With a diversifying economy and large numbers of both highly-skilled technical jobs in engineering and medicine and low-skilled minimum-wage jobs in construction, restaurant work, and personal services, Houston has become a magnet for the new divergent streams of immigration that are transforming America in the 21st century. And thanks to an annual systematic survey conducted over the past thirty-eight years, the ongoing changes in attitudes, beliefs, and life experiences have been measured and studied, creating a compelling data-driven map of the challenges and opportunities that are facing Houston and the rest of the country.
About Stephen Klineberg
Stephen Klineberg, a graduate of Haverford College, with an MA from the University of Paris and a PhD from Harvard, is the founding director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, a multi-disciplinary “think-and-do tank” housed on the Rice University campus in central Houston, working to advance understanding of the most important issues facing Houston and other leading urban centers. Klineberg joined Rice University’s Sociology Department in 1972, and in 1982 he and his students initiated the annual Houston Area Survey, now in its 38th year of tracking the remarkable changes in the demographic patterns, economic outlooks, experiences, attitudes, and beliefs of Harris County residents.
About Urban Reads
The Kinder Institute's Urban Reads series showcases recently published works by local and national authors.
This program is eligible for 1 CM credit from the American Planning Association.
Photograph by Tommy LaVergne, Rice University.
