Body
Research
The 2022 State of Housing in Harris County and Houston
The third annual State of Housing report looks at the pandemic's impact on the local housing market. The report also sets new housing baselines on mortgage loan data, homelessness and other housing indicators.
REPORT: June 22, 2022 HOUSING | URBAN PLANNING
The 2021 State of Housing in Harris County and Houston
The 2021 State of Housing in Harris County and Houston report uses a range of indicators to track the challenges, opportunities and trends in the region’s housing system.
REPORT: June 22, 2021 HOUSING | URBAN PLANNING
Texas Metropolitan Blueprint: A Policy Agenda to Secure the Competitiveness and Prosperity of Texas
The Texas Metropolitan Blueprint lays out recommendations for policies that address the most important economic development, land use, housing, infrastructure, and transportation challenges of the state’s metropolitan areas.
REPORT: March 24, 2021 GOVERNANCE | URBAN PLANNING
Near Northside: Safe Streets, Safe Communities
This report is the second in a series aimed to aid efforts to improve street safety in Houston. The first report (Safe Streets, Safe Communities) is linked below.
REPORT: February 26, 2020 TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
Community Resilience Initiatives: Building Stronger Neighborhoods in Houston
Effective efforts at the neighborhood level can be sustained and amplified by plugging into broader citywide efforts in ways that better align long-term goals and influence implementation plans at both levels.
REPORT: February 18, 2020 GOVERNANCE | HOUSING | URBAN PLANNING
Transit Adjacent Development and Neighborhood Change in Houston
This study explores how land use has changed between 2010 and 2016 in transit adjacent development (TAD) areas of Harris County, defined as census block groups within one mile of light rail stations, transit centers, and Park & Ride locations.
REPORT: December 11, 2019 TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
Safe Streets, Safe Communities: Walking and Biking Infrastructure in Gulfton
During the summer and fall of 2018, an audit was done on the Gulfton area's streets and sidewalks and these are the results.
REPORT: March 20, 2019 TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
Neighborhood Gentrification across Harris County: 1990 to 2016
The inventory of affordable housing has been diminishing and this report documents where in Houston it's diminishing the fastest.
REPORT: December 13, 2018 HOUSING | URBAN DISPARITY | URBAN PLANNING
Governing A Growing Region: Addressing Challenges of Service Provision and Development in Houston
This report takes a regional view to find major issues with the way our growth is governed.
REPORT: October 25, 2018 GOVERNANCE | HOUSING | URBAN PLANNING
While Houston continues to claim to be an affordable city, findings show that a lack of public transportation is making living in the city more difficult to access jobs in some areas.
REPORT: October 11, 2018 TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
This report provides a more in-depth understanding of critical transportation safety issues, highlights key issues and can be used to prioritize street safety improvements.
REPORT: September 27, 2018 TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
From Close Calls to Crashes: Infrastructure Priorities to Improve Safety For People on Bikes
This report focuses on how information about daily trips can be used to improve transportation safety for bicyclists.
REPORT: August 7, 2018 TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
This dashboard uses subdivision plat data to analyze the urban growth of Harris and Fort Bend counties between 1950 and 2015.
REPORT: May 29, 2018 TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
A look at best practices from other jurisdictions engaged in the hazard mitigation strategy of strategic property buyouts.
REPORT: February 5, 2018 HURRICANE HARVEY | URBAN PLANNING
Developing Houston: Land-Use Regulation in the “Unzoned City” and its Outcomes
This report lays out the existing elements of Houston’s land development system and highlights several areas where it could be improved.
REPORT: September 11, 2017 URBAN PLANNING
Urban Edge
Greener Gulfton effort plants seeds for alleviating neighborhood's nature inequity
In August of 2020, a heat mapping campaign identified Gulfton as the hottest neighborhood in Houston. The effort, co-led by The Nature Conservancy and the Houston Advanced Research Center, indicated that the southwest Houston neighborhood was 17 degrees warmer than the coolest neighborhood measured. A community-driven plan, “Greener Gulfton,” seeks to decrease the sweltering temperature, while adding an array of benefits to the immigrant-rich area that 45,000 residents call home.
FEATURES: November 16, 2022 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | URBAN PLANNING
Is Houston really better off without zoning? One planner makes the case in ‘Arbitrary Lines’
A new book, “Arbitrary Lines,” argues that a century of zoning has hardened racial and class segregation in cities across the U.S. and worsened the effects of inequality by making it almost impossible to build anything but single-family homes in some cities. Author and planner M. Nolan Gray says there is a better way: Just look at Houston.
INTERVIEW: September 29, 2022 URBAN DISPARITY | URBAN PLANNING
Borderlands without borders: How poetry can dismantle the walls between planners and communities
As a method of community planning, and as an impetus for creative placemaking (and placekeeping), poetry can help anyone–not just writers–think about how they are situated within their local communities and urban spaces. By writing poetry, any member of the public—in particular, those who are historically underrepresented—can turn conceptions into things that can be discussed and implemented. Since poetry has dislodged itself from patrician control and has found fertile ground in the digital landscape, it can be easily shared within local contexts and beyond.
PERSPECTIVE: July 22, 2022 URBAN PLANNING
It is time to recognize the Rio Grande Valley as a rising borderland metropolis
The Rio Grande Valley (RGV), or el Valle del Rio Bravo as it is known in Mexico, is often considered a far-flung collection of small-town border communities. As such, it remains largely unknown to the rest of the U.S., except when cited as one of the poorest areas in the country alongside Middle Appalachia or the Lower Mississippi Delta.
PERSPECTIVE: June 15, 2022 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | URBAN PLANNING
An economist’s case for urban density: It’s just math
Conversation about land use and building in cities often turns to questions of aesthetics or personal preferences. You find impassioned advocates of various kinds of architecture or lifestyle.
PERSPECTIVE: March 28, 2022 URBAN PLANNING
Events
Ten Across Summit: The Future is Here
The Ten Across Summit will convene a premier group of leaders and experts to discuss important issues such as water, energy, infrastructure, equity, democracy and risk.
: January 10, 2023 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | URBAN PLANNING
Kinder Institute Forum: Scott Beyer
Urban affairs journalist Scott Beyer shares how a free-market approach to housing, transportation, public administration and more can create more livable cities.
KINDER INSTITUTE FORUM: May 25, 2022 GOVERNANCE | URBAN PLANNING
Kinder Institute Forum: Antoine Bryant
Planner and community advocate Antoine Bryant discusses his work on affordable housing, equitable development and community-led design.
KINDER INSTITUTE FORUM: November 10, 2021 HOUSING | PLACEMAKING | URBAN PLANNING
Leslie Kern discusses "Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World."
URBAN READS: August 11, 2021 URBAN PLANNING
Kinder Institute Forum: Tamika L. Butler
A national expert and speaker on issues related to the built environment and equity, Tamika L. Butler discusses institutional oppression, the importance of inclusive urban design, and how to make transportation and public spaces more equitable.
KINDER INSTITUTE FORUM: November 11, 2020 PLACEMAKING | TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
Kinder Institute Forum: Mitchell J. Silver
New York City Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver discusses how planning and design can create equitable, inclusive and fun places for residents of New York, Houston and beyond.
KINDER INSTITUTE FORUM: March 5, 2020 PLACEMAKING | URBAN PLANNING
Distinguished urban planner Alexander Garvin identifies shared elements of great downtowns, offers lessons from successful and failed projects, and charts a path forward to support downtowns into the twenty-first century.
URBAN READS: June 25, 2019 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | URBAN PLANNING
Kinder Institute Forum: Maurice Cox
Maurice Cox, director of planning and development for the city of Detroit, Michigan, discusses creative design and community engagement as strategies for long-term equitable development.
KINDER INSTITUTE FORUM: May 23, 2019 HOUSING | PLACEMAKING | URBAN PLANNING
Named by Newsweek as one of the five most innovative mayors in the country, four-term Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett discusses lessons learned from his city's success, Houston's opportunity zones, and the way forward for America's midsize metros.
URBAN READS: April 23, 2019 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | URBAN PLANNING
Experts discuss how technology, policy and transportation interact, and how they can be used to develop a city that functions better for all communities.
: April 12, 2019 TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
Urban Reads: I-45 Meets the Walkable City
Following a presentation on what the I-45 freeway expansion means for Houston, city planner and urban designer Jeff Speck talks with Kinder Institute Director Bill Fulton.
URBAN READS: February 28, 2019 TRANSPORTATION | URBAN PLANNING
Body
Physical Address
Rice University
Kraft Hall
6100 Main Street, Suite 305
Houston, TX 77005-1892