Issues

Can a building’s design promote healthy lifestyles?

For more than a decade, developers competed to brand their buildings as “green,” betting that tenants would pay a premium for a structure with energy-efficient features that could save money and or garner positive PR.

Medical Centers Can Serve as a Catalyst for Cities

They have a lot to offer.

Q&A with Rose Gowen: How Brownsville is fighting public obesity and making a more vibrant city

Rose Gowen is a city commissioner and OB-GYN in Brownsville, a city of 180,000 that sits just north of the Texas-Mexico border. The greater Brownsville area has the highest poverty rate in the country – 35 percent – which has contributed to an obesity and diabetes epidemic. Gowen spoke with the Kinder Institute’s Ryan Holeywell about how the city is trying to combat a public health crisis. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

HISD opens massive school district data sets to researchers

Hundreds of professors across the country spend countless hours researching education, but few are likely to affect the way schools are actually run.

What Millennials Think of Homeownership (and why it matters)

Optimistic about their own economic futures, they're still leery of the housing market almost a decade after the real estate bubble burst.

Global Lens, Local Focus: How Brownsville turned tragedy into opportunity

Site of tragedy now showing signs of life.

An Evaluation of the Secondary Reading Initiative

This report investigates an initiative intended to improve achievement on standardized tests for students who have struggled with reading.

Kinder Houston Area Survey: 2015 Results

The 2015 Kinder Houston Area Survey tracks Harris County perspectives on the local economy, traffic and ethnic diversity.

Improving Math Scores for African American and Hispanic Females

This report examines the effectiveness of self-affirmation exercises in the face of negative stereotype threat.

How Do High Status Parents Choose Schools? Evidence From A Choice District

In-depth interviews with Houston-area parents in affluent neighborhoods sheds light on how families select schools.

What Accounts For Health Disparities? Findings From the Houston Surveys (2001-2013)

Drawing on more than a decade worth of survey data, this report breaks down health disparities in the Houston area.

The Houston Education Survey: Public Perceptions in a Critical Time

This report presents some of the most important findings from the Houston Education Survey, the second of three focused surveys that are together called the “SHEA” studies (“Surveys of Health, Education, and the Arts”).

Public Perceptions in Remarkable Times: Tracking Change Through 24 Years of Houston Surveys

Drawing on more than 20 years of survey data, this report seeks to tell the story of Houston and its communities.

Houston's Ethnic Communities: Third Edition

With immigration and economic transformation guiding shifts in the Houston area and across the country, this report draws on several years worth of survey data to capture the way these new realities are being experienced by members of Houston's ethnic populations.

Social and Economic Disparity