Urban Edge

Stories, perspectives and insights from the Kinder Institute

Harris County flood task force hopes ‘many ways of knowing’ will inform a vision for equitable resilience

Water connects us, yet too often our region’s ongoing relationship with water presents itself as flooding that wreaks havoc and devastates all in its path. In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, many efforts have emerged to try to rebuild our relationship with water from one of harm to one of resilience.

While we fix our flood infrastructure, let’s also improve mental health care and strengthen communities

Natural disasters are increasingly common each year, affecting infrastructure and contributing to economic, social, health, and psychological hardships. When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017, it quickly amassed $125 billion in damages, displacing over a million people and their homes. Along with the economic toll of a disaster event, mental health concerns carry a cost that is difficult to measure.

From rainfall totals to oral histories, Hurricane Harvey data offers multiple portraits of a disaster

The Kinder Institute’s Urban Data Platform warehouses over 50 datasets related to Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath. These resources can help researchers, agencies and organizations work toward ways to prevent and withstand the worst effects of the storms to come.

Houston is still reckoning with the biggest lessons from Hurricane Harvey

When it hit five years ago this week, Hurricane Harvey was an unprecedented disaster: 68 people dead, 200,000 homes damaged or destroyed, a half-million cars wiped out, $125 billion in damage.

In ‘More City than Water,’ Houston tells its Hurricane Harvey story. Will we listen?

Flood survival stories are a Houston shibboleth, a test of membership. Make it through a devastating downpour, and you are one of us. And everyone who lived in the Houston area in August 2017 has a Hurricane Harvey story. For some, it was another entry in a collection of flood stories, depending on how long they lived here and where; for others, it was their first, a rude awakening to very real vulnerabilities.

After Hurricane Harvey, flood insurance created windfalls and fault lines for the middle class

Friendswood, a close-knit suburb southeast of Houston that routinely makes lists for being the “best place to raise a family,” also serves as a case study for how flaws in the federal approach to flood insurance and disaster recovery aid resulted in fractured outcomes even among similarly situated middle-class neighbors after Hurricane Harvey.

If it hopes to overcome future Harveys, Houston needs to double down on resilience and planning

A new book serves as a guide for how cities can best learn from one another to design systems and build ways to endure the worst climate shocks to come. This includes Houston’s experience—both for what to expect from a changing climate and how to respond. Its authors say Houston has done several things right, but they also worry that future disasters could outpace these efforts.

Harris County is learning how to put billions in potential assets to better use

Harris County will soon have, for the first time, a full picture of its public wealth—the commercial value of all government-owned assets, from land to buildings to infrastructure—as well as a plan to start putting this wealth to work toward community development and economic growth.

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.

On the surface, Houston’s proposed city council maps barely budge, but the ground is shifting

With 2020 Census data in hand, Houston is moving forward with city council redistricting. The first proposed map was unveiled last week ahead of a public comment phase. For the most part, not much changes in terms of actual boundaries, but the underlying demographics of Houston’s population shifted considerably in the past 10 years.