New research highlights potential responses to student homelessness caused by natural disasters
Hurricane Harvey rendered some 24,000 students in Houston Independent School District to be listed as homeless. The storm brought the district's overall total to more than 29,000 homeless students in the subsequent year, according to new research from the Kinder Institute for Urban Research’s Houston Education Research Consortium.
Q&A: Helping bridge the gaps in maternal health care in Houston
The Community Bridges program continues to seek better outcomes for those in need in the Greater Houston area.
How Houston, the world’s energy capital, is embracing the transition to cleaner sources
Eighty-seven percent of all respondents in the 43rd Kinder Houston Area Survey felt that Houston should take a leading role in forging a new energy future.
Q&A: Protecting Houston’s prosperity from disasters requires quick coordination — and cash
The Houston area is no stranger to natural disasters, but the May 16 derecho was an uncharacteristic weather event for the region.
Dr. Marc Boom, president and CEO of Houston Methodist, helped lead Houston through the COVID-19 pandemic by prioritizing the public’s accessibility to the COVID-19 vaccine, and he was the first hospital system CEO to introduce an employee COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Tall building council looks upward to support a more walkable, sustainable Houston
In the 2023 Kinder Houston Area Survey, about 60% of respondents expressed a desire to live in a mixed-use development instead of a single-family home.
After 40 years of encouraging play, SPARK wants to eliminate Houston’s park deserts
In 1983, Houston’s Green Ribbon Commission reported that the city needed an additional 5,000 acres of greenspace to compete with the parks and recreation facilities in other U.S. cities. To meet this challenge, the report suggested creating community parks on public school grounds, which led to the SPARK School Park Program.
Urban farmers seeking healthier communities in Houston’s East End and beyond
Finca Tres Robles, an urban farm in Houston’s East End established by the Small Places organization in 2014, is in a state of transition. It initially combined agriculture, community engagement and sustainability. As it moves into its second iteration, it will continue that work with hopes of expanding its reach.
Former Harris County Judge Ed Emmett reflects on Hurricane Ike 15 years later
Hurricane Ike made landfall on Galveston in the early hours of Sept. 13, 2008, as a Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds. It produced a catastrophic storm surge throughout Galveston County, especially the Bolivar Peninsula and in Chambers County. While Houston was mostly spared from flooding, about 100,000 structures in Harris County were damaged by wind, according to the Harris County Flood Control District. Over 2 million CenterPoint customers lost power, with some areas going several weeks until electricity was restored. The widespread outages marked the first time a curfew was issued by the city of Houston.
Houston is a city for cars today, but that doesn’t mean it has to be one in the future. In a new book, “Inclusive Transportation: A Manifesto for Repairing Divided Communities”, Veronica O. Davis makes the case that reorienting communities toward people rather than automobiles is in the hands of everyday people as well as policymakers.
Q&A: In Houston, a national developer finds the will and a way to build more affordable housing
A national not-for-profit affordable housing developer is broadening its reach into the Houston market with five projects across the city. It unveiled a new apartment community for adults over the age of 55 in Third Ward with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included some of Houston’s top elected and housing officials earlier this month.
Q&A: How a green approach could help Houston shrink its flood risks—and its carbon footprint
If Houston took a nature-based approach to its drainage systems, it could help mitigate climate change, lessen the city’s severe heat and create job opportunities among other benefits, according to a recent report by the Rocky Mountain Institute.
The Plant/Second Ward developers hope to balance walkability and affordability in Houston’s East End
A Houston-based real estate acquisition, development and management company is in the beginning phases of reshaping parts of the East End and Second Ward into a more walkable and equitable place that adds to the neighborhood’s diversity.
'The New Red Book' is a call to appreciate Houston as a bastion of Black heritage
A new book serves as a long overdue field guide to Black history in Houston, one that hearkens back to a century-old catalog of the city’s African American community. In “The New Red Book,” author Lindsay Gary takes readers to 50 sites, telling the stories about these important spaces and the people whose legacies remain relevant today.
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.
Rice University
Kraft Hall
6100 Main Street, Suite 305
Houston, TX 77005-1892
