Houston Will Recover. But Will It Change?

As Houston continues to grapple with the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey, the immediate concern of course is saving lives. But as rainfall slowly draws to a close and attention shifts to recovery, the question needs to be asked: Can Houston simply resume the growth model that has driven it in recent decades? Harvey may have changed the calculus.

There is no template for Houston's recovery. The most recent urban devastation that comes to mind would be Hurricane Katrina. But the growth trajectory of New Orleans in 2005 is not a model for Houston in 2017. The population peak of New Orleans was in 1960, 45 years before Katrina. New Orleans is an important, iconic city for a variety of cultural and industry-related reasons, but it never adopted the model practiced in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and other Sun Belt metro areas: sprawling, cheap housing and fast population growth. As New Orleans rebuilt, its task was primarily about fixing what had been broken rather than planning for endless population growth.