Houston is drowning—In its freedom from regulations
I visited Houston once, and I remember being struck by how the riot of signage and absence of land use conventions like setbacks showed a clear contempt for “regulations”. I had no idea that the contempt extended to on outright rejection of modern storm water management practices. I suppose if you asked the Houston Chamber of Commerce why it was so important allow impervious cover everywhere, they’d have some good reasons like…”Jobs” or “Freedom”.
Read it here: And notice how rich people always manage to restrict “freedom” enough so that their areas aren’t free market shitholes.
We do value our freedom here in Texas. As I write from soggy Central Texas, the cable news is showing people floating down Buffalo Bayou on their principles, proud residents of the largest city in these United States that did not grow in accordance with zoning ordinances.
The feeling there was that persons who own real estate should be free to develop it as they wish. Houston, also known as the Bayou City, is a great location because of its access to international shipping in the Gulf of Mexico. It is not a great location for building, though, because of all its impervious cover. If water could easily sink into the ground, there would be less of it ripping down Houston’s rivers that just a week ago were overcrowded streets.
In less-free cities, the jackbooted thugs in the zoning department impose limits on the amount of impervious cover in a development. Some of the limits can be finessed by lining parking lots with bricks turned sideways, so grass can be planted in the holes.
Coastal Delaware is very similar
Just imagine what the situation would have been if Texas had succeeded in its secession plan
I lived in Houston for 45 years. Over those years there was a relentless effort by environmental groups, social justice organizations, water/flood management experts to appeal to the better judgement of the commercial sector and the many city and county elected officials commercial interests, mainly developers bought off with political contributions to both create better regulations to mitigate flooding and enforce those regulations not being enforced.
No one listened. No one acted. The concrete kept being poured and bayous just maintained for a much smaller city and population. Houston was very proud of their “no zoning” policy, so you could have a gas station built next to your house and refineries and chemical plants built in low income neighborhoods, poisoning them. Shell was once fined a chump change $100,000 for poisoning a local neighborhood and killing people. But hey howdy, did Houston ever grow…..and prosper.
Public Health officials studied and reported on “cancer alley” areas near refineries and chemical plans, with off the chart cancer rates. The medical establishment, huge in Houston and Texas, were largely silent. They failed those they were charged to protect.
Lawsuits were filed. Hydrology presentations made showing defects and flaws in the dams whose contents are now being “time released”, flooding more nearby neighborhoods to mitigate flooding downstream. All dismissed or ignored. A rain tax was instituted in 2011, but spent to pay mismanaged public employee retirement funds, not on flood prevention/mitigation.
All this in the interest of jobs and prosperity which Houston certainly enjoyed. And largely supported by an overwhelmingly Blue elected City Administration who could not bring themselves to face climate change issues which they agreed were increasing in the area, could not bring themselves to confront developers funding their reelection and dictating public policy, could not bring themselves to challenge the toxic oil and gas industry and utterly failed the people they were sworn to protect. They were also largely undermined by Republican county government and since the mid-90’s a wholly Republican state government with much influence over city and local policy. We now have the result and it is tragic and catastrophic.
I see a very similar pattern here in Delaware, with Blue government administrations largely giving Dupont a pass as long as they were poisoning only people elsewhere, industries allowed to walk away from toxic land they defiled and Democrats largely silent on official and grassroots levels about the impending catastrophe not many years away on well researched and documented sea level rising threats to inhabitants. Be forewarned Delaware. You are looking at your future down the road a piece.