Houston has certainly earned its reputation for resilience. Since 1980 the region has been hit by 26 natural disasters, including five hurricanes, five tropical storms, two wildfires, a dozen rain/flood events and a winter storm, to name a few. Nearly a third of these disasters have occurred since 2015, and yet the population continues to …
Category Archives: Blog
Houston is Vibrant
For some time, Greater Houston has been, to those who don’t live here, in the midst of an identity crisis. Even Anthony Bourdain, a man who made a career of ostensibly analyzing and broadcasting to the world the essence of every city into which he wandered, admitted to “entertaining lazy prejudices and assumptions” about the …
Houston is Changing
“This is the city where the American future is going to be worked out,” Stephen L. Klineberg, Ph.D., said of Houston in 2010. Klineberg, the founding director of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, has been tracking the ways in which Houston has been changing since the 1980s through the Kinder Houston Area Survey. …
Guest Blog: Ending the inertia of student mobility in Houston
It matters that 60,000+ Houston-area students change schools each year. Here’s what we can do about it. Each school year in the Houston area, more than 60,000 children leave the school they were attending to enter another school. Given that more than 700,000 students are served by Houston-area schools1, the number of children moving may …
Continue reading “Guest Blog: Ending the inertia of student mobility in Houston”
Examining Houston’s Reputation as a Car City
A data-driven look at personal vehicle use in Greater Houston You’ve probably heard it from visiting relatives who just can’t seem to wrap their heads around how big the city is, asking “is this still Houston?” on the twenty-minute drive to your favorite dinner spot. Houston’s size contributes to its character, but it also makes owning …
Continue reading “Examining Houston’s Reputation as a Car City”
Houston is… Entrepreneurial
Exploring the factors influencing Houston’s famed entrepreneurial spirit Houston’s business culture is unique — both distinctly global and local, it owes its evolution as much to every hardworking Houstonian as it does to the frontier mentality from which its industry grew. Entrepreneurship is an essential part of what it means to live in Houston, and …
2021 in Greater Houston: The year in review
A data-driven look at what 2021 meant for Houston’s three-county area No year in recent memory has simultaneously had so much and so little to live up to as 2021. Coming on the heels of a tumultuous 2020 mired in an ongoing pandemic and a contentious political landscape, the arrival of 2021 represented hope and …
Continue reading “2021 in Greater Houston: The year in review”
Celebrating Understanding Houston’s Second Anniversary
Reflecting on two years of community connections and informed action. When we began work on Understanding Houston a few years ago, we set out to create a relevant, accessible platform that would connect community leaders and changemakers with the information they need to take targeted, informed action where our region needs it most. This November, …
Continue reading “Celebrating Understanding Houston’s Second Anniversary”
Greater Houston Area Sets Record Numbers in 2020 Voter Participation
Early voting for the November 2 election in Texas has begun. The right to vote is an essential cornerstone of the fabric of American democracy. The first article of the U.S. Constitution states that the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are to be determined by popular vote, however voting in the U.S. is not …
Continue reading “Greater Houston Area Sets Record Numbers in 2020 Voter Participation”
Houston’s three-county region accounts for a quarter of Texas’ population growth
2020 Census data shows how the Houston region has evolved over the last decade The U.S. Census Bureau has released data from the 2020 Census; however, collecting this data did not come without its challenges. In March 2020, right as households began receiving invitations to participate in the 2020 Census, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the …
Continue reading “Houston’s three-county region accounts for a quarter of Texas’ population growth”