Houston is Diverse

Why diversity and inclusion matter and what they truly mean in Greater Houston

It’s no secret that Houston is diverse. The region was recognized for its multiculturalism long before it was reported to be the most racially/ethnically diverse place in the nation. We typically measure diversity in terms of race or ethnicity, but it is also defined as diversity in backgrounds, perspectives, insights, and lived experiences, and Greater Houston is diverse in many ways that often go unnoticed.

But why does diversity matter? Research suggests that companies composed of people with diverse experiences — including gender identity, race, ethnicity, and other backgrounds — tend to financially outperform, make better decisions, and are generally more successful. There is a growing movement in pedagogy that children should experience different cultures, languages, and practices to succeed more in our interconnected world. Our exposure to different perspectives and mindsets makes for a richer, more empathetic, interesting world — it can also challenge stereotypes.

While our population may be diverse — in a variety of ways — our communities can be exclusionary. The very groups which allow us to claim diversity as a strength are the same ones that have been historically marginalized and harmed. Discriminatory policies and practices outlawed decades ago still affect large swathes of the population, who, despite living in the nation’s most diverse region, experience persistent disparities. In many cases, some progress has been made for underserved groups, but for others, the damage has lingered with devastating impacts.

In this article, Understanding Houston is setting out to celebrate Houston’s diversity by taking a look at the ways in which it underpins our region and the ways in which certain populations remain underserved.

Disability status

Over 30 years have passed since the establishment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and only one significant amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008, has been made in accommodation of significant demographic shifts, and to further define what we understand as “disability.” 

Disability status is often left out of the conversation about diversity. Nearly 10% of Houston’s three-county region is living with one or more disability, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. That equates to more than half a million Houstonians, and researchers estimate that one out of five American households will have at least one member with a minimum of one disability by 2050 because of the aging Baby Boomer population.

While this segment of our population improves our diversity, they have not been fully included in our region’s economic prosperity. In 2020, the rate at which persons with disabilities lived below the poverty line was about double that of folks living without disabilities, according to data from the American Community Survey. People living with disabilities experience significantly lower employment rates, and those who are employed receive significantly lower pay. The National Disability Institute estimates that households containing an adult with a work disability require, on average, 28 percent more income — an additional $17,690 a year for a household at the median income level — to enjoy the same standard of living as a comparable household without a member with a disability. As this population ages and grows, these inequities will only become more acute unless significant changes are made to policy and planning.

Sexual orientation and gender identity

Sexual orientation and gender identity are other vital and under-discussed ways in which our region is diverse. While Pride and sexual/gender diversity have become more widely celebrated in recent years, there is still a long way to go.

Obtaining reliable data on queer populations in Greater Houston is challenging, but we do know that as of 2021, Texas is the state with the second-largest number of LGBTQIA adult residents, estimated to be around 1.7 million people, though this may be an undercount. Attitudes toward the LGBTQIA community have evolved, and support is growing. Both acceptance of same-sex relations and support for same-sex marriage have doubled since the 1990s, jumping from 31% in 1993 to 64% in 2019, according to the Kinder Houston Area Survey.

LGBTQIA individuals make up our residents, our families, our workers, and our visitors. Houston scored above average on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2021 Municipal Equity Index, a report that measures how thoroughly LGBTQIA residents, workers and visitors are protected from discrimination across American cities. Houston scored perfectly for “offering equivalent benefits and protections to LGBTQIA employees and awarding contracts to fair-minded businesses” and “city leadership’s commitment to fully include the LGBTQIA community and to advocate for full equality,” which led the city to a total score of 76, above the average of 67. While “above average” is a great start, there is still work to be done. 

Texas, for instance, still lacks many basic protections against discrimination for LGBTQIA residents. As of 2020, Texas had no official protection for LGBTQIA population from discrimination in housing, public accommodations, credit and lending or anti-bullying for students. As of 2019, LGBTQIA folks in Texas live in poverty at a rate higher than that for cisgender straight people.

Racial, ethnic and linguistic diversity

Greater Houston’s reputation for diversity is often rooted in its extraordinary ethnic/racial diversity. Over two-thirds of Houston’s three-county region is comprised of people of color, who made up 95% of Texas’ population growth over the last decade. This trend toward increasing diversity will undoubtedly continue as the racial/ethnic composition of children under five in the three-county area is even more diverse than our overall population.

The region is made richer by multiculturalism in incalculable ways. Still, many of the diverse populations who contribute to the economy and vibrancy of the region continue to face disproportionate challenges and disparities. Historically underrepresented communities, the majority of our region’s population, have on average poorer health, lower household incomes, lower access to quality housing, among other disparities. Why is this? 

That question has many answers, often related to outdated, discriminatory public policy put in place with the intention of keeping American metros racially segregated. Policies that, despite being outlawed today, have done irreparable harm to the quality of life and access to opportunities for entire communities across generations. One of the many discriminatory practices employed in our nation’s history, including the Houston area, was called redlining. Redlining maps were used in the early-to-mid 20th century to determine which neighborhoods would receive public investment and access to home loans. The result of which legally prevented nearly all Black and Mexican Americans from being able to purchase homes. 

Homeownership is the most common avenue to building generational wealth. The exclusion of the single most important American investment opportunity does not, however, scratch the surface of how damaging these policies really were to Black Americans.

Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps. Source: Mapping Inequality; Opportunity Atlas.

Redlining maps and other discriminatory housing policies not only prevented Black families from building meaningful wealth, but also ensured that Black neighborhoods would be isolated from access to safe affordable housing, good jobs, and proper infrastructures like parks, roads or stormwater drainage. The result is what we see today — communities that have worse air quality, higher temperatures, limited fresh food options and lower rated schools. 

Despite these disparities, segregation levels in the region have ticked down, according to the fractionalization index, which measures the likelihood that two random people in a given area will be of different races or ethnicities. A score of one on this index represents a 100% chance that two random people will be of different racial/ethnic backgrounds, with a score of zero representing that it would be impossible. Fort Bend County (0.75 in 2017) has the highest level of diversity among the three counties, although Harris is right behind it (0.69 in 2017). In Montgomery County, the odds are a little lower at 0.50. 

Another way to measure diversity as it relates to segregation is the entropy index, which measures the degree to which racial/ethnic groups are concentrated in specific areas. An entropy index score of one would mean that only one ethnic group was represented in the area, indicating complete segregation, while a score of zero would indicate complete integration. This measure suggests Harris County is more segregated than Fort Bend or Montgomery counties. Although Montgomery County is less segregated than both Fort Bend and Harris counties, it is also the least diverse.

The greater Houston region is also home to exceptional linguistic diversity thanks to its residents who originate from all over the world. Of all three Houston-area counties, Fort Bend County has the greatest linguistic diversity, while Harris County has the most non-English speakers. About 28% of residents in Harris County are limited English speakers who either speak English “not well” or “not at all.” Spanish is the most common non-English language spoken in homes in the three-county region, followed by other Indo-European languages (such as Greek, Hindi, Italian and Persian), Vietnamese and Chinese. 

Houston is enriched by diversity

Diversity enriches Greater Houston in innumerable ways, but the population groups that contribute to our diversity have historically faced a disproportionate number of barriers to economic stability, high-quality education, and environmentally safe and healthy neighborhoods. Specific neighborhoods in our region have long been intentionally segregated, resulting in disinvestment and poor quality infrastructure. For our entire region to thrive we need not just diversity or the championing of diversity, but for all of our region’s residents to be able to prosper and benefit from our thriving economy. 

Changing attitudes can only bring us so far, but local organizations work every day to both celebrate diversity and to ensure that all residents, regardless of ability, sexuality, gender identity or racial/ethnic background have access to the resources that enable them to thrive. Here are just a few:

DiverseWorks logo

DiverseWorks is a nonprofit arts program committed to bringing people from different backgrounds together, presenting art in all forms through collaborations that honor individual artistic vision. They foster civic participation and cross-cultural understanding by taking risks and showing work that might otherwise go unseen.

Houston Coalition Against Hate logo

Houston Coalition Against Hate (HCAH) is a network of community-based organizations, institutions, and leaders who come together to reduce hate and encourage belonging. HCAH does this through education, research, relationship building and prevention initiatives, as well as partnering with organizations to host events that celebrate the diversity that makes Houston strong.

Diversity is less a characteristic of Greater Houston than it is the foundation on which it was built. Greater Houston’s diversity directly informs many other aspects of the region.

Understanding Houston has already paid service to its entrepreneurial spirit, resilience and vibrance — all of which are directly shaped by the diversity of Houston’s residents. The more we meaningfully engage with and work to include all members of our increasingly diverse region, the stronger that foundation — and our region — grows.

Houston is Resilient

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 rise, and the three-county area has added jobs at a rate faster than the nation. 

You’ve likely seen the “Houston bounces back” or “Houston Strong” messaging, but in a region celebrated for its resilience, not everyone bounces back equally after disaster strikes. What factors contribute to our ability to recover from the many ways disasters wreak havoc on our lives? It is important that, while acknowledging Houstonians’ resilience, we discuss the wide-ranging impacts behind the disasters that are often hiding behind the resilience narrative. The human experiences behind these disasters and the data we gather in their wake can both tell us more about what it is that makes Houston resilient and how we can better prepare for the future. 

Uneven recovery, ongoing risk

About one in five residential properties are at risk of flooding in Houston’s three-county area, and 286,000 properties are projected to have “substantial” risk of flooding by the year 2050. A figure made more disquieting by the fact that communities most vulnerable to flooding are the least likely to recover. Historically, these neighborhoods are on low-lying land, receive fewer public flood mitigation projects, and are characterized by decades of disinvestment, such as poor stormwater infrastructure. 

On top of that, residents of these communities are overwhelmingly low-income, immigrants, and historically marginalized, meaning they typically have the fewest resources available to prepare in advance of a storm and to help them recover from its effects once it passes.

One year after Hurricane Harvey, the Episcopal Health Foundation conducted a survey that found that Black, low-income and immigrant families were most likely to report that they did not receive financial aid after the storm or that the financial aid they did receive covered “very little” or “none” of their financial losses. They were also more likely to report that they weren’t getting the help they needed to recover. These sentiments are validated by established research that shows that federal disaster assistance policies place vulnerable groups at a disadvantage and reduce their ability to access resources and assistance for recovery. More specifically, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Rice University found that wealth inequality increased in counties hit by more disasters. In Harris County, the wealth gap between Black and white families increased by an average of $87,000 from the effects of disasters alone.

Hurricane Harvey

Hurricane Harvey is estimated to be the second-costliest storm in U.S. history, causing about $125 billion in damage, and displaced tens of thousands of people over its six days of landfall. The challenging nature of disaster relief is plain to see when staring down a number like $125 billion.

The federal response to Hurricane Harvey was historic. The Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) distributed $918.2 million in aid from its Individual and Household Program (IHP) directly to residents of the three-county area after Harvey, and the Small Business Administration (SBA) issued $1.5 billion in low-interest, long-term loans to homeowners. 

Both local government and private philanthropic dollars also play a significant role in immediate relief after disasters. Local government provides for the basic necessities of those families waiting on applications to be approved and disbursements to be released, and dollars from the private sector often serve as emergency funds for the particularly vulnerable, particularly those who have not historically accessed public benefits. Collectively, philanthropic funds to support recovery from Hurricane Harvey reached about $971 million following the storm.

Still, nearly one in five (17%) Harris County residents reported that their quality of life was worse one year after Harvey as a direct result of the storm, with Black (31%) and low-income (20%) households bearing the brunt of the effect on the region. 

COVID-19

Though the Houston region has plenty of experience activating after a storm, we had never responded to a public health disaster of this scale. But the region responded quickly in March 2020 by adapting our weather-related disaster expertise to a pandemic. Our ability to be nimble and flexible in responding to the effects of COVID-19 revealed both strengths and gaps in our resilience.

Not only were people getting sick and dying, our region suffered significant job loss, with unemployment peaking in April and May of 2020 at 14.6% in Harris County. Households with low incomes were the most likely to lose their jobs. One in five renters still reported that they were behind on payments in December 2021, almost two years after the onset of the pandemic. The Houston Metro Area has the highest rate of reported food insecurity, among the 15 most populous metros 15 times out of the first 40 surveys conducted by the Census Bureau, with the highest rates among non-white households and households with children. 

The challenges were enormous, and our region quickly responded with innovative relief funds and programs. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, but here are just a few:

  • The majority of folks who lost their jobs at the beginning of the pandemic worked in hospitality and retail. The Get Shift Done program paid for out-of-work hospitality workers to staff food pantries — this served the dual purpose of responding to the skyrocketing demand for food donation while also providing living wages to folks who were laid off. 
  • The Lost Loved One Fund, funded through the Greater Houston COVID-19 Recovery Fund and administered by Memorial Assistance Ministries provided flexible financial assistance to families that lost a primary breadwinner or immediate family member due to COVID-19. 
  • To combat food scarcity, the Urban Harvest Community Gardens Program, one of many agencies addressing food insecurity in the region, donated 136,000 pounds of food in 2020 alone, and the Houston Eats Restaurant Support program raised almost $5 million to provide for food-insecure individuals. 

Winter Storm Uri

Most recently, Winter Storm Uri brought nearly unprecedented challenges in February 2021 to a region already well-acquainted with natural disasters.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimates the true costs of Winter Storm Uri to be somewhere between $80 and $130 billion, which would make it potentially the most costly weather disaster in Texas history. The storm left millions of people without power and water, causing damage in patterns not dissimilar to those of previous disasters in that vulnerable communities were affected disproportionately. 

In response, Mayor Sylvestor Turner and Judge Lina Hidalgo quickly established the Houston Harris County Winter Storm Relief Fund, which the Greater Houston Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Houston jointly administered. The first round of emergency financial assistance was distributed within four days to pre-existing nonprofit partners with a proven record of disaster response — a pace faster than any previous local disaster response. 

To help low-income homeowners repair damage caused by burst pipes and other effects of the ice storm, the Winter Storm Relief Fund supported an innovative program from Connective, a local nonprofit, that connects families in need with home repair agencies. Connective’s work streamlines the home repair process by serving as a one-stop shop for families and bringing increased accessibility to social services through their knowledge of the disaster relief cycle and cutting-edge, human-centered technology. 

Resilience for all

True climate resilience, however, is ultimately about not only ensuring the most vulnerable in our region are able to recover from disasters quickly, but also anticipating and preparing for the worst. Residents who are economically, housing, and food secure before disaster strikes are most likely to recover from the negative impacts of disasters in the shortest amount of time. 

Houston has certainly earned its reputation for responding quickly and effectively after crises, but the future of reaching true climate resilience will require transformative systems/ infrastructure change, public investment in areas and communities most at risk, and philanthropic dollars that spur innovation. Still, Houston is strong, as are the people who call it home, and our collective capacity for innovation, empathy and hard work will always remain a hallmark of our region.


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 region and its residents. 

Maybe it isn’t their fault. Houston does, to some degree, defy categorization. Are we cowboys or astronauts? Are we defined by the award-winning chefs or the abundance of mom-and-pop spots? Our world-class museums or our fanatical football fans? 

The confluence of Houstonians’s ideas and sensibilities have informed the evolution of our region in complex and unobvious ways, too great in number to track, catalog or fully recount. The region’s diversity and vastness extend to our arts, culture, and food — and create an environment of constant discovery. Understanding Houston would like to spotlight just a few places and organizations that make our corner of the world so vibrant. 

Houston’s world-class arts community 

Houston is home to the esteemed Theater District, which boasts nearly 13,000 seats, and is one of only five cities with permanent resident companies in each of the major performing arts disciplines. The Alley Theatre, Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Houston Ballet’s Center for Dance, [Jesse H.] Jones Hall [for the Performing Arts], Revention Music Center and the Wortham Theater Center are all within the 17 blocks that comprise Houston’s Theater District. Additionally, many smaller venues and organizations bring the arts to all corners of the region. 

Similar to the Theater District, Houston’s renowned Museum District is broken into four walkable, themed zones, featuring both touring and permanent exhibits throughout. While the Museum of Fine Arts might be the oldest art museum in Texas, it is certainly not the only way to engage with the arts in Houston.

There were more than 1,260 arts and culture organizations in Houston’s three-county area in 2020, up from just 181 in 1990. Most of this growth was in Harris County (599 new organizations), but both Montgomery and Fort Bend counties both saw significant growth in arts and cultural sectors as well — the number of arts and cultural organizations in Montgomery County grew tenfold in 30 years. 

These organizations contribute significantly to the local economy as well; the Houston Metropolitan Area’s nonprofit arts and culture industry generated over $579.4 million in total economic activity in 2015, according to the latest Arts & Economic Prosperity report. These organizations directly supported 14,389 full-time equivalent jobs and delivered $42.8 million in local and state government revenue.

Despite an abundance of arts organizations and performances, families with lower incomes do not have the same level of access to the arts as higher-income households.

According to the latest Houston Arts Survey, just 29% of respondents with reported household incomes below $37,500 attended a live performance, compared to 52% for respondents with annual household incomes between $37,501 and $62,500 — and the disparities continue to increase with higher earnings. 

However, Houston’s passion for the arts isn’t fully reflected in official access or attendance figures. Many organizations in Greater Houston work to address disparities in access to and participation in the arts. Groups like Asia Society Texas Center, MECA Houston, the Laini Kuumba Ngoma Troupe and the Institute of Hispanic Culture celebrate and showcase the artistic traditions and cultural expression of diverse communities that have been historically underrepresented in the “traditional arts” scene. 

A region shaped by local and global traditions

Houston’s three-county region observes an amalgam of traditions — both homegrown and carried from afar. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the world’s largest of its kind, is an example of a homegrown tradition informed by the traditions of another culture. The Rodeo grew out of an effort to preserve a regional industry but has made efforts to incorporate and recognize Latin American contributions to the industry and culture from which it was born. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo wouldn’t exist without  the charreada, which was the cultural precursor to the rodeo, or those big Texas cattle drives (which sustained the nascent Texas economy) that came by way of Spanish Mexico. 

The Houston region is home to a number of religious congregations that originated from around the globe. The Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH) is the largest Islamic society in North America, and the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir is the first and only traditional Hindu temple of its kind in the United States — the stones for which were hand sculpted by 2,000 artisans in India. 

The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir is one in a long line of ambitious monuments that tells the story of our region. The Astrodome also comes to mind, but so do smaller places like the “Be Someone” bridge and the Rothko Chapel, which showcase a different form of Houston’s social and intellectual ambitions. The former often serves as a barometer for our times, as the message often changes to represent the current needs and fears of the citizenry, and the latter stands immovable. 

Houston’s culinary influence

Houston, once known mainly for Tex-Mex and chain restaurants, now boasts eateries that represent more than 70 countries and American regions. Renowned chef and restaurateur, David Chang called Houston the “next food capital of America” in 2016, and the food scene has only grown since then. The most meaningful way that the food scene in Houston has changed recently is not in the flavor of the food itself, but in the visibility it has gained on the national stage — 10 Houston chefs were among the 2022 James Beard Award Semifinalists.

Despite the bevy of talented chefs on the cutting edge of cuisine, the evolution of the region’s culinary identity is due in principle to one factor: the diversity of its residents. 

Our position on the Gulf Coast secured a foothold not only on fresh local seafood but on one-of-a-kind Cajun cuisine, and the French fundamentals that inform it. The Czexans (Czech Texans) that immigrated to the hill country have given us a lot more than the famous, but still nationally obscure kolache. The fact that our region is home to the third largest population of Vietnamese Americans in the nation has contributed to a culinary culture in which dishes like pho or bánh mì are as commonplace as BBQ and hamburgers. Additionally, the significant South Asian population has given rise to some of the most acclaimed Indian and Pakistani food in the country. 

A region made vibrant by its residents

We all know that Houston is diverse. We have seen the data asserted time and time again. What that data does not tell us, however, is the individual stories of all of those people. The un-measurable and intangible essence of what makes Houston special is that for every person represented artistically or culinarily in the three-county region, there are thousands more, cooking in their homes or painting for their grandchildren. 

Houston is certainly vibrant, but it wouldn’t be anything without Houstonians — who are as difficult to define as the region itself. Be they artists, chefs, or cowboys, the stories and passions of the people that inhabit the region are what bring Houston alive.

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. Understanding Houston, like the Kinder Institute, believes that data helps tell our region’s story and provides a barometer with which we can measure how we change over time. Our region is of such consequence not only because of our size and demographics, but also because of strengths like our industrial diversity and the opportunities we have to address our region’s unique vulnerabilities.

Houston’s population growth, population change

Greater Houston’s population has changed significantly over the last few decades, a trend that will inform the other ways in which our region will continue to evolve and grow.

Houston’s three-county region has added over one million residents since 2010, with each county seeing significant population increases. Population growth comes from two sources: natural increase and net migration. Natural increase refers to the number of births minus the number of deaths, and it is relatively predictable. Net migration, both domestic and international, is more affected by external factors, such as cost of living, the regional economy and public policy.

The U.S. Census Bureau distinguishes between domestic and international migration when calculating net migration. According to Census Bureau data, Harris County, the most populous of Houston’s three-county region, experienced significant negative domestic migration between 2010 and 2020. Approximately 80,000 more people left Harris County to live elsewhere in the U.S. than moved into Harris County from somewhere else in the country over the ten-year period.

Despite the negative domestic migration, Harris County (and the region overall) continues to grow at a rapid rate. This is due to both the natural increase and high levels of international migration — Harris County gained 289,400 residents from international migration over the ten-year period. The population in Houston hasn’t just grown, however, it has fundamentally changed. 

More than two-thirds of Houston’s three-county region is now made up of people of color, marking a complete demographic transformation from the region’s racial/ethnic composition just 40 years ago. The largest contribution to this immense shift has been the growth of people who identify as Asian American or Hispanic, who now comprise 47% of the population of Houston’s three-county area, up from 16% in 1980.

Increasing industrial diversity

Houston has a reputation for being an energy town. This reputation, while not entirely unearned, is limited in its assessment of the Houston economy. Houston ranks third among U.S. metropolitan areas in number of Fortune 500 headquarters, and received half a billion dollars in venture capital funds for the tech sector in 2019 alone. 

The jobs in Houston’s three-county region have also changed. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of people employed in management of companies and enterprises increased five-fold to 43,000 in 2020 from 8,000 only 20 years ago. And jobs in agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting in our region have fallen 40% to 28,000 in 2020 from 45,600 in 2000, according to the Quarterly Census for Employment and Wages. Perhaps most concerning, manufacturing jobs in the region have also fallen 7% in that same time period. Further, job growth in Texas and the three-county region has outpaced the national rate in all major industries but healthcare and social assistance, though that industry now employs 13% of our region’s workforce compared to 9% in 2000.

Healthcare and social assistance jobs, however, are more likely to qualify as ‘“opportunity employment.” Opportunity employment refers to the jobs accessible to workers without bachelor’s degrees that pay above the national median wage and reflect the local cost of living. In the Houston metro area, 24% of employment was classified as opportunity employment in 2017, while 27% of jobs required a bachelor’s degree, and 49% of employment was considered lower-wage. 

Climate change and environmental progress

It would be impossible to discuss the region’s evolution over the last few decades without mentioning our relationship with the environment, natural disasters and shifting climate patterns in Houston. The region continues to feel the effects of more frequent and severe storms, which have shaped the region in many ways — some more obvious than others. 

Although many in the region have grown accustomed to the oppressive Houston heat, Houston is demonstrably hotter than it was a decade ago, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The 30-year average temperature in our region increased between 0.6 and 1.0 degrees Fahrenheit between 2010 and 2020 — unwelcome news to residents who live in a region that can be dangerously hot. Montgomery County had over 500 days at temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit in the last decade, compared with fewer than 300 days the previous decade. That is almost two-thirds of a year of extra extreme heat over a single decade. 

The numerous and recent natural disasters our region has experienced have also changed us. (And the National Weather Service.) FEMA has declared a disaster in our region eight times since 2015, and more are likely to come our way given predictions that warmer temperatures will continue to cause stronger hurricanes. But Houstonians by and large know that now; in 2019 53% of Houstonians participating in the Kinder Houston Area Survey reported that the shifting climate patterns is a serious threat, up from 39% in 2010.

At the same time, we have made major strides in improving our region’s air and water quality. For example, between 2000 and 2020, levels of harmful particulate matter fell 23% in the Houston Metropolitan Area. Texas also produces a larger share (23%, nearly double the national rate) of its energy from renewable resources than the rest of the nation. Living up to its reputation as a city ready to embrace change, the City of Houston announced its Climate Action Plan, aiming to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Changing perspectives and behaviors

We’ve seen how the region’s demographics, industry and environment have evolved over the last few decades, but how have Houstonians’ behaviors, opinions and attitudes changed? 

Resident priorities have changed in the past 10 years in many meaningful ways. Voting in Houston has experienced a surge in popularity, with voter registration rates at an all-time high, in keeping with the country’s increased participation throughout the pandemic and in the 2020 election. Voter turnout increased by almost 10 percentage points in Fort Bend County between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and 7.8 points in both Harris and Montgomery counties. Houston voters still lag behind the rest of the country in voter turnout, but the region is making progress.

The region has also gone through some important ideological changes related to sustainability and urban innovation. Metro’s light-rail service and bus routes have been expanded, and Houston BCycle, a local non-profit bike-share program, has seen rider numbers spike. Houston Parks Board has introduced their Bayou Greenways Plan in an effort to create and connect a navigable greenspace through the system of bayous running through the city.

Some of the most profound shifts in our region are also some of the least visible. Gradual changes in ideology have also taken place. For example, support for same sex marriage in the Houston area has more than doubled in the last few decades, growing to 64% in 2019 from 31% in 1993, according to the 2020 Kinder Houston Area Survey. 

The effects of a diverse population may have inspired another change; 71% of U.S.-born non-Hispanic white adults in Harris County are in favor of granting undocumented immigrants a path to legal citizenship if they speak English and have no criminal record, up from 56% in 2010. 

Despite our challenges, the proportion of Houston-area residents who say the region is a “good” or “excellent” place to live has increased to 76% in 2020 from 59% in 1983, according to data from the Kinder Houston Area Survey.

Houston’s resilience won’t change

Change can be unsettling, but it can also represent growth and improvement. As much as our region has already changed, we know more is still to come — some changes we may reasonably predict while others may completely surprise us. And in the face of all this change, we look to one constant aspect of our region: resiliency. Whatever may come our way, we know that armed with the right information and resources, community leaders and residents alike can help Houston thrive through whatever may come next.

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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 seem trivial, but for the teachers, classrooms, and students actually making these moves, this student mobility is disruptive, destabilizing, and carries both short- and long-term consequences.

Students who change schools score lower on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) tests, both during the year they change schools and in subsequent ones. Changing schools also places students at an increased risk of being retained a grade, dropping out of high school, and failing to graduate at all. Moreover, the costs of student mobility extend beyond the mobile kids themselves — schools and classrooms with higher mobility have fewer kids passing the STAAR and lower overall ratings, even though these ratings are based almost exclusively on students who haven’t changed schools. Mobility matters for students, for schools, and for communities, and to better address the challenges it poses to the Houston area, we must first know more about who is mobile, where mobility takes place and why mobility happens.

Which students are mobile

Our research found patterns among students who change schools. In the Houston region, white students and Black students are more likely to change schools than Hispanic students or Asian students. Student performance — as much as it is affected by student mobility — also predicts which students will change schools. For instance, if a student scores in the bottom 10th percentile on the STAAR math test, during the next school year that student is five times more likely to change schools as their peers who scored in the top 10th percentile. 

Students with lower STAAR scores in 2015-16 were more than five times as likely to change schools in the 2016-17 school year

Perhaps the most notable trend in mobility is its inertia — students who change schools one year are more likely to change schools again the next year. In fact, about one in five previously mobile students will change schools again, compared to about one in 20 non-previously mobile students. Student mobility begets student mobility begets student mobility.

1-in-5
previously mobile students will change schools again, compared to about 1-in-20 non-previously mobile students.

Where mobility takes place

One of the features of student mobility that makes it so disruptive is that it typically involves students changing not only their school but also the district they attend. Less than one-third of student mobility begins and ends at campuses in the same district. That means the majority of student mobility involves students going to a new school, in a new district, with new rules, cultures, classroom climates, and social contexts. But while most student mobility travels between school districts, that does not mean students and their families are moving great distances. Some of the most common student mobility is between neighboring campuses, it just so happens that in the urban context of Houston, those campuses belong to different districts.

This pattern of student mobility — going between districts but remaining close to home — has produced six major student mobility networks in the Houston region. These mobility networks consist of schools who commonly exchange students during the school year, are geographically clustered, and cut across district boundaries. They are identified as the Central, East, North, Southeast, Southwest, and West networks, as depicted in the image below. To see and learn more about these six mobility networks, click here.

Source: Bao, K., Molina, M., Kennedy, C., & Potter, D. (2021). Student mobility networks in the Greater Houston area: Elementary school student mobility networks. Houston, TX: Houston Education Research Consortium, Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Rice University.

“Less than one-third of student mobility begins and ends at campuses in the same district.”

Why student mobility happens

The reasons students change schools, while diverse, tend to be driven by economics and education. The economic drivers of student mobility relate to the diminishing availability of quality, affordable housing in Houston. As parents look to balance better, safer communities and affordability, there is an ongoing cycle of mobility that follows — as evidenced in the inertia of student mobility mentioned earlier. In addition to finding affordable housing, parents also face decisions around where to live relative to where they work. 

And from an education perspective, a student’s current school may not be working for them,so the parents may decide to relocate. Despite the best intention behind much of mobility — finding better housing, seeking out a schooling context more aligned with what a parent wants — the school change is disruptive to students’ learning and achievement.

Why student mobility issues persist in Houston

Changing schools is a disruptive event, particularly when it is accompanied by a change in where a family lives. Many districts around the Houston area have policies and plans — formal and informal — to help minimize the disruptiveness of the change. Some schools that experience high levels of student mobility have “welcoming teams” of students who buddy up with the newly arrived peer to show them around the building, help them with their class schedule and get them accustomed to the new campus. Other districts have invested in academic support specialists who are connecting with mobile students within 48 hours of their arrival to their new campus to meet them, learn about their skills, and plug them into any remedial services that help prepare the student to fit into their new classes. Still other districts have “home school” programs, so that if a child’s family needs to find a new home they can finish out the school-year at their original school (in some cases, even if the family has moved to a neighborhood in a different district). 

Districts already do so much in service to mobile students, so why does changing schools continue to have such negative consequences?

First, student mobility is a regional problem that districts are being forced to grapple with independently. That so little mobility stays within a district means that even if a district passed policies or plans to eliminate all of its student mobility, those plans — which would likely carry significant costs — would address less than one-third of the student mobility coming into the district each year. This fact notwithstanding, districts have put into place systems that minimize disruption in the logistics of students’ education when they change schools within the district. 

Every district in the Houston region has an integrated student information system that connects all campuses in a district in real-time. If a student was enrolled in School A on Friday and School B on Monday, if those schools are in the same district, all of the student records and information associated with that student follow them instantaneously. These records are critical because they contain information on special services and accommodations students receive, such as services or supports provided for students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) in special education programs. These student records also include information about English learner status, gifted/talented status, interventions or other programs the student may be involved with, and other details about a student’s schooling that are not always otherwise available.

Texas public schools have a way to exchange these records between school districts, the Texas Records Exchange (TREx), but the system involves one campus requesting information and another campus sending information. This process can often be slow and burdensome. In terms of instruction time, the loss of a week or more when a student is not receiving the appropriate supports and services can set students back significantly. Improving upon the TREx system to provide real-time access to student records across districts would go a long way to optimizing the continuity in children’s education, but any such improvements would need to be made with an eye towards logistical and data security matters.

Second, since student mobility tends to travel between districts, mobile students become the responsibility of everybody and simultaneously nobody. Mobile students find themselves in this space, in no small part, because currently the Texas Education Agency (TEA) only counts students for accountability purposes if the student was enrolled at a school at the time of the October Snapshot (early part of the school year) and when state assessments were administered (later part of the school year). For those students who change schools in the middle of the year, their STAAR performance is not counted toward any campus, and if the student moved between districts, it’s not counted toward any district. TEA excludes all students who change schools during the school year from the accountability subset. This makes sense — to hold a campus and district accountable for its students who have been there the whole year — but also opens up the opportunity for mobile students to fall through the proverbial cracks.

Exploring available solutions

As a multi-district issue, many districts will need to work together to address student mobility. Additionally, the same way school districts currently have assistant superintendents overseeing elementary schools or directors of multilingual programs, the state needs to fund parallel positions for overseeing mobile students.State funding could be specifically allocated to positions housed within districts tasked with working across districts to streamline information sharing, collaborate on policies prioritizing schooling stability, and work to curtail the drivers of student mobility as well as its consequences. In doing so, districts and the state can work together to support these students currently poised to slip through accountability cracks.

Admittedly, a school district could independently opt to prioritize its mobile students and fund a “director of mobile student services” position; however, as discussed above — mobility is not a single district’s issue. Asking for a district to foot the bill for a position that would work to serve and support students coming from other districts as well as going to other districts could be unnecessarily fraught with problems, as parents and communities might reasonably ask why their tax dollars are going to support students who are no longer attending a school in their district. 

The state — or, potentially entities in the philanthropic community — could serve as a funder to offset community expenses, building on the precedent of the state’s programs and departments aimed at supporting “highly mobile” students (which is a program appropriately aimed at supporting students and their families who are experiencing homelessness), to create a new initiative in charge of overseeing and supporting a larger segment of the student population: those who change schools each school year.

In addition to lessening the consequences of mobility, reducing the phenomenon altogether is also an option worth exploring. To keep students in the schools that work for them and their families, funds could be raised in order to allow public school districts to financially support families being forced to move to find affordable housing. While the reasons given above for students changing schools listed economic and educational reasons, the most common reason is economics, and in the Houston context that often translates to families needing to find safe, affordable housing. 

To the extent families are being forced to move because they can no longer afford their current housing arrangement, funds could be set up in a district to support families and to do so in a sliding-scale manner to ensure that the most supports went to help those who could benefit the most from it. The source of these funds could be philanthropic, carved out from current budgets, or through the establishment of a new tax. Though no one wants a higher tax bill, small increases to property taxes that went towards keeping families housed who would otherwise be moving, could actually help increase property values by creating more stable residents, reducing transiency, and promoting the family and education in the community.

Final thoughts

Tens of thousands of students change schools in the Houston area each year. This mobility translates to lower test scores and higher risks for grade retention and dropout. Yet, it is not a mystery which students will change schools, and there is a relatively high degree of certainty where students will go when they’re mobile. 

The newfound understanding of this phenomenon in the Houston area shows student mobility is both widespread throughout the region and can be dealt with proactively. Student information systems can be connected across districts to ensure greater continuity in children’s education, positions can be established with the purpose of directly and intentionally supporting mobile students (and their families), and trivial adjustments to tax-rates can translate to meaningful sums of money tagged to help stabilize families and communities. 

Student mobility has been part of the Houston region and educational landscape for years, but it does not have to be. Now knowing the patterns and predictors of who is mobile, where they are mobile, and why they are mobile offers the opportunity to move past understanding student mobility in the Houston context to do something about it.

References:

1Houston-area schools refers to the collection of 10 public school districts in and around Harris County who partnered with the Houston Education Research Consortium (HERC) to study student mobility.

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 and driving a car a fact of life for most residents.

Do you need a car in Houston? It depends on who you ask and where you live. Historically speaking, Houston is similar to most U.S cities developed post World War II. As people’s ability to make and save money grew, so too did demand for things like spacious homes and personal vehicles, the latter made affordable by the innovations of the Ford assembly line. 

But why is Houston so car-dependent today? The sheer amount of ground to cover is certainly a contributing factor to Houston’s car-centrism, but more philosophical barriers, like Texans’ fierce attitude toward independence, contribute as well. Cars offer freedom and flexibility, all while contributing to personal style and status.

That said, Houston’s reputation as a car city, while grounded both culturally and statistically, is not immutable. In fact, 58.8% of Houstonians believe that a much-improved mass transit system is vital to the success of the city, according to the 2020 Kinder Houston Area Survey, despite the fact that 80% of Houstonians drive to work alone in a personal vehicle (2019 American Community Survey). However, research has shown that people often choose to commute by car, even when other travel modes like public transportation, walking or biking might save them time and money, making any major shifts in how people choose to get around a foreseeable challenge. 

The cost of Houston’s car dependency

Average commute times in Houston

How bad is Houston traffic? It may not surprise you to hear that average commute times in Houston’s three county region are higher than the national average, or that they’re generally getting worse. Houston ranks #3 of 15 large metros for worst commuter congestion, and #4 for worst commercial truck congestion. Motorists spent an average of 49 hours stuck in Houston traffic in 2020, averaging out to $1,097 in fuel and lost time.

According to census data, Houstonians spend an hour a day getting to and from work, which is higher than both the state and national average, according to Census data. This is all despite 80% of the population in Houston choosing the supposed convenience of driving alone in a personal vehicle. More cars on the road means more traffic. It also means more accidents, which also means more traffic. While the pandemic may have given commuters and the environment a short reprieve from congestion and pollution, both accident and roadway fatality reports show that the sojourn is over; from January to September of 2021 Texas roadways saw a 15% jump in crash frequency.

As normalcy ebbs its way back into our lives and our roadways, so do the safety concerns, environmental concerns, and tedium that come with all those people just trying to get somewhere.

Pollution

Ozone pollution in Houston has abated over the last twenty years, with fewer days in which ozone poses a measurable threat to our residents. Days still exist in which just walking around in urban areas would pose significant risks to your health, often in the dead heat of summer. Despite a national decline, ozone pollution is still very much a threat in Houston, due in part to the number of cars on the road. About 60% of Houston’s ozone pollution is estimated to result from vehicle exhaust alone.

Particle pollution (or PM) are small solid and liquid particles, like soot, released into the air by a variety of industrial processes, that reduce visibility and cause haze. Of particular concern are PM2.5 particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter that are easily inhaled. In 2019 the EPA determined that short or long-term exposure to PM2.5 can lead to cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, and even early death. PM2.5 levels in Metropolitan Houston (10.1 µg/m3) are about as far below national limits (12 µg/m3) as they are above the national average (8 µg/m3). 

National standards for acceptable levels of both ozone and particle pollution have seen consistent reductions over the years as we develop a better understanding of the danger posed by these environmental hazards. Because of this, Houston is now within acceptable limits on both ozone and PM, but has lagged behind the national pace of reduction in both categories. The air quality in Houston is still of great concern, as the American Lung Association State of the Air Report rates the air in Harris and Montgomery counties an “F,” and the PM2.5 numbers could fall on the wrong side of the new national limit upon the EPA’s imminent reexamination.

So if we’re doing better, and Houston falls within most national guidelines, why is this important? Because pollution doesn’t affect everyone in the same way — some neighborhoods face higher threats than others, and Black and Hispanic residents most acutely suffer the effects of pollution though they produce less of it.

Continue reading about Houston’s climate at UnderstandingHouston.org

Houston’s car-centric infrastructure

Given the consequences of high solo-commuting rates, why don’t more residents elect to ride Houston’s public transportation? Is Houston walkable? Bikeable?

Simply put, most of the region is just not very walkable. According to the National Walkability Index provided by the EPA, most neighborhoods in all three counties have below-average walkability. This car-centric infrastructure is due in part to the sprawling geography of Houston, but also has a lot to do with the cultural prioritization of cars over pedestrians. Houstonians want walkable urban spaces, but the cultural and infrastructural barriers are high and made of poured concrete.

Cyclists face similar issues in that the city is built to serve motorists. Biking carries the same (if not more) health and environmental benefits as walking. Houston can be a delightful place to bike after all; the city has committed to the creation of 1,800 miles of bike lanes by 2027 through its Bike Plan. Although 345 of those miles currently exist, only 25 miles are protected (just over 7%), a fact that underscores why many might be reluctant to pick up the hobby.

However, cycling is not always a hobby. Many bike commuters choose to cycle not out of respect for its social or cardiovascular benefits, but out of necessity; your average bicycle costs a lot less than a car. And due to Houston’s car-centric streets, bicyclists often endanger themselves getting around, with Harris County drivers striking cyclists 557 times in 2021, killing 23 riders. 

What about Houston’s public transportation? Why is it that Houstonians choose public transit at half of the national rate?

Although national rates for commuters choosing public transportation have gone up since 2010, rates in Houston, and Texas at large, have actually gone down. Part of the problem is the availability of stops in general. Only 5% of households in Fort Bend and Montgomery counties are located within a quarter-mile of a public transit stop, while Harris County sits at 38%.

Low-income populations use public transit far more often than others, a finding consistent with national trends. In 2017, more than twice as many Harris County residents in poverty used public transportation as those who live above the poverty line.

These individuals would benefit from more bus and train stops as first steps, in addition to basic amenities (such as benches or roofs), extended service hours, and expanded routes to fully access the vibrant culture, prosperity and opportunity Greater Houston has to offer.

The road ahead

Steps have been taken to make our region less car-reliant and safer for those who do choose to ride bicycles or public transportation when traversing the region. Where there once were no protected bike lanes in the city of Houston, there are now 345 miles of high-comfort bike lanes, with plans for 1,800 more miles currently in progress. Additionally, programs like Houston BCycle are making it easier for residents of all means and backgrounds to choose bikes over cars when traveling within urban areas.

Houston-area cyclists aren’t the only ones enjoying improvements to our transportation infrastructure; thanks to people like Janis Scott and the team at LINK Houston, safe and comfortable public transit options are reaching more parts of our region than ever before.

When armed with the right information, we believe our region can continue to take the steps necessary for a less congested, more free-moving Houston that’s safe and accessible for all.

Helpful Articles by Understanding Houston:

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 whether you’re buying new business software or a cup of coffee, Houston small businesses and the entrepreneurs who run them likely play a role in your purchase. 

Industry is in our history

Houston owes its existence to brothers John Kirby and Augustus Chapman Allen, two entrepreneurs who saw opportunity in the unrest following the bloody Battle of San Jacinto. They bought their initial spit of 6,600 acres for just $10,000, successfully lobbied the Texas Congress for capital status, and put some ads in the paper claiming glory for Sam Houston and the Republic — all with about a dozen citizens sitting on a muddy bayou in land that wasn’t considered particularly desirable.

First, they built a railway (that would go on to join the Union Pacific Railroad) and advertised the city as the place “where 17 railroads meet the sea,” despite the fifty miles in between Houston and the Gulf of Mexico. Once the railroad was underway, the city spent the next 50+ years bringing the sea to its borders, dredging Buffalo Bayou and Galveston Bay incrementally to accommodate larger and larger ships.1 They eventually turned that muddy stream into the second largest port in the United States, beginning the project before oil was ever even found in the state.

Oil did, however, change everything. It made Houston the unofficial capital of the energy industry, combining the maverick spirit of its founders with the industry boom of many in the country chasing down the valuable resource, and contributing significantly to the growth of our region. 

Houston’s origins tell a story not just of the quality of the human spirit, but of the inherent balance and imbalance of economic opportunity. To continue improving our great city through years of its exponential industrial and population growth, it is necessary to look unceasingly into how our entrepreneurial nature can better serve every single Houstonian.

In Houston, small business is big

Houston is certainly a huge, global city, but it just wouldn’t be the same without Mom and Pop.

Houston is famous for its maverick founders, its tycoons, for the big business and even bigger briskets — but the reality is that business in Houston isn’t always so “big.” 

Small businesses employed about 14% of our region’s workforce in 2019 — nearly 400,000 people. In addition, 81% of entrepreneurial firms in the Houston Metropolitan Area have fewer than 20 employees. According to estimates from the Greater Houston Partnership, the Metropolitan Area had 663,800 “non-employee businesses” in 2018; these are most often consultants or freelancers — the entrepreneurial spirit exemplified.

What is the main business in Houston, Texas for small business owners? While real estate is Houston’s number one industry for small businesses, with 95% of firms employing fewer than 20 , industries like retail and administrative services are right on their heels, and smaller companies exist in all sectors (even energy!). These small businesses benefit Houston’s economy in important ways. In particular, creation of small businesses  among communities of color — sometimes a necessity to overcome employment barriers, challenges in building personal wealth, and discrimination — can help increase economic opportunity..

Continued intentional support of Houston small businesses, especially among communities that disproportionately face challenges like lack of credit access, social capital and accumulation of generational wealth, is what the path toward a healthier and more vibrant local economy looks like.

81% of Houston-area firms have fewer than 20 employees.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Annual Business Survey, data year 2019 

Diversity and disparities in Houston small business

As well as its reputation for entrepreneurship, Houston is also a city known for its diverse population. Its cultural diversity today mirrors what demographers predict the U.S. population will look like in half a century. Houston’s reputation for entrepreneurship is inextricably linked to the city’s diversity. The growing populations in Houston from diverse backgrounds, namely immigrants and people of color, are not only the economic and cultural driving force for the evolution of our city, but also the future of our country.

Houston ranks fourth in the nation for start-ups owned by Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), with 35% of start-ups in the Houston Metropolitan Area being BIPOC-owned. While 35% is high enough to outpace most major metros in the United States, it obviously falls short of true representation; the BIPOC population share of Houston Metro is far greater, at about 65%, according to 2020 Census data. Black and female residents remain particularly underrepresented in the small business community, with only 25% of small businesses in the Houston area being solely woman-owned, and only 3% being Black-owned, according to the 2020 Annual Business Survey.

These trends underline the fact that simply being diverse is not enough, and that disparity will edge out prosperity if not given the proper attention and resources.

Continue reading about income inequality and diversity in Houston

Only 35% of new Houston businesses are BIPOC-owned

By contrast, these residents represent 65% of our region’s population.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Annual Business Survey, data year 2019 

A region filled with allies for Houston entrepreneurs

So, is Houston a good city for business? What kind of resources do Houston entrepreneurs have aside from an industrious culture? Despite common perceptions, the entrepreneurial spirit is not solely an individual cause. Houston’s penchant for entrepreneurship is aided in great part by our philanthropic, academic and nonprofit communities, which work to cultivate and support aspiring business owners from all walks of life. 

These are just a few of the organizations whose work empowers entrepreneurs throughout Greater Houston. 

Houston Fund for Social Justice and Economic Equity 

This new initiative led by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and some of Houston’s top community leaders is working to fund and drive strategic progress for Black-owned Houston businesses and nonprofits.

Impact Hub Houston

With their Black Marketing Initiative, Impact Hub Houston is raising funds and offering training programs to elevate and support Houston’s Black entrepreneurs as they recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Prison Entrepreneurship Program

The beauty of entrepreneurship is that its benefits are open to all — even those currently behind bars. The people at the Prison Entrepreneurship Program work directly with those currently incarcerated to foster and encourage their entrepreneurial spirits, so that they might find and create new opportunities for themselves and their communities once released. 

The Wolff Center For Entrepreneurship

The Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship at UH’s Bauer College of Business has been ranked the number one or two entrepreneurship program in the country, including a number one ranking in 2021 for the third consecutive year. Over the past decade, more than 1,400 businesses have been started by Wolff Center students, earning a collective $399 million in funding.

Entrepreneurship matters to Houston

Ensuring that Houston-area entrepreneurs have access to the tools and resources they need in order to thrive is vital to the continued success of our region. By understanding the challenges and barriers current and aspiring entrepreneurs face in Greater Houston, we can better equip our region with the tools it needs to foster an even healthier small business community that positively impacts us all.

As important as they are to our region’s health and prosperity, Houston’s entrepreneurs are also a reflection of other truths about life in our city. Be sure to follow along on social media and in our newsletter to keep up with the “Houston Is …” series all year long.

Helpful Articles by Understanding Houston:

References:

1Understanding Houston utilizes the U.S. Census term, “Hispanic,” “Latino” or “Hispanic/Latino” when referring to the overall population. For the purposes of this article, we will use these terms interchangeably depending on the nomenclature used in our cited sources.

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 the chance to return to normalcy — or at least something like it. And while 2021 certainly gave us more to celebrate than its predecessor, it also came with its share of challenges and surprises.

From big freeze blackouts to vaccine rollouts, an Astros World Series to an Astroworld tragedy, the greater Houston area was at the center of some of 2021’s most talked about events. And with so much clogging our newsfeeds on any given day of 2021, it wasn’t always easy to keep up with the finer details, especially with one event often overtaking another before the dust could even settle.

That’s why we’re closing out the year by taking a look at the numbers and unpacking the things that defined life in Greater Houston during 2021.

Winter Storm Uri

Greater Houston may be no stranger to natural disasters, but freezing weather has not historically been our region’s burden to bear. Then came Winter Storm Uri. Uri blew into Texas barely a month and a half into the new year, bringing with it temperatures as low as 13℉ in Houston and leaving about 1.4 million Houstonians waking up to freezing cold temperatures and no electricity.

Hours turned to days as people desperately waited for their power to come back on. The surprise of an extended power outage left many without food, water and other essential supplies needed to endure such conditions –– including highly vulnerable communities, who are less likely to have the emergency supplies or funds on-hand to endure unexpected emergencies.

Here’s how Winter Storm Uri impacted Greater Houston/Texas, by the numbers: 

The COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine rollout 

Despite what many had hoped, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to shape Houston life in 2021, impacting our region, its residents and its healthcare systems. However, thanks in significant part to the effectiveness of available COVID-19 vaccines, residents and businesses have found new ways to carry on in the face of the ongoing pandemic. 

As one of the largest and most diverse major metropolitan areas in the country, the greater Houston region played a significant role in setting the tone for vaccine rollouts across the nation. Despite some early challenges regarding inequity in access, vaccines have had a mostly successful rollout throughout our region, albeit at inconsistent rates.

Even after all Texas adults became eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on March 29, 2021, hesitancy and accessibility remained barriers for many. According to survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Houston-area residents have expressed a variety of reasons for not getting vaccinated.

Of those surveyed, 51% of those not yet vaccinated cited concern about side effects as the driving factor behind their hesitancy. While the vaccine has proven to be safe over the past 12 months, trust issues remain a concern. A third of those surveyed said they did not trust the COVID-19 vaccine, and possibly more concerning, more than a quarter of respondents cited distrust of the government as a driving force in their decision not to get vaccinated. As the vaccine is arguably our most critical tool in our battle against the deadly impact of COVID-19, consistent communication about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine remains vital.

Amidst a protracted vaccine rollout that was even more challenging overseas, two COVID-19 variants — Delta and Omicron — have emerged, presenting new challenges for public health officials and medical professionals. While the impact Omicron could have in our region remains to be seen, Delta represented significant challenges at its peak, overwhelming area hospitals and medical facilities – with COVID-19 patients occupying 21.3% of area hospital beds the week of August 22, 2021, a significant increase from just 5.9% the month before, and just 2.3% the month before that. 

85% of COVID-19 deaths in Texas were among the unvaccinated. 

The Summer surge also contributed to a sobering death toll. As of December 8, 2020, 3,890 people had died of COVID-19 throughout the three-county region. A year later, that number tripled to 11,721. According to a study conducted by the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, 85% of people ages 12+ who died of complications from COVID-19 between January 15 and October 1, 2021 were not vaccinated. 

Houston’s population keeps growing and changing

The results of the 2020 census were released this year and confirmed what many residents could already feel: Our region — and our state — has grown significantly over the past decade. In fact, population growth in Greater Houston accounted for a quarter of the total population growth in the state of Texas. 

Between 2010 and 2020, the three-county area population grew by 1,040,787 people, a 20% increase. While Harris County added the most residents total, Fort Bend County experienced the highest growth rate at 40.6% over the last decade.

Non-white people made up 95% of all of Texas’ growth in the past 10 years –– and Hispanics alone accounted for half of that growth. 

This population growth was significant enough to warrant the creation of a new congressional district in the Houston area.

Further reading: Take a deeper look at what the 2020 Census tells us about Greater Houston

Houston’s housing market in 2021

Growing populations and pandemic-impacted markets have had a significant impact on both the availability and affordability of housing in Greater Houston. Though the greater Houston region has historically had a reputation for affordability, that trend has been gradually reversing for years, reaching a boiling point alongside similar markets nationwide.

The median sale price for a single-family home in the Houston area grew by 16% — from $270,000 in November 2020 to $314,000 in November 2021, according to Greater Houston Partnership analysis of data from Houston Association of Realtors. And total sales in November 2021 were up 5.6% from the same time last year. 

Home sales increased only for homes valued $250,000 and higher.

Source: Greater Houston Partnership analysis of data from Houston Association of Realtors, November 2020 – November 2021

Even as home prices increased, the demand and competition for buying them remained strong. In November 2020, a given piece of property remained on the market for 46 days on average. A year later, that number was down to 35. 

Life in Houston, by the numbers

Amidst a year defined by uncertainty, vaccines and a cautious return to normalcy allowed for some memorable moments to return to our region — many great, one tragic. 

The Astros in the World Series

A highlight for many Houstonians was no doubt the return of the Houston Astros to the MLB World Series for the third time in five years. Though the Astros ultimately lost the six-game series, the greater Houston region won in a number of other ways. We’ll let the baseball fanatics focus on the game stats, meanwhile, we’d like to draw your attention to the economic impact the Astros’ championship season had on our communities. 

  • Estimated economic impact: $26 million (Source: Houston First Corporation)
  • Downtown hotel occupancy rates: 90%+, up from just 11% a year before (Source: Houston First Corporation)
  • Fans in seats: 128,526 (Source: Baseball Almanac)

The Astroworld Tragedy

When Grammy Award-winning Houston-native Travis Scott announced the return of his popular Astroworld music festival, fans and music-lovers were thrilled at the chance to gather and enjoy live music again after a mostly concert-free 2020. Unfortunately, that joy was short-lived.

While investigations are ongoing amid an ever-growing slew of lawsuits against Scott, promoter Live Nation and others, what we do know paints a tragic picture of loss that our region will mourn and reflect on for years to come.  

  • Official attendance: 50,000
  • Deaths: 10 
  • Injuries: 300+
  • Hospitalizations: 25

Source: Houston Chronicle

Looking ahead to the new year

2021 was filled with ups and downs for our region, and If the last two years serve as any indication, there’s only so much anyone can safely predict about 2022. But whatever trends impact our region in the coming year, Understanding Houston is here to add data-driven insights and context to the issues that matter in our communities. 

We invite you to join us for the year ahead — follow us on social media, subscribe to or share our newsletter and find out how you can get involved for the year ahead.

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, Understanding Houston is celebrating its two-year anniversary of our launch in 2019. Since then, Understanding Houston — an initiative of the Greater Houston Community Foundation — has grown significantly, and we would like to thank everyone who has supported our mission to build a more vibrant Houston with opportunity for all.

Here are just a few of the things that made year two such a success.

The addition of our ninth topic: Disaster

Between hurricanes, floods and even freezes, residents in Houston’s three-county region are no stranger to weather-related disasters. Layer on the COVID-19 pandemic and its many devastating impacts, and the need for a source to find data on regional disasters was greater than ever. 

At the beginning of 2021, Understanding Houston added a Disaster topic page along with four subtopic pages to share key findings and provide insights into how disasters affect residents differently.  Our hope is that this information helps residents understand the varied risks of disasters, who is the most vulnerable to disaster impacts and in what ways, and shows how uneven disaster response can widen pre-existing inequities. In order for our region to bounce back after a disaster, everyone in our community — especially the most vulnerable — must receive the help they need to not only recover but also be made stronger to weather the next disaster.

The Disaster topic page allows us to take an in-depth look into these areas of disaster and identify opportunities and obstacles to help our residents prepare for and withstand the various impacts of disasters. But we have also started catalyzing collaborative action in the area of disaster recovery and resiliency in more proactive and intentional ways. Following the release of Understanding Hoston’s new disaster data, the Greater Houston Community Foundation and United Way of Greater Houston announced their Disaster Resilience partnership to streamline disaster funding, combine resources, and provide a streamlined response for the entire region whether recovering from a pandemic or a winter storm.  

Understanding Houston helped with reliable data to provide a basis for discussion on problems facing Greater Houston. Using this information with others allows us to determine root causes and first steps to developing an action plan to address a basic issue.

– Shelia Thorne, GardenKids of Kemah

Understanding Houston’s community continues to grow

Understanding Houston’s community has grown substantially in the last year. More people use and engage with the site, subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on social media, and have joined us at a data briefing, data workshop, or a visioning session as we seek to continually evolve and improve.

New audiences through data briefings 

Despite the need for social distancing, Understanding Houston was able to continue to engage the community in our data through programming. In the summer, we held three Data Dives + Workshops in partnership with United Way of Greater Houston (UWGH) where nearly 300 members of Houston’s nonprofit community attended. In addition to reviewing the new data around disasters, we sought feedback from local nonprofit organizations on what they want to see as we build disaster-ready philanthropic partnerships to improve our collective disaster preparedness and response. We asked how the data would be useful and how it could be more helpful to regional leaders who activate during disasters. Read our findings here.

More recently, this fall we held an intensive Visioning Lab in which we engaged 50 users in a conversation about what they liked best about the Understanding Houston website and how they would improve it. We will hold another Visioning Lab in January and publish our findings the following month. Stay tuned as we share where we are headed next.

New users and increased awareness

The Understanding Houston website allows visitors to access impartial data through high-level topic pages, deeper subtopic pages, informative articles, downloadable reports and interactive charts. Our website also allows visitors to vote on the type of content that we should focus on moving forward so that we can reflect our residents’ interests and concerns.  

Here’s how the community has been utilizing Understanding Houston website in year two: 

  • 40,038 site users: More than 40,000 people have come to Understanding Houston through search engines, social media, or direct referrals in the past year.
  • 99,008 page views: These users have explored more than 99,000 collective pages of Understanding Houston content. 
  • 1,937 report downloads: Nearly 2,000 reports have been downloaded by users for later use and reference.
  • 786 chart exports: Close to 800 charts have been exported by users to include in presentations, share on social media or feature on their website.
  • 336 topic votes: Users have voted for the topics that matter most to them 336 times in the past year.

Understanding Houston utilizes multiple platforms to reach different audiences, including social media and a monthly newsletter. Across all social media platforms, Understanding Houston gained more than 2,000 followers in our second year. This means that more individuals are engaging with Understanding Houston’s data and becoming more informed and aware of issues and current events that are taking place in our region. 

Here’s how we have continued to grow and engage our Houston audience in our second year.

  • 2,106 total newsletter subscribers (23.8% ↑ from last year)
  • 5,514 total social media followers (61% ↑ from last year)

Understanding Houston has provided information about the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in discussions around the region’s population. This bolstered our organization’s response by hiring a DEI consultant to assist in a two-year initiative to improve processes where needed and better serve our clients. We are finding more funders’ attention to this subject important in grant making.

– Jenetha Jones, Child Advocates of Fort Bend

Amplifying community voices 

At its core, Understanding Houston aims to inspire and inform and action. Not only by providing robust data over time on key quality of life indicators but also by illuminating and contextualizing that data into insights through research articles and amplifying Community Voices with regional leader profiles and personal stories. In the past year, we have collaborated with a number of community leaders and organizations including the Houston Education Research Consortium (HERC), Arts Connect Houston, Urban Harvest, FuelEd, and many more!

These collaborations resulted in 21 total in-depth articles, including six pieces authored by leaders and changemakers from Houston’s nonprofit community. Through data and testimonies, these pieces helped us paint a more detailed picture of issues affecting our communities. 

How Understanding Houston is making an impact: Survey responses

In October 2021, Understanding Houston sent out a Feedback & Impact Survey –– an opportunity for those in Houston’s three county region to share how Understanding Houston can improve its website’s tools and programming in the upcoming update. 

The survey was conducted from August 26 to October 25 and garnered 170 responses. When asked to rate Understanding Houston’s usefulness for learning about the quality of life in our region, 96% of respondents rated our website as very or mostly useful, indicating respondents are very satisfied, and more than four out of five respondents took some action based on learning something new through the website or data briefing, and 99% said they were extremely likely to refer a friend or colleague to the site. 

Through the responses, it became clear that most participants value a user-friendly website with relevant data and clear content –– most agreed that the Understanding Houston website caters to these preferences. As we move into year three with plans for a site-wide refresh, these responses will help us make our website a more inviting and useful tool for all who need it. 

As a concerned Houstonian, the resources available through this initiative have a direct impact on where and how I can direct my resources to have the most impact in my own city.

– GHCF Donor

How we’re planning for the future of Understanding Houston

Evolution is core to the Understanding Houston initiative. So even though the first two years of Understanding Houston have been successful, our work is not done yet. Using the responses from the Feedback & Impact Survey, we are working to improve our user experience and better our website’s resources by implementing a sitewide data update. 

As we update hundreds of indicators on our website, we hope these updates better reflect and serve our community’s needs so that Understanding Houston can be as useful as possible. The first phase of updates will be launching soon, and we cannot wait for you to see what we have in store!

Thank you, Houston!

We would not be able to celebrate our second anniversary without thanking everyone who made this success possible! We owe many thanks to those who have helped to make Understanding Houston the compelling resource it is today. To all the donors, partners, guest bloggers, researchers, analysts, developers, designers, writers and followers who keep us moving forward, we are endlessly grateful.

We would like to express our gratitude to our founding partners and supporters, our advisory committee, our strategic research partners at Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, and our communications and content partners at Baal + Spots and Deutser for their continued support of Understanding Houston and efforts to grow our community.

Thanks to you, our second year was successful, and we plan to continue that success in years to come. If you’d like to wish us a Happy Second Anniversary on our social media accounts, give us a follow on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn!

As we look toward our third year in 2022 and beyond, no one knows what Mother Nature, COVID-19, or even life, has planned for our region, but you can count on Understanding Houston to help you find the facts, deliver insights, and amplify community voices.