Everybody must get zoned

Back in the early 1990s, before we moved to to the Twin Cities, I lived in the Chicago area and worked for a big law firm in Chicago that had over 300 attorneys. Much of the firm's work was in real estate, including big real estate deals for properties like shopping malls. One of the attorneys at the firm was an expert in zoning and he was proud to tell anyone who would listen that he was going to be helping the city of Houston develop its first zoning laws. I don't think he got very far.

Houston has been in the news because it took a huge shot from Hurricane Harvey. As you may know, among the many features of Houston is that the city doesn't have the sorts of zoning laws that you find in other areas. This has always bothered the bien pensants of the world, who equate Houston with being benighted and profligate, the embodiment of urban sprawl and bad carbon footprints, like that. And because Houston suffered so much damage from Harvey and had so many problems, the bien pensants are blaming Houston's lack of zoning for exacerbating the problems. Here's a typical example from the website Quartz.com:

Largely unobstructed either by rules or by natural features such as mountains, the Houston area sprawled. Between 1992 and 2010 alone nearly 25,000 acres (about 10,000 hectares) of natural wetland infrastructure was wiped out, the Texas A&M research shows. Most of the losses were in Harris County, where almost 30% of wetlands disappeared.

Altogether, the region lost the ability to handle nearly four billion gallons (15 billion liters) of storm water. That’s equivalent to $600 million worth of flood water detention capacity, according to the university researchers’ calculations.

Sounds bad, right? But would it have made much difference? The invaluable Joel Kotkin doesn't think so:

Much blame for Harvey has been linked to development on the fringe, a major component of the region’s growth. Over an 18-year period, Houston lost about 25,000 acres of wetlands, which took away about 4 billion gallons of storm water detention capacity. In contrast Harvey dumped about 1 trillion gallons, meaning those wetlands could have only absorbed about 0.4% of Harvey’s deluge. Many flooded roads were consciously designed to hold storm water temporarily when there is nowhere for it to drain.

And would zoning have helped? Kotkin is skeptical:

The zoning argument is, simply put, bogus. Cities in the area that were heavily zoned, like West University, or intensely planned like Sugarland, got hit as hard as more haphazard areas. Harvey, it turns out, was an equal opportunity devastator. Similarly, Sandy dropped barely one-third the rain from Harvey, yet overwhelmed a dense and very zoned area. New Orleans before Katrina was dense and zoned; a lot of good it did them.

There can be advantages to zoning; I wouldn't want my neighbor to sell his property to someone who turned it into a micro-sized oil refinery, nor would I want to move my house a mile or so north so I'd be downwind from the telephone pole yards. But rules and rulemaking aren't what make a city work. It's the sense of people in the community itself, the commitment to making the community a place where you can live and thrive, that makes the difference. Back to Kotkin:

In the decades before Katrina, as southern cities like Houston and Atlanta were burgeoning, New Orleans stagnated. Joel Garreau in his Nine Nations of North America described the Crescent City as a “marvelous collection of sleaziness and peeling paint.” The aristocracy enjoyed the city’s unparalleled culture while many ambitious people from its neighborhoods migrated elsewhere. Without a strong, engaged business community and middle class, there was little attempt to fix the infrastructure. This weak civic culture has left a city with huge economic challenges that a regenerated local business community is now gamely trying to address.

Houston performed very differently during Harvey. Mayor Turner and the Harris County Judge, Ed Emmett, epitomized level-headed leadership. Gov. Abbot, unlike Louisiana’s dithering Gov. Kathleen Blanco, swung immediately to action. Local volunteers pitched in, so much so, notes Houston-based analyst Tory Gattis, that many found themselves unable to participate because each Facebook call for help spurred more volunteers than could be accommodated. Houston can also count on something New Orleans lacked: a strong, and philanthropically inclined business establishment who are pouring millions into recovery efforts.

We won't be talking much about the recovery in Houston in a year or so, because the people there will be making it happen without commentary. We're still worrying about the fate of New Orleans a dozen years after Katrina. You can plan all you want, but if people aren't buying the plan, it won't matter.