VIRTUAL: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

Harris County had six federally declared flooding disasters in the last five years alone and is projected to increase in population by nearly 50 percent by 2060. The record-setting Hurricane Harvey in 2017 demonstrated that Houston is far from ready to adapt to anthropogenic climate change-related extreme events. Continuing to sprawl and to expand the highway system was never sustainable from a resource standpoint, even less today. This study takes a provocative approach to risk mitigation based on the assumption that resilience is achieved by working with nature and not around it. It advocates for a proactive radical transformation of the urban environment over the reactive, piecemeal type of incremental intervention whose return on investment is no longer justifiable under the current and projected climate changes. Through preemptive managed retreats and the rethinking of all future urban development, Houston is gradually transformed into a new urban fabric that can better respond to current and future climate changes. Using a data-driven analysis of risks and vulnerability in the Greens Bayou Watershed, Harris County is reimagined into a network of 15-minute type walkable dense communities interconnected by the water and the green corridors around them and by a mobility system that aspires to reduce and ultimately eliminate the dependency on cars. Areas that have experienced the most cumulative losses within the watershed are returned to their pre-development hydrology to restore water detention capacity. Less hazardous flood areas are densified and redesigned at a human scale with the adoption of sustainable principles to drastically reduce heat island concentrations and flood risks. Finally, a regulatory framework permanently changes land use and prevents future development, ensuring the long-lasting benefits of these radical transformations of the Houston metropolitan area.