Read on Twitter
1/It has come to my attention that not everyone is aware of the incredible leadership Houston has shown on climate recently. This ain’t your 1980s Houston anymore. So inspired by @drvox, here is a roundup of some the great climate work from @HoustonTX:
2/First up renewable energy purchases: Houston will be 100% powered by renewable energy by 2025: https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1262837207858991104?s=20
3/This is part of a long history of renewable energy purchases. Here is a notable one from 2013 that made Houston the largest municipal purchaser of renewable energy at the time: https://www.c40.org/blog_posts/houston-becomes-largest-municipal-purchaser-of-renewable-power-in-the-us
4/The most recent renewable energy purchasing goal is a key pillar of the 2020 Houston Climate Action Plan. Post Hurricane Harvey, the city ramped up every aspect of its climate resilience and response plan:
http://greenhoustontx.gov/climateactionplan/CAP-April2020.pdf
http://greenhoustontx.gov/climateactionplan/CAP-April2020.pdf
5/The Climate Action Plan is one of the most thorough of any city and has near term and long term goals across Transportation, Energy Transition, Building Optimization, and Materials Management:
6/BUT you say, anyone can have a plan, but what have they done? Isn’t Houston just sprawl at its worst, filled with oil executives driving trucks around, and I’ve heard they have no zoning! Well, yeah, sort of, but let’s look at how fast that’s changing:
7/Transit! Voters overwhelmingly approved a $3.5 billion bond issue light rail extension, bus rapid transit, park and ride, here we come. https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Metro-s-3-5B-bond-finds-strong-support-in-14812276.php
8/And this is all on top of some major initiatives that have made Houston transit dramatically better in recent years. @mattyglesias profiled an award winning project here: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/18/8056039/houston-transit-reimagining
9/Parking minimums! Yes even Houston has some planning regulations...parking minimums are one of the most pernicious causes of sprawl, and Houston is starting to systematically roll them back: https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/2019/07/17/houston-extends-minimum-parking-exemptions-east-end-midtown
10/Bikes! Houston is in the middle of an ambitious bike plan buildout, nearly 1500 miles in total, including an 8X increase in dedicated on street ROW and over 600 miles of off street lanes taking advantage of the Bayou City’s, well, bayous. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/04/25/houstons-getting-ready-for-a-flurry-of-bike-lane-expansion/
11/Speaking of bayous, how about some green space?? Houston has invested $100s of millions into building out a major system of interconnected green spaces that is becoming a model for cities. https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/green-acres-2/
12/Densification! The city is building, and fast, and in a way that is quite a bit different than its famous sprawl. Take just one example, the Midtown neighborhood has had a 50% (!!) growth in population since 2012. https://www.bisnow.com/houston/news/construction-development/houstons-density-revolution-is-just-beginning-102460
13/Resilience! Of course Hurricane Harvey is one of the most pronounced examples of climate change impacts, and Houston has had to respond. A $2.5 billion bond plan in 2018 green lit 239 projects: https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2019/08/28/harris-county-approves-flood-plan-that-would.html
14/So no, Houston isn’t perfect and far from it. But it is changing, playing catch up fast, with climate, equity, and transit in mind. It’s an exciting place to be and really showing some climate leadership that generally goes unrecognized.
15/A final tweet that really summarizes how fast the city is changing perfectly: https://twitter.com/christofspieler/status/1262858978993856520?s=20
