The attempt to bring 'place' to the Houston suburbs

Houston has some of the most impressive sprawl on the planet. One of my favorite recent photos was published by National Geographic of a man walking between lanes of freeway-speed traffic, with a baby stroller, on his way to a food kitchen to get a free meal in Spring, Texas, outside of Houston. The vast distances and the poor access to public service speak volumes of the built environment.

Houston has a historic downtown with small blocks, and another iconic image circa the 1980s showed what happened to that downtown. 

The revival of Houston's historic downtown began in the 1990s and since then, some $5.5 billion in investment has brought residences, offices, public buildings, shops, parks and cultural amenities. Houston's downtown has car-share and bike-share, which is one measure of what I call Place Mobility. The downtown  still has vast areas of parking and huge streets, but it now includes urban amenities.

Meanwhile, Houston's sprawl -- larger than the State of New Jersey -- includes a few pockets of urban place, both new and old. One is Sugar Land Town Square, a mixed-use urban center with a city hall on a grand public space. "It has exceeded anything that we had imagined for it, both in terms of the public gathering space aspect of it but also the financial investment," said Jennifer May, interim director of economic development for the city of Sugar Land, told the Houston Chronicle.

The success of Sugar Land is prompting other municipalities like Katy (population 14,661, at the western edge of the metro area) to try something similar, reports the Chronicle.  

"Now (City Administrator Byron) Hebert and other Katy officials are … building a new City Hall with classical architecture that would anchor a grassy town square surrounded by boutique retail and restaurants. 'Towns are gathering places. That's what a hometown is,' said Hebert, the city's new top administrator. 'If you don't do something, it could just fade away.'

As towns in the Houston area wrestle with how to preserve a sense of identity amid the region's rapid growth, some are turning to a new variation on an old idea: The town square, a central gathering spot for the community that's near places to live, work and shop."

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