Housing, transportation solutions debated at Texas Tribune event on future of cities

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

---

Texas is preparing to step into the future as massive changes take root at a local, state and federal level. Experts in metropolitan planning, transportation and economic development shared insights into what it takes to build Texas cities stronger at a daylong event in Houston.

The event explored the growth, challenges and opportunities local and state leaders will soon face.

A blueprint for cities 

Despite being widely perceived as a “frontier state,” Texans largely live in metropolitan areas that are seeing exponential growth. Floods of new Texans are challenging the state’s housing and water supply, as well as other infrastructure.

Authors of the Texas Metropolitan Blueprint Sherri Greenberg, Steven Pedigo and Pablo Pinto discussed the future of Texas metropolitan areas and offered recommendations on how to move forward.

Texas must prioritize flexibility and innovation as cities step into the future, they said.

Opportunities for innovation follow the challenges Texas cities already face and will continue to face. For example, Texas cities are addressing the growing housing crisis, but what solution works for Austin may not be feasible in Houston or Dallas.

“Let’s look at what can be done at the state level and let’s unleash the local governments so they can collaborate and learn from each other to develop solutions that are specific to their own communities,” Pinto said.

Housing affordability

Texas needs at least 320,000 more housing units to meet the needs of the state’s growing population, but what that means in each city is different. Panelists Caroline Cheong, Nicole Nosek and José “Chito” Vela delved into the roadblocks Texans face in affording their own homes.

“Austin's housing crisis was largely self-inflicted,” said Vela, who is an Austin city council member. “On the one hand, we had this tremendous economic growth and became a focus for so many companies coming to Austin and such a huge amount of job creation, very good jobs. On the other hand, we had one of the strictest land development codes.”

These rules nearly strangled Austin to death, Vela said. The city has been clawing its way out of this situation since 2020.

Houston, on the other hand, has no zoning regulations but regulates buildings in other ways. It has been considered one of the most affordable big cities in the U.S. to live in, but it is quickly becoming unaffordable to those in the low and middle income areas, said Cheong who is an associate director of housing and neighborhoods for the Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

“The picture is not all dire, but it's certainly one that I think we need to be paying closer attention to,” Cheong said.

Texas needs “supply, supply, supply,” said Nosek, who is the chair for Texans for Reasonable Solutions.

Housing affordability is a bipartisan issue that lawmakers seem particularly interested in tackling, Nosek said. But this has not come without some concern over the loss of local control as lawmakers file legislation to remove barriers to affordable housing in cities across the state.

“The fact is, I'm open to whoever is willing to solve the problem,” Nosek said.

Mobility and transportation

Texas transportation officials and experts are looking at how new infrastructure makes movement easier and safer for the next generations.

“We are a giant state with 30 million people, going on 40 to 50 million, and we've made a lot of choices,” said Jay Blazek Crossley, executive director for Farm&City. “We're spending almost more money than any other state on building and maintaining roads every year, but we don't have good data and maps and decision-making processes to spend that money wisely.”

Patrick J. Kennedy, a planner and urban designer and Dallas Area Rapid Transit, or DART, board member, wants Texas’ planners to ask what the point of transportation is and how to make it more efficient. And it’s more than just how to get someone from point to point.

“We have to be thinking about what is the end goal, is the end goal just to pour pavement or is the end goal to create lasting highly functional highly efficient urban economies that are also safe?” Kennedy asked.

Part of future plans must embrace creating multiple ways people can move – for example: walking, biking, or taking public transit and cars, said Caroline Mays, director of planning and modal programs for the Texas Department of Transportation.

Economic development

The future of Texas’ economy relies on a collaboration between businesses, schools and cities, said experts in economic development during the symposium’s final panel discussion.

Romanita Matta-Barrera, Roberto Ransom and David Saenz, with Giselle Rodriguez Greenwood, lead editor for Houston Landing as the moderator, dove into natural challenges facing businesses who move to Texas, namely: establishing a skilled workforce and the ecosystem to create those workers.

“The recipe for a successful workforce is the combination between the academic sector, the private sector and the public sector,” said Ransom, who is the director of the economic development department in El Paso County.

This work begins as early as pre-kindergarten and grows in high school through training programs and apprenticeships. It also extends into providing learning opportunities for well-established professionals to develop new skills to meet the changing demands of Texas’ workforce.

Cities must also be aware of a growing gap between large and small corporations and the impacts decisions on a state and federal level may have on them.

For example, immigration policies enacted in 2025 may not impact large corporations that have a screening process for their employees. These policies could impact smaller businesses and agriculture. Texas must be watchful and prepared to go “above the rhetoric” and have a thoughtful discussion about what local businesses need, Ransom said.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.