Houston's Zoning Wasn't the Problem

September 5, 2017

With a few tweaks, the city’s relaxed land-use regulations might be an advantage during recovery and rebuilding.

Hurricane Harvey brought an estimated nine trillion gallons of water into the streets of Houston, bringing America’s fourth largest city to its knees. In the wake of the disaster, manyurbanists asked: To what extent did Houston’s unconventional approach to planning make the damage worse?

Nolan Gray is policy director of the Center for Market Urbanism and a second year MCRP student at the Bloustein School, Rutgers University.

September 4, 2017, CityLab

Recent Posts

Fisher, Moe are RDL Inaugural Democracy Summer Research Fellows

Rutgers Democracy Lab (RDL) is excited to announce the launch of its inaugural Democracy Summer Research Fellowship. The fellowship funds 25 projects led by doctoral students from Rutgers–New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark and 15 academic disciplines selected from a...

Andrews, et.al assess heat and air quality in low-income housing

Personal exposures to heat and PM2.5 in urban environments Abstract Current methods for assessing exposure to extreme heat and air pollution depend mostly on readings from regulatory monitoring stations. We hypothesize that this does not accurately represent the...

2026 NJDOT Complete Streets Summit Recap

On Tuesday, April 21, 2026, the NJDOT Bicycle and Pedestrian Resource Center hosted the eighth New Jersey Complete Streets Summit. This year’s event, centered on the theme “Every Journey Safer,” was a resounding success, bringing together more than 250 planners,...

The fastest way to ease the housing crisis? Rent control

Op-ed by Tram Hoang, a senior associate at PolicyLink, a national research and action institute and Mark Paul, associate professor at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. Massachusetts is losing its working families. Not just to...