Joel Feagin 1988

Decentralizing suburbanization process in
metropolitan areas is viewed as reflecting
desires of individual American homeowners
for affordable housing and better physical
environment, as expressed within the free
market system. Transport technologies are
important in urban centralization and
decentralization.
“Good business climate”
low tax , laissez faire free
market approach; limit social service spending, including
subsidized housing, limit zoning; weak regulation of real
estate, anti-union laws, government officials sympathetic
to business,
 In 1963 Texas Hwy., Department. Sec. of commerce
Hodges, said traffic problems solved by providing better
roads for cars, not by restricting the number or caliber of
cars: “We shout a here, here!' let's construct those
better roads out of asphalt so they will cost less to build
and thus be easy on taxes -- at same time providing
more roads for more cars to travel more miles and use
more petroleum products."
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
There is a close relationship between
character of capitalism in particular historical
period and its urban form. Office buildings
are at the heart of physical structure of
modern capitalism, providing places where
administrative, accounting, and other whitecollar activities of dominant corporations and
allied business service firms are located and
interrelated;

Larger corporations tend to build, or have built, tall
skyscrapers. Why tall skyscrapers? Tall buildings are
considerably more expensive to construct than are shorter
and wider buildings with same amount for space. It is
estimated that collar office towers cost at least 20% more
per square foot than an equivalent building with fewer
floors. The high price of land often justifies creation of
super -- skyscraper in downtown areas; however savings
on land costs do not offset of premium building cost for a
high-rise building. Wittenberg has reported on a major
office project in downtown Houston land cost $12.5 million
about 10% of the total cost hundred $127 million of the
building itself plan costs was no more than the cost of
expensive elevator system for this high-rise structure.
1949
6.9 million
1959
12.3 million
1969
18.6 million
1979
85.2 million
1985
159.2 million
1986
163.5 million

Reason for high-rise buildings does not seem to be
high cost of land in downtown Houston area; instead,
high-rise towers have been constructed to facilitate
integration of large corporations, and symbolize
corporate presence and dominance. To quote urban
theorist Lamarche, "they are first and foremost
physical expression of concentration of capital and
have close ties linking headquarters of industry and
financial world." Office buildings are not simply
products of an architects imagination but rather a
geographical solution to integration of modern
capitalism;

Local residents have paid a heavy price for
low tax, laissez-faire, free market approach of
the city’s business leadership (3). While
Houston is advertised as premier free
enterprise city, in reality the city’s business
leadership has regularly taken major
governmental (handouts) for projects that
support/create profit-making in city

Federal intervention in form of subsidies of
home mortgages, highways, oil production, and
decentralized airports significantly encouraged
urban de-concentration by reducing cost of
decentralized suburban development. Urban
processes such as suburbanization are not
natural result of automobile technology and
free-market forces but rather result of
intentional actions by powerful economic and
governmental actors seeking particular goals in
specific socio--- historical settings



Houston’s political economic history is recurrent
intervention of local and federal governments in
Houston economy usually at behest of local
business elites;
Houston began in the 1830s as speculative real
estate venture by two northern capitalists ,
brothers JK Allen and A.C. Allen.
Lumber, grain, cotton commodities generated
an important infrastructure of railroads,
warehouses, cotton jeans, and banks servicing
southeast Texas agricultural economy.
Cotton was sold to English buyers in return European
goods bought by local merchants were sold to Texans.
Some cotton merchants functioned as bankers,
loaning large sums of money to local planters before
there were organized banks in area.
 Cotton society had great inequalities in income and
wealth. From beginning Houston was class stratified,
with a small wealthy elite, a large poverty-stricken
population, and substantial middle income sector. In
1850s black slaves labored at worst jobs in city.
Between 1815- 1860 a share of wealth held by richest
10% of population increased from just over half to
more than two thirds.


By early 1900s Houston was sheltered harbor
closest to the ranches and cotton fields of
Midwest and central south. By 1912 no less
than 17 railroads use the city as a rail hub.
Texas was producing two thirds of all cotton
in the US, much shipped through Houston,
which had six cotton seed processing mills;

The developed infrastructure of port facilities,
railroads, and banks actually creating the
infrastructure foundation for Houston subsequent
dominance as an oil center. Investment decisions
made in Detroit spurred investment by oil companies
and transformed Houston into an oil capital; Until
auto production accelerated in 1904 – 1919, crude oil
had been used for kerosene, fuel oil, lubricants. In
1899 only 3700 autos were built in US, but by 1909
figure had grown to 126,600, and by 1919 to 1.7
million. Coal had fueled rise in US industry and 19th
century, but by 1910s and 1920s oil was beginning to
replace coal as fuel choice;

The 1860s brought devastation to many cities in
south, most destructive effects of Civil War did not
reach Houston; instead, war made Houston into
significant Southern marketplace and brought new
wealth to local elite. After war cotton became main
product in trade. Cotton first put Houston on
international economic map(49). By 1860s city
Council increased efforts to provide infrastructure for
development – grading and surfacing streets, building
bridges, franchising private companies for gaslighting and horse cars. Between 1860s and 1880s
basic foundation for Houston business elites approach
to government was laid down;

Under pressure from local growth coalition, U.S.
Congress in 1902 appropriated about 1 million in
public investment capital for local port
development; A few years later Houston capitalists
met in the mayors office to work out a plan for
further subsidization(55). In 1910 Congress
approved 1.2 5 million for deepening Houston ship
channel, reportedly largest grant for such
developmental purposes made by the federal
government up to that time;
Between 1918 and 1938 US government expended
56 million to dredge deep water ports at 12 Texas
coastal cities, including Houston. Houston ranked
fourth among US ports in total exports tonnage by
1930;
 In 1933 Pres. Roosevelt issued an executive order
banning interstate shipment of oil pumped in
violation of Texas program pro- rationing laws; the
agents were sent to Texas to enforce order.
Governmental intervention and continuing federal
support for pro-rationing among petroleum
companies operated from 1930s to 1970s to protect
industry.


Federal subsidy had helped create oil industry.
But this subsidization or not was not the only
source of federal underwriting of petrochemical
and oil refining sectors of American industry.
Federal government purchase and consumption
of products of these industries was crucial to
long-run profitability and prosperity. “Big
government” in US was not primarily created
by the new deal social programs of the 1930s
but rather by massive industrial and military
buildups of World War II;

Late 1950s to the 1980s – in 1959 Pres.
Eisenhower set quotas for imported oil,
limiting imports to 12% of domestic
production, a decision justified in terms of
national defense; this action helped to hold
up domestic oil prices. The government
engineered differential probably cost US
consumers millions of dollars during the
next decade;

In decade ending in early 1970s number of
multinational oil companies shifted subsidiaries
to Houston or buttressed existing operations
there. Shell relocated its US administrative
headquarters from New York to Houston. Exxon,
golf, and Texaco consolidated domestic
operations in Houston. As Anthony Sampson put
it “it is in Texas, not New York, that Exxon feels
more thoroughly at home; and it is Exxon
skyscraper in Houston, the headquarters of
Exxon USA, which seems to house the soul of
the company.”

Oil and chemical companies were heavily
subsidized by federal government energy policy;
in 1970s and early 1980s, government kept price
of gas artificially low and thus feedstock for
petrochemical plants and very cheap, situation
European manufacturers complained about.


Houston is unique among major cities in US: it has
no traditional zoning laws to control patterns of
land use;
First they revealed depth of conservative laissezfaire philosophy among city’s leaders, even when
that philosophy interferes with other interests of
the leadership, such as protecting elite residential
neighborhoods from commercial encroachment.
Second, failure to implement zoning accents
power of real estate and development capitalists in
city, these interests have traditionally been most
consistently opposed to zoning;

Lack of zoning has meant a larger than
average number of oddly mixed land uses:
massage parlors are built across street from
churches, office towers are erected in
backyards of wealthy suburbanites; At
broadest level the city's land-use map is
similar to the spread city pattern, and to
many Sunbelt cities.
Lack of zoning means Houston developers generally face
less red tape and shorter project development times. In a
city with strict zoning and planning, such as Dallas,
might take a year or two to get a plan for a mega
structure project approved, but in Houston sometimes
takes only six months.
 1959 budget was 176,785 there were 20 full-time
employees; city population was just under 1 million.
 1980 budget was $920,000 with a staff of 60 in a city
that exceeded 1.6 million. Inadequate staffing reflects
weak commitment of city's elite to planning;

In early 1980s Browning -- Ferris industries, a private
disposal firm, was doing solid waste planning for city.
Public decisions have often been delegated to private
firms which, journalist Burke notes, "are really
extensions of City Hall." In general city departments,
such as public works, have been known for their
operations with developers and other real estate
interests (163).
 If city cannot provide utility services, a developer can
create, with governmental permission, a municipal
utility District (MUD) with the authority to sell bonds
for utility construction. In fact developers decide where
water, sewer, and other utility systems will be extended
next -- a type of privatized planning (164).
