How does Houston plan without zoning? 

Fascinating how not being able to have a business (e.g. convenience store or doctor) increases the value. Whereas in Europe having mixed developments increases value.

Be interesting to compare US planning systems, especially zoning, to other countries like the UK or Germany.

Me: So Houston, do you have zoning? Houston: Well no, but actually yes

Interesting. When looking at Houston's lack of rigid zoning, I can't help but feel like there's opportunity for some really nice urban spaces. It's sad that they ended up looking exactly like every other American city because they could have done something really special with their town.

"Let's compare Houston and Dallas!" Hearing you say that, I shuddered as a native Dallasite living in Houston. There is a hot city rivalry about which is better when the truth is, they are probably more culturally similar than any other major US cities that are not part of the same contiguous urban area

I feel like this is literally the same as when politicians say. "It's not a tax, it's a levy."

I've lived in Miami, Dallas, Houston, Austin, New York City (Manhattan) and Bogota. Each city has it's pros/cons but for some reason, I always come back to Houston. Houston (Space City, Bayou City, H-Town, Energy Capital) is an affordable city with unique neighborhoods for every lifestyle/income bracket. I agree, summer (June, July and August) can be hot (you get used to it)...but late September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April and early May are incredible. Thank you @City Beautiful!!!

As a Dallasite and former Houstonian, been waiting for this video. I have to admit, Houston has been doing some really great things lately since I left almost 20 years ago.

"Footage of a Dallas neighborhood enjoying its zoning." There's always some lines in every video that crack me up!

Yep, my high school was directly across the street from a cow pasture in the suburbs

Can we get a video on the zoning of the DC area, esp. the difference between DC and VA and MD? It’s a really great example of how zoning in one jurisdiction can affect development of other areas!

As a native Houstonian all my life, I can tell you there is definitely big income segregation, this is probably one of least walkable cities in the least walkable continent, and is monstrously suburban. Like, the sprawl just goes on and on forever. The lack of zoning I feel is more a technicality than something significant. It's the same planners asserting the same level of control on construction, just rearranged with different systems. I would like to know, since "Houston" is actually like a dozen or more cities like Katy, Cypress, Sugarland, etc. do THEY have zoning?

Great video man! I've lived in Houston for almost 2 decades and for the most part Houston is like more big sprawling cities but with an extra focus on neighborhoods. Just out the outside edge of Houston there are a few mega neighborhoods slowly being developed and these new mega neighborhoods are being developed to have commercial zones contained within the neighborhoods and several schools of all grades, you can be in the same neighborhood and grade and still go to a different school. Houston just always continues to grow even in economic hard times things slow down but the growth continues.

I grew up in Houston. I remember people complaining about no zoning back in the 70s. It has made zero difference. I take that back. The development and flow is very similar to other southern cities that grew in the latter half of the 20th century, but it has probably made Houston more affordable than almost any other city with such massive growth.

I've lived in Houston since 1989. While average housing prices are affordable, I feel it important to recommend they are not affordable in those parts of the city that actually have "walkable" neighborhoods. This is why it remains a car city. Move inside 610 and you're likely to find housing prices start approaching other big cities.

Honestly I’ve seen skyscrapers next to single family houses in places that DO have traditional zoning. For example, New Jersey. The loopholes are a) variances and b) buildings and/or land uses being grandfathered in if they were in existence prior to the adoption of a municipal zoning code.

Life-long Houstonian here. I love my city, and I’ve always wanted to learn more about why we don’t have zoning laws/if it really matters that much. It is strange sometimes to see a warehouse right next to a school, right next to a bar, etc. But one thing I think is nice is the way Houston’s neighborhoods are incredibly diverse. I imagine the lack of zoning laws has something to do with that. Although gentrification is happening in spades, which is an unfortunate side-effect of being such a strong, and growing economy.

As a Texan native you did a great job!

Feeling cute.. might de-zone my city.

The free market works without zoning because a developer isn’t going to spend a million dollars building a gas station on a quiet residential street, they would put it in a busy commercial area. You wouldn’t build a factory in a residential neighborhood which has narrow streets, small expensive lots, and no direct access to rail or highway, so you put it on the outskirts of town where there’s more space and land is cheaper. Likewise if you build a residence in an area surrounded by industrial the house won’t sell. Even without zoning, commercial businesses will be built next to other commercial businesses, residences next to other resides and so forth.

So they get the title of being business friendly with no zoning while still regulating as much as Dallas. Smart.

If only cities planned like Tokyo. I've never seen such a well Planned and Clean city like Tokyo before. Its truly a Model Megacity

Some thoughts: Houston is America’s most diverse city over taking New York in the last decade. Houston feels more like a cluster of small towns than a major city. In some cases, this is literally true because small towns engulfed by Houston, retrain much of their primal town government. Once visited a very upscale condo development in Houston ie Mercedes and Porschs in every garage. Right next to the development was a dairy’s truck yard where big delivery trucks would start up every morning at 5:30am. Not simmering you’d experience anywhere else.

„In cities with zoning, everyone gets the comfort of knowing that their neighbour won’t turn their house into a bar” hahaha hearing this from a European perspective is hilarious, I would probably go nuts without a pharmacy, a bar or even a small store next to me

So Carl from Up didn't live in Houston? 🙂

I am from Houston. Its interesting but after living their most of my life and now visited nearly 50 countries living in many. Its an awful terrible plan for a city. I do not blame anyone for it, I don't think anyone knew what Houston would become. But car oriented, poorly planned chaotic is not a great thing. Im not all doom, and gloom, I love houston. Its a unique experience and a beautiful place with wonderful culture and food etc. But damn, after living in spain/Portugal and Japan. My fucking goodness we need some work. Loved your break down though, Just really wish planners would start moving the city away from cars and actually make it walkable. I can tell you now, its not a remotely walkable city and quite dangerous.

Houston is a beautiful, functioning, park-filled city with splendid bike trails covering enormous distances, one hour from Galveston and the Gulf of Mexico. Houston never wants comparison with provincial Dallas. Houston has the most international population in this country. We are welcoming!

As a non-American, I have to say this idea that there are places where you can only build housing, without even be able to build a market, a bakery or a cinema nearby is just bizarre.

Neat video. Thanks for laying out some of the things that make Houston's city planning unique!

Thank you for making this video! I've always wanted to better understand the land use laws of Houston.

Take away: they use other regulations to achieve zooning. House prices are quite the same compared to other big texan cities.

As a lifelong Houstonian: Poorly. Snark aside, nice video. I think Houston is actually a great illustration of how it's important for urbanism advocates and urban planners to not focus *too* much on eliminating single-family zoning. That's an important step in the process of making cities more dense, walkable, and transit-oriented, but there are an array of other codes that are used to mandate automobile-centric sprawl which also must be addressed, and Houston has most of 'em in spades.

7:55 Housing isn't made cheaper because "less regulatory red tape" means less unproductive development costs. Housing is made cheaper because more freedom to build (not total freedom, but just a bit more) means more possibilities, more alternatives to build this or that, to build here or there. Hence more real estate supply and abundance, hence lower building costs.

Thank you for making this video. I have shared it with those who balk at the idea of us not having zoning, most often posting it on Nextdoor (where they seem to need the most education). I have seen other videos about our lack of zoning, but I think you did the best job of explaining it, and in a way most people can understand. Great job! 👍🙂

The one huge difference Houston's lack of Zoning does make compared to other US cities, is that not only does Houston have above average mixed use neighborhoods, but unlike other US cities, Houston's mixed use areas are often mostly residential but with frequent stores, restaurants, and a diverse veriety of home based businesses!

Me being a former Houstonian, I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood in a house less than half a block away from a store that sold alcohol which always creeped me out. My area was a five minute walk from one of the most dangerous part of Houston, Sharpstown. However, I didn't know about Houston not having a zoning code until I was in 7th Grade.

Houston is one of the top cities for public parks,and bike lanes. It is about 5 to 10 years away from the 3rd largest city (not metro area) in the u.s. Dallas has been at 9th or 10th for some time.

An interesting area to explore is the actual monthly cost of homeowner being a major driver behind lower median home prices in places like Houston. Houston has considerably higher insurance costs and property taxes compared to other regions deemed "expensive" such as California. In order to offset these higher costs, the median sale price of homes is most likely depressed. Its an interesting idea to explore how much of the reduced median sale price is due to these higher cost factors vs government policies.

"How does Houston plan without zoning?" Me, an urban planner: "Oh boy, that was planned??????"

I’m so happy to not be the only person to nerd out about zoning. Lol.

One advantage I could see with this strategy is just being able to do what you want with your home. I know a few people in my area who make money out of their garage. One was lucky enough to be in an area that allows for "home industry," and so he can build a welding shop in his back yard. But the process of getting approval is a pain. For some reason, he's not allowed to have a bathroom in it.

Looks like a lot of people in the comments haven't watched the video lol. Also, I would like to point out that like a quarter of Houston is flooded every other year at this point, so that probably has an effect on median housing prices.

I like the standards for the transit corridor in Houston. A developer can choose to not opt into it, but then they lose out on some benefits, but if they opt in they get those. I would imagine that this allows for a mix of development where certain developers think that the benefits are worth it but where others think it doesn't, which allows for the city to be a bit more varied. I think a system like this along with loosening zoning restrictions is a good compromise.

I’ve never heard of a transit corridor before could you please do a video on that topic?

So many people in the comments section seem to not even have watched the video smh. Good video tho! Wish you had shown more shots than either just downtown or the far suburbs. There are other business districts in Houston that are amazing as well and really show off how Houston’s different regulation system has affected the city; from Uptown/Galleria to the Medical Center to Midtown to the Energy Corridor to Greenspoint. Not everything in Houston is either Downtown or the sprawling suburbs

Fun fact: Dallas doesn’t have an airport ordinance because while they share ownership of DFW airport with Ft. Worth, it’s actually well outside the city limits of either.

exciting to see my university in a City Beautiful video !!!

It's zoning without the famous zoning map. It's zoning on a bigger scale. Great video!!

I think one thing that needs to be remembered about Houston vis-a-vis deed restriction is that the majority of the city is not by covered them. In fact, the highest estimates I've seen is only about 25% of the city is covered by deed restrictions, versus a zoning ordinance which would cover the entire city. Also, deed restrictions almost always apply to already existing single family neighborhoods and subdivisions; they only occasionally apply to townhouses and industrial areas, and never apply to multifamily residential and commercial areas. Also, vacant land and agricultural land is almost never subject to them either. Also, since deed restrictions are put in place by private developers, they have every incentive to make sure that the restrictions make economic sense for the area, and will not affect desirability. They will only regulate up to the point of maximizing property values, and no more. Government bureaucrats are under no such pressures. This actually means that certain things that would be impossible in other cities, are possible in Houston. For instance, certain regulations that are the norm in other cities (i.e. one-acre minimum lot sizes) are practically non-existent in Houston, because it would make it impossible for residential land developers to outbid other land uses. Also, even among single family neighborhoods, the form and strictness of the deed restrictions will vary based on things like the relative income in the area, reflecting the fact that different neighborhoods will have different needs and preferences. So there is a lot of variance even between deed restricted neighborhoods, something yo don't see in a typical zoned R-1 city. Finally, deed restrictions do change and adapt to the market, unlike zoning ordinances, which remain the same for decades. Re-zoning, up-zoning, and the like is very rare, and even when does happen, it typically runs into political headwind for fear of politicians stepping on the toes of powerful neighborhood interests. Deed restrictions have expiration dates, after which they must be re-approved by a majority of the residents of the effected area, usually every 10 years or so, depending on the deed's terms. Residents can, and do occasionally, just let them expire and never re-enact them. But, just as commonly, if not more so, residents use this expiration to re-work the deed restrictions to better reflect market realities. Its a top-down process where all of the neighbors meet as equals and decide what makes sense for their community. This usually leads to defacto up-zoning of high demand single-family neighborhoods. Outside of this, it isn't uncommon for deed-restrictions to just wither away, because the neighborhood just forgets to re-approve them, or infractions build up unaddressed and it goes unenforced. Thus single-family neighborhoods gradually and naturally transform into mixed-use urban neighborhoods.

8:05 “In Texas only Austin’s median housing prices are approaching coastal levels.” That’s because all the costal people are moving there.

I’ve been waiting so long for you to post another video.

When I lived in Houston more than 10yrs ago, almost every house in the neighborhood behind Rice U had yard signs saying they didn’t want a high rise condo built in the neighborhood. I get it now. They didn’t want all the traffic in the quiet neighborhood. I wonder if they got it built. I’m sure that neighborhood is FULL of lawyers that could’ve kept that project tied up.

Thank you for linking sources in your descriptions! I'm still working my way through source info from the train video 😁

New video idea: Which city sprawls the least?

Me after watching this video. "You know, I'm somewhat of a city planner myself."

I'm not a city planner and I don't plan to be one, but what's behind how different places are done has fascinated me for years (plus it's a "the more you know" scenario)

I lived in Houston for a while and I actually really miss it. I like being closer to friends and family, but I really prefer the built environment of Houston compared to my hometown. Having a light rail and bus stops within biking distance of my $700/mo apartment was amazing. (Bus stop was walking distance, I didn't have to ask any favors or pay an Uber to get to the airport) These days I live in an RV in Florida and pay between $600-900 a month just for LAND to park it on. Lmao

so in short Huston just calls their zoning rules, ordinances. The real question is probably how much more/less restrictive are those ordinances from other cities, if at all? Or is Houston just benefiting from the fact it can still expand in all directions into new empty land. While most coastal cities have consumed all their open land so the only option left is to upzone their properties.

You should do a video comparing zoning and development in North America and Europe.

As a Houstonian, and a person who obsseses with development in Houston, Houston is doing it right. As of right now there are hundreds of mixed use projects going up in every corner of the city. Inside the 610 loop alone billions of dollars of new mixed use developments are breaking ground like regent sqaure, Montrose collective, Greenway plaza, Hanover's Autrey park, The Allen, and East end. Each of these megaprojects are miniature city's inside Houston and will change the way Houstonians live, work and socialize. I don't think there would be a level of construction taking place here in Houston without Houston's relaxed zonning laws. Because without them developers can buy huge plots of land and build bigger developments for cheaper than anywhere else in America. Just wait in 10 years Houston will become unrecognizable than what it looks like today

Those deed regulations sound a lot like zoning? Also, couldn't you have zoning AND mixed developement? Like, just allow small businesses in residential areas in the use table for example?

What town is that at 7:23? Sugar Land? The Woodlands? Looks beautiful

Oh no!! Don’t tell them about our cheap housing!!!! I just bought a townhome just south of downtown Houston with a skyline view for 264K. Friends from California laughed at the prices when I first told them, then they were shocked and awed.

As someone that lived in Houston for 7+ years, this is pretty accurate. One of the best cities in the US. But... your $200K average price...sure, you can get a house for that 40 miles out, but anything close to the places you want to life, you are going to be paying $450K-$1M (or more). It is so big that the average of the fringes do not reflect pricing in the core of the city.

Yeah sunbelt city like LA but just a TAD bit more humid

Minimum parking requirements are still there which means low density development, 10 lane highways, big box stores, malls and other buildings surrounded by parking.

Some of the hidden bars and restaurants in a former residential home in Houston are quite charming.

Fantastic video! To all the wannabe libertarians out there praising dallas for its free market. Its still allowing free highways and other massively expensive infra+ parking minimums means cars are insanely subsidized. Once you stop giving so many free handouts to cars, you will find transit and walking etc... Become soooo much more enticing. Look to Japan for the solution. They have a true free market for parking in that its up to you to pay the market land value and install parking space on your property. There is no cheap street parking. Same with urban highways, which charge tolls that pay for 100% of the construction. That is as close to a true Free Market as tt gets, and guess what? It naturally leads to public transportation and walkable neighborhoods to thrive 😉 Would love a Japan related video from you one day. There is lots of interesting urban planning stuff there!

Overall a good video, but very misleading for a few reasons. 1. Houston does almost nothing to enforce deed restrictions. The only regular activity they do is to force HOA sign off before issuing a permit. If there is not an active HOA, the owner can almost always move ahead with no problem. There are many deed restricted communities with no active HOA. My friend built his store in one despite the restrictions. The city/county/state treated him as if he wasn’t violating any deed restrictions. They harassed him all sorts of stupid, bureaucratic ways, but ignored the covenants on file. 2. HOA’s vary greatly in what they allow. Only members have input. Changes are VERY, VERY hard to make. Many HOAs have almost no actual power to enforce restrictions or even collect dues. They have no license for violence. Almost all these HOAs have for leverage is the ability to stop the permitting process and collect liens at closings. That’s it. 3. Lack of a zoning ordnance means the owner, and thus the market, decides most land use. Zoning commissions can, and do, make even bigger mistakes than the market. They steal millions from land owners all the time. They are often corrupt. They favor developers unless and until citizens organize, and then mob tyranny takes over. If you are not trying to build a sky scraper or dangerous industrial site in Houston, you are pretty good to go. If you are doing something really obnoxious, you will need lawyers, but otherwise, you are fine. Good neighbors have only to fear bad neighbors, not the government. 4. Housing prices are affected by zoning, or lack of it. What’s different about Austin versus other Texas cities is that only they ever really tried to control growth of their city using land use restrictions. It’s a danger putting all your government types in one city along with your biggest university, they think they can run things even though they are the two types of people least able to run anything without creating more problems than they solve.

Me being from Houston knowing we have 4 cities that being the medical center, downtown, the galleria and, the woodlands

I know it isn't the focus of the video but it's just hard to get past the idea of a house being available for so cheap. Even in the LA comparison I was amazed to hear that an average house is only $750k.

I left the city and never looked back. I now live 70 miles from the closest town. Deep in the Hiawatha national forest. Huge 100+ acre lot. Love it so much. Still have high speed internet and all the stuff I need.

If every city followed tokyo's city planning, the world's cities would be a better place to live

Houston seems like one of those places that sucks to get around, but has nice ppl and good food.

Coastal houses in los angeles are 2 million or more and that's Venice Beach or Redondo Beach in malibu a Coastal house is at least 5 million or more

As someone who lives in Houston, I'd like to point out an area that perfectly illustrates the lack of zoning. All within a block of each other, along highway 59, you can find 1) a hospital/mini medical center 2) a university 3) a funeral home 4) a daycare center 5) apartments. The funeral home and daycare center are RIGHT next to each other

0:44 I absolutely love city skylines like this one.Mesmerizing From afar. Different continent is enough.

I was looking for this video!!!!

Houston: we have no zoning.! Monterrey, Mexico: that's cute.! The Houstonian in me is still like "we have too much regulations" I'm from Monterrey but lived in Houston for a while and Houston is indeed a lot like that. No zoning but plenty of regulations. Meanwhile Monterrey (and a lot of places in mexico) that kinda have regulations like Houston but at least in Monterrey we don't give a damn and build whatever the hell we want. A store next to a house next to a construction company, a factory in the middle of a residential area. I still love that if you demolish something you can basically build anything which makes it easier to densify the city and in my opinion may eventually make it a more walkable city.

I live in São Paulo, which doesn't have rigid zoning restrictions. My house is a 15 minute walk away from a supermarket

1:15 whats zoning 2:15 hustion vs dalis Suburb ordanince (property devodment 2:53 deed restrictions (contrpls what happen) city comtrols 4:00 Houston, simmaler to zoning system 4:54 parking, and more "zoning" 5:40 dalius zoning 5:55 dalius vs houstion comparison 6:52 zoning exclusion 7:19 property deed restrictions/ benefits 7:50 city pricing

This a great video to go along with Nolan Grey's paper on Houston’s 1998 Subdivision Reform

In the US we seem to have become so obsessed with Use based zoning, but form based zoning is just as good at preventing incompatible buildings from being put in certain places, If our zoning cared more about how buildings looked, instead of what they are being used for, we could make great strides towards walkability

😯" ALL OVER THE PLACE!.... Houston's zoning or lack thereof is so typical of Sunbelt boomtowns. The vast majority being more or less just sprawling clusters of highrise office parks, amidst vast highway networks, with a scattered mixture of commercial and mixed-scale residential. Los Angeles, Atlanta, and several other similar meccas aren't much different. Every time I'm tempted to relocate to such popular locales from the seemingly ever-shrinking Midwest, I'm often reminded of their auto-oriented dependence and limited walkability. "

I am a land surveyor, and always watch your videos hoping you are going to finally give us some credit when it comes to city planning but alas you still haven't. The subdivision part was the perfect opportunity, but no mention. I will keep my fingers crossed though!

The reason why Houston has such cheap housing is just the fact that Houston has a development strategy of just continually eating up the prairie that surrounds it, and engaging in perpetual sprawl. The Houston metro area is 3/4 of the size of the NYC metro area but only has 7 million people in it, not even the population of the five boroughs.

This is a really good video! Thank you for making this!

In South Africa, deed restrictions are becoming less popular, especially as we've adopted zoning scheme across the country where development parameters are specified. Restrictive conditions are a pain to remove from a title deed, so we prefer to take them out, avoid them and use the zoning scheme and conditions of subdivision to control how land is developed. Most South African municipalities have a zoning scheme (map and development parameters) that include all the development parameters, including parking and side spaces etc. The zoning is then also used to implement the spatial development framework, which is more like the macro-scale master plan for the municipality.

Wait. Houston has no zoning? I am moving there to start my development company.

Urban planning is so different from here in France, which all is “well ordered”, in the right case, but sometimes with great surprises.. ahah.

You should do a video on height restrictions and how that affects development.

Living in Houston vs past places like San Antonio and Philadelphia the one advantage is that a good chuck of Houston is not under deed restrictions and since there is no zoning code it makes all other ordinance “negotiable” for developers (I.e. ask or lobby for exemptions) this helps in lowering cost for development coming to older neighborhoods as well as gives fewer tools to NIMBYs to fight off needed infill in their neighborhoods. It’s not perfect but I just remember the red tape from both San Antonio and Philadelphia but in Houston even rich people have a hard time fighting developers unless you live in the outer loop

I also don't understand how having business near a residential building is a bad thing. There are exceptions like bars and polluting industry but I would be happy or at least indifferent to having most businesses next to my house.

Speaking from a country where we rent out a house and it has been used as an office twice and now it's a kindergartner, and where one house in the area has been converted to distribute LPG gas for cooking, seems like Houston still has a much more rigid planning and zoning than here.

You need to compare Houston not just to other cities in the area. But rather in the entire country. It's so much better than New York and SF. Austin is struggling under the weight of people moving in. Houston is not. The other cities are much smaller. Additionally one city allowing higher density development, reducing prices in all nearly cities because it can take the overflow.

I can tell you for a fact that there are chemical plants across the street from homes in the Houston Area. I lived across the street from a plastic chemical plant when I lived in La Porte (small city roughly 20 miles east of Houston, along Galveston Bay)

I do agree, and I would add that many problem America faces, such as rising Depression and Anxiety, stem from a super-car-oriented design, forced by zoning; of course we don't want industrial zones next to schools, but we should want denser suburbs, walk-able suburbs, render impossible by today's zoning regulations, Houston may be a city that could achieve this.

Interesting to learn how Houston plans without zoning

I have only lived in in the mid Atlantic (NJ, DE, PA, VA, MD) and have spent some time in Germany. I found Houston to be a bit disorienting due to the lack of zoning and was surprised by how large it is. I mean the drive from the airport to downtown even with 6 lanes takes a good drive (~25 miles). All in all it’s a cool place but the lack of zoning makes it distinct

As someone living in a dense city in Europe, this city just seems like a big nightmare. 50% of land is highways or parking lots. You can't get anywhere without a car. What are bikelanes? In Suburbia every house looks the same and is unreachable without a car. Everything is grey. I really wouldn't want to live there.