The Air-Conditioned Metropolis

From the mucky waters of Galveston Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, the Houston Ship Channel sluggishly winds 50 miles into southern Texas. From both banks, scrubby rangeland and salt marshes stretch to the horizon, relieved occasionally by a decrepit farmhouse or a forlorn oil rig. Then suddenly, around one of the canal's innumerable bends, a $2 billion complex of oil refineries and chemical plants erupts on the landscape. Soon the inland-bound passenger spies in the distance what appears to be a skyscraper, then several skyscrapers, then a full metropolitan skyline. It might be a mirage shimmering on the hot and steamy plain --but no, it is Houston, a booming metropolis set in the middle of nowhere.

Endless Boom. Seventh biggest of U.S. cities by 1960 census figures, Houston claims to be the fastest-growing major city in the nation. Last year Houston issued $338 million worth of building permits, trailing only New York and Los Angeles. Over the past decade, office space in the city has almost doubled, to more than 12 million sq. ft. Nine new skyscrapers costing a total of $90 million are currently being added to the Houston skyline, which already includes the tallest building west of the Mississippi River, the new 44-story downtown headquarters of Humble Oil & Refining Co. Under construction 22 miles southeast of the city is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's $123 million Manned Spacecraft Center, scheduled for completion next year.

At the turn of the century, Houston was an unpromising backlands town. Then, in 1915, after the ship channel was dredged, the Port of Houston was opened, and the city became a busy cotton and lumber center. It now ranks as the third largest port in the U.S. (behind New York and New Orleans). In the 1920s, oil discoveries near by set off an oil boom that has never ended. When the U.S. war machine needed rubber during World War II. Houston turned to the area's oil, salt and sulphur resources and built massive petrochemical plants to produce synthetics. Far from slowing down after the war, the city's growth boomed: in the decade of the 1950s, the population soared 57% to 938,000.

Hardship Post. Houston is located on an exceedingly uncomfortable site. Hot, dry air sweeping down from the Midwest collides with the humid turbulence that boils up from the Gulf, creating a climate that, according to a widely traveled visitor, closely resembles that of Calcutta. From May through October last year, the thermometer reached or topped 90DEG on 109 days. On the flat plain, water from heavy rainfall stagnates in puddles and drainage ditches, adding to the steamy humidity and providing an abundance of breeding places for a perennial plague of mosquitoes. For putting up with Houston's weather, the British consular service pays its personnel stationed there a special hardship allowance.

The city might not have grown anywhere nearly as fast if it hadn't been for air conditioning. More than half of Houston's private homes are air-conditioned. Downtown, air-conditioned underground concourses connect air-conditioned buildings. The city is now building a $25 million sports stadium completely enclosed by a plastic dome and cooled by 6,000 tons of air-conditioning capacity. At least one dog kennel advertises air conditioning.

In keeping with its big-city status, Houston has acquired the appurtenances of a modern U.S. metropolis, from big-league baseball and big-league football (the Houston Oilers. 1960 and 1961 champs of the American Football League) to a Museum of Fine Arts headed by James Johnson Sweeney, and a symphony orchestra whose current conductor is Sir John Barbirolli. But the city has not lost its frontier character. "There is freedom of movement here that I have not seen anywhere else," says a recent arrival. Says a Houston oil executive, aglow with civic pride:."This is the last frontier."

Lightly Governed. In the frontier spirit, Houstonians are jealous of their personal liberties, suspicious of authority. It is characteristic of the city that although the buses carry conspicuous NO SMOKING signs, passengers puff away as they please --and so do bus drivers.

As a result of its citizens' almost an archic individualism. Houston is probably the nation's most lightly governed big city. Property taxes are enviably mild, and the city relies heavily on private initiative and philanthropy to provide public facilities. Houston's only sizable public park is a gift from a rich donor. Much of the money for the city's lavish new medical center came from private contributions. Rice University, one of the Southwest's best educational institutions, is a privately supported, tuition-free school with a $70 million endowment.

When the city government lacked funds to buy the site for the new jet airport, private citizens bought the land, held it until the authorities arranged financing, then sold the tract to the city at cost.

Houston's individualism has its seamy side. Alone among major U.S. cities. Houston has no zoning laws. When a proposal to establish zoning is put before the citizens, they whompingly vote it down. Chicken coops abound within the city limits. In older Houston neighborhoods, many predominantly residential streets are sprinkled with small business places set up in what used to be private houses. A homeowner can never be sure that somebody will not open a pool hall or an auto-body shop in the house next door. Lack of zoning has contributed to the decay of old neighborhoods, speeded up the flight to the sprawling new suburbs.

Without zoning regulations, Houston is ineligible for federal urban renewal aid. but Houstonians are confident they can get along without it. Says Ralph S. Ellifrit, director of city planning: "When our little shacks rot away, you can just push them all over with a bulldozer. There's not going to be anything to it.''

The Smell of Money. That kind of nothing-to-it optimism is characteristic of Houston. It strikes newcomers even more vividly than the heat or the building boom. "I like the aura of optimism everybody has here," says a new arrival. "Everybody thinks he can do the job that's put to him, and he goes about it in a happy manner." In other cities, citizens sniff foul air and worry about pollution; in Houston, they savor the pungent odor that wafts from the refineries and chemical plants and cheerfully call it "the smell of money."

With their undentable optimism. Houstonians are proud of their city's growth, convinced that it will keep on growing. Just since the 1960 census, Houstonians never tire of saying, Houston has passed Baltimore in population to become the sixth biggest city in the country. And in the next decade or so. predicts Mayor Lewis Cutrer, "Houston will be one of the four largest cities in America." To make room for growth. Houston has more than doubled its incorporated area over the past six years. With 350 sq. mi., it boasts of being second only to Los Angeles in area. And that is only a beginning: Houston has taken legal steps toward annexing all the remaining unincorporated land in Harris County--another 1,150 sq. mi. That move would make the city of Houston substantially bigger than the state of Rhode Island.

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