Prophetic City (2020) - 2021 Book #10

Last week I finished reading my tenth book toward my goal of 50 for 2021 – Prophetic City: Houston on the Cusp of a Changing America by Stephen L. Klineberg.

Prophetic City was published in 2020, and according to Amazon has a print length of 328 pages. It took me 8 days to read. I started it on Friday, March 5, and finished on Saturday, March 13.

Stephen Klineberg is the founding director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. The book is built from what Mr. Klineberg and his team have learned from surveying Houston residents for nearly 40 years. It’s the tale of Houston – from its origin to today’s forces that are shaping the city’s ongoing transformation. If you have an affinity for Houston, I recommend this book.

Onto the review…

What Prophetic City is about

As I mentioned, this is the tale of Houston. One driving consideration is that Houston is the tip of the spear for the US, demographically speaking. In other words, Houston looks today the way the US will look in 20 years. That is one of many motivations to better understand what makes Houston tick.

We get a reasonably thorough look at Houston’s origin, including how it overtook Galveston as the commercial center of the western Gulf Coast. After this introduction, we dive deeply into survey data. First, we get a sense of how diverse the population of Houston really is. Second, we learn how segregated different communities actually are. Third, we hear directly from Houstonians, regarding what they like most and least about Houston today, and how they would like the city to evolve going forward.

Why did I choose Prophetic City?

I follow Matt Lanza from Space City Weather on Twitter. He and I had a brief message exchange where he mentioned this book. I had no idea it existed before our chat. Since I was just about to finish The Grid, it was a great time to jump right into Prophetic City.

Why you would like Prophetic City

If you have an affinity for the city of Houston, you will probably like Prophetic City. If you like data, socioeconomics, and public policy, you will probably like Prophetic City. If you like reading about how big US population centers came to be, you will probably like Prophetic City.

Why you would not like Prophetic City

If you do not like to read about politics, you probably will not like Prophetic City. If you have no interest in the city of Houston itself, you probably will not like Prophetic City. If you want more narrative and less data in your nonfiction storytelling, you probably will not like Prophetic City.

Specific passages that captured my attention

Near the beginning of the book, Klineberg does a good job of explaining just how quickly Houston pivoted from crops to oil, in terms of its economic center of gravity:

By the mid-1930s, half of the entire world’s oil production was located within six hundred miles of Houston. That this city was so ready to embrace the shift from commerce in cotton and agriculture to oil and manufacturing was part of its scrappy character, always ready to reinvent itself whenever necessary in order to exploit new opportunities for additional wealth.

Here’s a fact about the much maligned Houston Independent School District that was news to me:

The Houston Independent School District (HISD), with its overcrowded, underfunded, inner-city schools, is actually more segregated today than it was before the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision mandated the integration of the public schools in 1954.

Finally, here’s one of the most uplifting messages of the book. It’s easy to lament the increasingly large fraction of Houstonians we’re leaving behind. At the same time, we have the resources and the will to do much better. That should give us hope, as Scott McClelland, the president of HEB Houston, explains:

Scott McClelland is convinced that Houston’s business community is ready to pitch in. “At our 2019 [Greater Houston Partnership] luncheon, do you know what got the biggest standing ovation? It was when we said that the city must provide opportunity for all. The crowd cheered like crazy. We are asking how to ensure that everyone can succeed. And this is why we are different from most other big cities. We do a better job at embracing diversity and welcoming new people. Texans are friendly, and Houstonians are friendlier. And now we are looking hard at how to address the city’s socioeconomic inequalities. That’s why I’m so focused on education.”

My overall impression of Prophetic City

Prophetic City was a fine book. If Houston holds a special place in your heart, you’ll probably enjoy it. It wasn’t engrossing. I didn’t feel pulled through it. At the same time, it was a pleasant read, and something I’m glad I read, having been born and raised in Houston.

With all of that said, if you feel no tie to Houston, and you don’t have much interest in socioeconomics, then definitely pass.

I’m currently reading Behemoth: A History of the Factory and the Making of the Modern World by Joshua Freeman. Keeping to my schedule, I plan to have a review up early next week.

As always, thanks for stopping by.