People always talk about how crazy it is that folk still build near the Mississippi and other major rivers, or along coastlines that are subject to storm surges and the like.
Meet Houston.
This very cool interactive report was published last December, and it basically paints a damning picture of politicians, public, and developers who …
… don’t believe that the increasing number of storm and flood events are a sign of the future (let alone that climate change is making things worse), and therefore don’t have to be planned for.
… think that paving over increasing amounts of land, causing water to simply run off downhill to the next set of houses and businesses, is a needful sacrifice in the cause of “economic growth.”
… believe that developing housing tracts and businesses in known flood plains or right up against reservoir basins, is not only a fine and profitable idea, not only aligned with American ideals of entrepreneurship and profit, but is their God-given Constitutional Right, so that they’ll sue anyone before they let communist concepts like “zoning” or “watr retention requirements” or “developer fees” or “taxes” get in the way of their doing so.
… if they actually do think there may be some problem, believe that a few simple widenings of existing flood control channels, or maybe adding another flood reservoir, somewhere, some time in the future, paid for by someone else (certainly not anyone who’s going to raise taxes to do so) will take care of the problem in plenty of time, even if all the development activity continues unabated.
This isn’t true of everyone in the area, but it seems to be true of enough of them that the problem just keeps getting worse, and worse.
Which makes the hypocrisy of Texas politicians who snorted, scoffed, and opposed disaster relief to places like the NY/NJ area after Superstorm Sandy, but now are begging for help for Houston and related environs, even bigger hypocrites than might be supposed. Because while the immediate need is very real, to a very large degree (even in the face of an incredible storm like Harvey) it’s a long-developing, long-term problem that has local, very human causes — and apparently little interest or will to solve.
When Climate Change Meets Sprawl: Why Houston’s ‘Once-In-A-Lifetime’ Floods Keep Happening
Unchecked development remains a priority in the famously un-zoned city, creating short-term economic gains for some, but long term flood risk for everyone.
As I've said in other places, I think at least part of this is the same total lack of empathy that pervades much of conservativism: "those other people are stupid for building where they did so they don't deserve help, but we had to build here so we deserve help."
This is what happens when profit is king of all considerations. Not that one shouldn't try to make profits, but it shouldn't be the overriding concern. Especially when it involves other people's lives.
When we did some major building and renovation at our church several years ago, we discovered that, with the area having incorporated from county land (as when it had originally been built) to a new city (at the time of the building project), we had to do some major reworking of the water retention on the property, which added substantially to the cost of the effort.
Were we happy about this? Of course not. Did we feel it was reasonable from an engineering standpoint? Opinion amongst the engineers in the congregation was mixed. But did we sue because the city was telling us how to use our land, or preventing us from doing whatever we wanted with it, or imposing costs on us purely for the sake of others downstream, or (best of all) imposing our our religious freedom? Don't be silly.
Colorado and the Denver metro area learned the hard way about flooding, water retention, and the need for everyone to work together, many decades ago.
Houston (and Texas) have built a reputation for "come here, our taxes are low, our property is zone-free, you can do whatever the hell you want and, if you make a profit, we'll cheer mightily and call you a Texan." This is the flip side of that, a Tragedy of the Commons when it comes to the watershed, and timed horribly for an era when such storm events will only increase.
The Texas legislature is hugely pro-developer, to the extent that they'll regularly override sensible local growth restrictions, typically from blue-leaning regions. Allow the developers to collect the spoils of all that unconstrained construction, then have the feds bail them out when the sh*t hits the fan.
+Roberto Bayardo As +Stan Pedzick has noted elsewhere, it's the American (well, certainly Texan) way: privatize the profits, socialize the losses.