Payton, Brenda. 1993a. "Is Race the Issue in Oakland Politics?" The Oakland Tribune, July 20.

1993b. "Two Pioneers in the Long Fight for Job Equality," The Oakland Tribune,

February 1.

"Politics of Color Plays in Oakland," San Francisco Examiner, November 2, 1994.

Rhomberg, Christopher. 1996. "The Consequences of Collective Action: Ethnicity, Class, Race and Social Movements in Oakland, California, 1920-1970," P.hD. Dissertation draft. Department of Sociology, Berkeley: University of California.

Ronningen, Judy. 1995. “Oakland Undergoes Special Census," The Oakland Tribune, March 16.

San Antonio/Fruitvale Community Workshop Summary. June 3, 1995. General Plan Summary, Draft: Notes From Community Workshops, May and June, 1995, June 28, table 2, City of Oakland, Office of Planning and Building.

Scherr, Judith. 1993. “New District Map Adopted by 8-2 Vote," The Montclarion,
July 23.

Sharon Horton. 1995. "Police to City: 'Can't You Just Speak English?"" Express,
May 5, p. 21.

Slater, Dashka. 1996. “Nervous Oakland Teachers Are Back on the Line Again,"
The Express, February 23.

Snyder, Bill. 1992. "City of Change," The Oakland Tribune, September 13.

Staats, Craig. 1994. "A Nice Place to Work ...," The Oakland Tribune, December 18.

Stallone, Steve. 1993. “Clout Without Bite," San Francisco Bay Guardian,
October 6, p. 45.

Stewart, Pearl. 1993. “Redistricting: Oakland's Crying Game," The Oakland Tribune, July 26.

Stinnett, Peggy. 1995. "A Helping Hand (Holding Cash) Reaches Across the City,"
The Oakland Tribune, July 12.

Thayer, Millie. 1995. "Community Organizing in the 1990s: Accommodation and
Resistance," unpublished manuscript. Berkeley: University of California.

Toolsie, Gloria. 1996. Interview with the author, February 14, Sentinel Fair Housing.

Troutt, David Dante. 1993. The Thin Red Line: How the Poor Still Pay More, West Coast Regional Office of Consumers Union, June, p. 16, San Francisco.

Urban Strategies Council. 1995. A Chance for Every Child 2, July, table 2-4, p.
Oakland.

p. 22.

1992. "Median Household Income: Where the Money Is, 1980-1990,”

errata table.

Wong, William. 1993. "Oakland's Redistricting Is a Noteworthy Achievement," The
Oakland Tribune, July 23.

Wyman, Bill. 1987. "Roots: The Origin of Black Politics in the East Bay," Express 9(43), August 7.

Chapter 12:
Houston Heights

Karl Eschback
University of Houston

Jacqueline Maria Hagan
University of Houston

Nestor P. Rodriguez
University of Houston

Anna Zakos

University of Houston

Houston Heights is recognized as one of Houston's most stable yet diverse communities.
Established Latinos, new immigrants, African-Americans, Anglos, gay/lesbian subpopula-
tions, and young and old people comprise the population of the Heights. Diversity is
a changing component that the Heights' residents, institutions, and associations have
addressed and continue to address to create and maintain a stable community.

The Heights' current diversity has its roots in a number of factors: a convenient location,
a mix of housing types, and historical accidents in the timing of the Heights' develop-
ment. Perhaps the most crucial background is the political and economic culture of the
city of Houston. Houston has been called the "free enterprise city" (Feagin, 1988) because
of an absence of centralized planning, the maintenance of moderate tax rates for a city
of its size, the austerity of city services, and a lack of environmental regulation. Most
remarkably, perhaps, the city lacks zoning ordinances that would restrict what landowners
can do with their property. The absence of zoning regulations gives rise to a unique style
of diversity. Houstonians have grown to tolerate sometimes incongruous land uses in
close proximity. Some commentators suggest that the absence of centralized planning
and land-use regulation defuses potential conflicts over development, because discordant
visions do not erupt into fights in the political arena (Shelton, et al., 1989).

The diversity of Houston Heights developed and continues in this atmosphere of private initiative and public quiescence. A condition of intergroup coexistence is maintained with a privatized vision of city life. Many residents in the Heights remark about tolerant relations among neighbors, yet many Heights residents also report that community relations do not extend across group boundaries.

Historical Background

Founded in 1891, Houston Heights is one of Texas' oldest planned communities. The
Heights-initially a suburb of Houston until it was annexed by the city in 1918—was

Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research • Volume 4, Number 2 • 1998

Cityscape 245

envisioned as a self-sufficient community by Oscar Carter, its original developer. Financial backers of Carter's Omaha Texas Land Company spent an initial $750,000 developing Houston Heights. The new community included a central business district; 85 miles of streets and alleys; a water plant; sewer lines; and the area's first electric streetcar, which enabled the Heights' residents to travel the 4-mile distance to downtown Houston. The Heights' altitude of 62 feet above sea level-triple that of downtown Houston-not only gave the community its name but proved to be a great attraction to its earliest residents. Central to Carter's vision of the Heights as a self-sufficient community was the idea that its population would be economically diverse. Housing lots in the original development ranged from very costly parcels of land situated along the central boulevard to less expensive lots to the east and still cheaper lots to the west. Some of Houston's founding and wealthiest industrial families built and settled in the rambling Victorian homes on the central boulevard. To the east and west of the boulevard, working-class families settled in the community's modest cottages and bungalows.

The 1900 census counted 800 residents in Houston Heights; by 1910 the Heights' population had mushroomed to 6,800. Its original settlers were European immigrants, primarily from Scotland and England. In the first decades of the 20th century, immigrant groups from Czechoslovakia and Poland also settled in the Heights.

The character of the Heights community changed little throughout the first half of the 20th century. Following World War II, however, the area as well as much of Houston— experienced a decline in its Anglo population together with an increase of other groups. During this period, Houston emerged as the center of the world's petrochemical industry. The population of the Houston metropolitan area grew rapidly, reaching 3.3 million by 1990. Most newcomers to Houston, however, settled in the outlying areas. Texas' liberal annexation laws permitted aggressive expansion by the city of Houston, which absorbed much of the new development surrounding it. As the rapidly expanding new communities competed for increased services, older neighborhoods such as the Heights lost the funding necessary to provide adequate community services such as clean water, sewage treatment, and well-paved roads. Moreover, because of the absence of zoning laws, small enterprises such as convenience stores, mechanic's shops, and warehouses began operating in the core of the Heights' residential areas.

These changes diminished the attractiveness of the Heights to its well-to-do residents, many of whom moved to new and more spacious homes in Houston's suburbs. The Heights lost approximately 25 percent of its population between 1950 and 1970. Much of the property in the Heights was converted to rental stock during this period, and a new type of diversity-ethnic diversity-was introduced to the Heights. As the Heights became a transient renters' neighborhood, more Latinos and African-Americans from surrounding neighborhoods moved into the area in substantial numbers, following the classic pattern of neighborhood ethnic succession. Many of these changes in the Heights reflect similar changes occurring in the city as a whole.

In the 1970s, young professionals began to discover the elegance of the Victorian neighborhoods in the Heights. Residential gentrification flourished during the 1970s and early 1980s, and many of the older homes and adjacent cottages were refurbished. At the same time, the Heights' business districts experienced a renaissance, in part serving the expanding market of middle-class Heights residents. By the mid-1980s, armed with Federal grants for downtown revitalization, a new and diverse generation of Anglo, Mexican-American, and AfricanAmerican merchants, such as artists, antique dealers, and restaurant owners refurbished the deteriorating commercial center of the community and established an eclectic array of shops,

which now service the community and area residents. The renewal of the Heights was also advanced by the formation of the Houston Heights Association in 1973. The Heights Association put pressure on the city to reinvest in the infrastructure of the Heights to improve roads and provide better services such as new street lighting and, in some cases, carriage lamps along the main streets and central boulevard.

The pace of gentrification slowed in 1982 after the collapse of world oil prices led to a downturn in Houston's petroleum-based economy. During this time, the city's population growth slowed after many decades of rapid expansion. The population of the Heights dropped by nearly 6,000 between 1980 and 1990, primarily because it lost approximately 25 percent of its Anglo population (see exhibit 1). The Latino population of the Heights, like that of the city as a whole, continued to grow and, by 1990, Latinos were in the majority in the Heights.

Houston's economy has rebounded on a more diversified economic base in the 1990s. There has been a renewed interest among upper middle-class Anglos in inner-loop residential properties (that is, properties inside the Interstate 610 loop, a common marker of proximity to Houston's central business district). There are relatively few developable parcels available in established Anglo-dominated inner-loop neighborhoods, and the Heights has thus become a primary alternative for inner-loop gentrification.

Developers are building new, upscale Victorian-style homes, listing from $200,000 to as much as $500,000-far above the May 1996 median sale price ($86,000) of a singlefamily home in the Houston area (Houston Association of Realtors, Multiple Listing Service). One developer placed the new homes alongside their 100-year-old counterparts. Another has created residential enclaves of Victorian-style mansions, some of which are enclosed by tall wooden fences and surrounded by modest refurbished cottages, rental homes, and small apartment complexes. The architectural diversity that results from this mixture of old and new structures consists of renovated and new mansions, refurbished bungalows, and a number of run-down rentals that are often referred to as having Heights charm.

By the mid-1990s, the Heights had been a diverse ethnic neighborhood for two decades. Continuing gentrification has introduced a substantial upper middle-class Anglo population. At the same time, the Heights has retained its small African-American residential enclaves and its diverse Latino population, which includes primarily Mexicans but also many Central American immigrants. The Heights is similarly diverse economically. The mean income of the Heights' households in 1990 was $30,200, about 80 percent of the city mean, though both poor and upper income households are represented in the Heights.