Energy Capital and Opportunity City

Abstract

Houston began the twentieth century as a small cotton port linked to the Gulf of Mexico by a ship channel. It became an important center of oil production and refining before World War II, a leading producer during the war and its aftermath, and the global capital of energy focusing on technological innovation, refining, and petrochemicals as the world economy globalized. As it grew, the city drew migrants, Anglo- and African-American, from the U.S. South, many from Louisiana, to become a diverse but not simply segregated city. The long-term economic benefits of oil-led development allowed unequal yet shared gains and funded the rise of leading medical centers, sustaining a diversified economy after the 1980s oil bust made it a symbol of a major city built on oil. It expanded employment and improved infrastructure, but economic opportunities and physical growth came with high environmental costs, including health challenges and urban problems ranging from water supply, to pollution, to chronic flooding—as the city grew with a new wave of migration from Mexico into the twenty-first century.