Houston: Politics of a Boomtown

In the fall of 1980 a half dozen huge new office buildings, ranging from trapezoidal to octagonal in shape, are thrusting upward to join Houston’s crowded downtown skyline. These edifices, with most of their space already leased to corporate clients, are testimony to the city’s continuing economic boom. Houston’s robust economy has been creating between 50,000 and 70,000 new jobs each year, which in turn have attracted, throughout the 1970s, some 60,000 to 80,000 newcomers to the area each year. The local population has soared. Harris County (containing the greater part of the local urban area) had 1.2 million people in 1960; it had 1.7 million in 1970, and now has an estimated 2.4 million inhabitants. Per capita income also has shot up in recent years. In 1970 the average family income was 102 percent of the national mean, and by 1977 it was estimated to be 119 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Mean family income in Houston is now equal to tha...