How complete is One Complete Houston? Mayor Turner addresses gaps in equity through study.
Sylvester Turner, mayor of Houston, on Tuesday discussed the findings of One Complete Houston, the city’s first equity indicator study, during a press conference.
The study, funded by Shell USA, Inc. and developed by the city of Houston in collaboration with the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, measures data in 63 topical areas. It uses a methodology derived from the City University of New York for state and local governments.
Based on a score of 100, Houston’s overall equity score stands at 44.1.
“You may not like 44,” he said. “And if you don’t like it, then you need to improve it.”
When compared to cities that have also employed this methodology, it is higher than Dallas’ score of 38 in 2021 and Tulsa’s score of 42.63 in 2022.
Meanwhile, Houston’s score is behind St. Louis’ score of 45.47 in 2018 and Pittsburgh’s score of 55 in 2020.
During his speech, he said the Houston job market grew by 19% between 2008 and 2017 but the income inequality grew by 16% during the same time.
He addressed economic and health disparities among the communities of Houston, the gentrification of neighborhoods, food deserts – where quality grocery stores are absent, energy deserts, neighborhoods where the heat index is higher and those where banks are almost nonexistent.
“Houston is considered by many to be the land of opportunity, and in many ways it is,” Turner said during the press conference. “Unfortunately, that opportunity flows differently to some Houstonians based on their zip codes, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.”
In terms of infrastructure, Houston’s public transport stands at 85.3. Connectivity, with regards to access to cars and roadways, is at 63, while drainage is at 98.
Daniel Potter, the senior director of research at the Kinder Institute explained that Houston scored a 98 on the equity indicator for drainage, and a 94 on air pollution because both fare poorly in the city.
Houston’s not-so-strong suits
According to this study, Houston’s homeownership and home affordability stand at 46, whereas housing quality got the low score of 24.7. A score of 53.3 was given to housing that is in the way of climate-related risks.
The economic opportunity and employment score in Houston is at 21, while educational attainment received a score of 47, income and poverty got 35. On the other hand, it scored an 82 on high school graduation among all demographic factors in the Houston ISD.
“This is screaming out that there are different lived experiences here in Houston and I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know,” said Potter.
Houston’s environmental and climate risks (EPA penalties), access and inclusion, housing, economic opportunity, health (maternal mortality, mental health and EMS transports), infrastructure, and public safety are indicators that received a score less than 20 out of 100.
In particular, around 318 in every 100,000 Black residents experience disparities in ambulance transports for mental health services, while the number is 174 for white Houstonians, 98 for Hispanic Houstinians and 31 for Asian Houstonians, per the report.
Moreover, the report found that less than 1% of Black Houstonians are business owners. In comparison, 6% are Asian and 5% are white.
“Although I would love to stand before you and say we live in a colorblind society, that’s just not the reality when you take a look, even in the City of Houston,” Turner said. “We are highly diverse, but equity still very much eludes us. It is not something that can be addressed by one administration, it has to be addressed over multiple generations because the disparities that have occurred did not occur in one year’s time or ten years or twenty years. They have occurred over an extended period of time, and in order to address them, you have to talk about equity.”