MAKING SENSE OF OUR TIMES:

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MAKING SENSE OF OUR TIMES Tracking the Economic
and Demographic Changes Through 28 Years of
Houston Surveys
STEPHEN L. KLINEBERG The Latest Findings from the
Houston Area Survey April 2009
2
HOUSTON, FROM 1900 TO 1982

• This city was essentially a one-horse
  industrial town, focused
• on refining hydrocarbons into gasoline and
  petrochemicals and
• servicing the oil and gas industry (Thomas
  and Murray 1991).
• Houston was the energy capital of the world,
  the Golden
• Buckle of the Sun Belt, the bastion of
  laissez-faire capitalism.
• Houstonians proclaimed themselves to be the
  epitome of
• what Americans can achieve when left
  unfettered by zoning,
• excessive taxation, or government
  regulations (Kaplan 1983).
• The ideological thrust in Houston has been
  anti-government,
• anti-regulation, anti-planning, anti-taxes,
  anti-anything that
• seemed to represent, in fact or fantasy, an
  expansion of the
• public sector or a limitation on the
  economic prerogatives and
• activities of the citys business
  community (Fisher 1990).

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THE HOUSTON AREA SURVEY (1982-2009)

• Supported by local foundations, corporations,
  and individuals,
• the annual surveys have interviewed 28
  scientifically selected
• successive representative samples of Harris
  County residents.
• In May 1982, just two months after the first
  Houston Area Sur-
• vey was completed, the 80-year oil boom
  suddenly collapsed.
• The region recovered from the deep and
  prolonged recession
• of the mid 1980s to find itself squarely in
  the midst of . . .
• a restructured economy and
• a demographic revolution.
• These are the same transformations that have
  refashioned
• American society itself in the past
  quarter-century. For 28
• years, the Houston surveys have tracked
  area residents
• changing perspectives on these remarkable
  trends.

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FIGURE 1 POSITIVE RATINGS OF JOB OPPOR-TUNITIES
IN THE HOUSTON AREA (1982-2009)
5
FIGURE 2 NEGATIVE RATINGS OF JOB OP-PORTUNITIES
IN RELATION TO THE OFFI- CIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATES
(1982-2009)
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FIGURE 3 WHAT IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN THE
HOUSTON AREA TODAY? (1982-2009)
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FIGURE 4 HOUSTON AS A PLACE TO LIVE, COMPARED
WITH OTHER CITIES (2005-2009)
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THE RESTRUCTURED ECONOMY

• The resource economy of the industrial era,
  for which this
• city was so favorably positioned, has been
  replaced by a new
• high-tech, knowledge-based, fully worldwide
  marketplace.
• The traditional blue collar path to
  financial security has now
• largely disappeared. Almost all the
  good-paying jobs today re-
• quire high levels of technical skills and
  educational credentials.
• In 2008, 74 of the survey respondents
  disagreed that, A
• high school education is enough to get a
  good job. In the
• 2007 survey, 61 agreed that, There are
  very few good jobs
• in todays economy for people without a
  college education.
• In this increasingly unequal, hourglass
  economy, What you
• earn, as the saying goes, depends on what
  youve learned.

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FIGURE 5 TWO CONTRASTING QUARTER-CENTURIES SINCE
WORLD WAR II
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SOME PROVOCATIVE QUOTATIONS

• Gone forever are the days when a high school
  graduate
• could go to work on an assembly line and
  expect to earn
• a middle-class standard of living. Students
  who leave high
• school today without skills and unprepared
  for further learn-
• ing are unlikely to ever earn enough to
  raise a family. They
• are being sentenced to a lifetime of
  poverty. A generations
• future is at stake (Tony Wagner, Making
  the Grade, 2002).
• No country in the world, without undergoing
  military defeat
• or internal revolution, has ever
  experienced such a sharp re-
• distribution of earnings as the U.S. has
  seen in the last gen-
• eration (Lester Thurow, MIT School of
  Management, 1995).
• We can have democracy in this country, or we
  can have
• great wealth concentrated in the hands of a
  few. We cannot
• have both (Louis D. Brandeis, Supreme
  Court Justice).

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FIGURE 6 CONCERNS ABOUT UNFAIRNESS AND SUPPORT
FOR PUBLIC PROGRAMS (1996-2009)
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THE NEW IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY-OF-PLACE
CONSIDERATIONS

• The source of wealth today has less to do with
  control over
• natural resources and more to do with human
  resources.
• A citys well-being will increasingly depend
  upon its ability to
• nurture, attract, and retain the nations
  most skilled and crea-
• tive knowledge workers and
  high-technology companies.
• Talented individuals and leading corporations
  are freer today
• than ever before to choose where they would
  like to live.
• As a result, quality-of-life issues are now
  among the most sig-
• nificant determinants of urban prosperity
  in the new economy.

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THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE

• Houston's economic prospects will increasingly
  depend on
• the citys ability to develop into a much
  more aesthetically
• and environmentally appealing urban
  destination.
• This will require continuing significant
  improvements in . . .
• the regions mobility and transportation systems
• the revitalization and preservation of its urban
  centers
• the excellence of its venues for sports, arts,
  and culture
• the enhancement of its green spaces, trees, and
  bayous
• the richness of its hiking, boating, and birding
  areas
• the quality and healthfulness of its air and
  water
• Its overall physical environment and aesthetic
  appeal

• The publics support for new initiatives along
  these lines has
• remained firm or grown stronger across the
  years of surveys.

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FIGURE 7 CONCERNS ABOUT AIR POLLU-TION IN THE
HOUSTON AREA (1995-2009)
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FIGURE 8 ATTITUDES TOWARD POPULATION GROWTH AND
URBAN PLANNING (2007-2009)
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FIGURE 9 ASSESSMENTS OF TRAFFIC IN THE HOUSTON
AREA AND OF THREE POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS
(2005-2009)
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FIGURE 10 THE IMPORTANCE OF A MUCH IMPROVED MASS
TRANSIT SYSTEM AND OF INCLUDING A RAIL COMPONENT
(1991-2008)
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FIGURE 11 HOW WORRIED ABOUT BECOM-ING THE VICTIM
OF A CRIME? (1995-2009)
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U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY BEFORE AND AFTER THE
REFORM ACT OF 1965

• Between 1492 and 1965, 82 percent of all the
  people in the
• world who came to American shores came from
  Europe.
• Under the notorious 1924 National Origins
  Quota Act, U.S.
• immigration was dramatically reduced, and
  newcomers were
• restricted almost entirely to the Nordics
  of Western Europe.
• In 1965, the Hart-Celler Act for the first
  time accepted large
• numbers of non-Europeans, with preferences
  based primarily
• on family reunification, professional
  skills, or refugee status.
• As a result, major new immigrant flows
  non-European and
• of striking socioeconomic diversity are
  rapidly transforming
• the composition of the Houston, and
  American, populations.

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FIGURE 12 THE NUMBERS OF DOCUMENTED U.S.
IMMIGRANTS, BY DECADE (1820-2000)
Source U.S. Census (www.census.gov).
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THE DEMOGRAPHIC REVOLUTION

• Along with the major immigration capitals of
  L.A. and N.Y.C.,
• and closely following upon Miami, San
  Francisco, and Chi-
• cago, Houston is at the forefront of the
  new diversity that is
• refashioning the socio-political landscape
  of urban America.

• Throughout all of its history . . .
• this was essentially a bi-racial Southern city,
• dominated and controlled, in an automatic, taken-
• for-granted way, by white men.
• Today . . .
• Houston is one of the most culturally diverse
  metro-politan areas in the country, and
• all of its ethnic communities are now
  minorities.

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FIGURE 13 THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSFOR-MATIONS OF
HARRIS COUNTY (1960-2006)
Source U.S. Census (www.census.gov)
classifications based on Texas State Data Center
conventions total populations are given in
parentheses from the 2006 Official Population
Estimates.
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INTERACTIONS OF ETHNICITY AND AGE

• The other demographic revolution the
  remarkable aging,
• or graying, of the American population.
• Todays seniors are primarily Anglos, as are
  the 76 million
• Americans born between 1946 and 1964, now
  aged 44 to 62.
• In the next 30 years, the numbers over age
  65 will double.
• The younger cohorts, who will replace the
  Baby Boomers,
• are disproportionately non-Anglo and far
  less privileged.
• The aging of America is thus a division not
  only by genera-
• tion, but also by socioeconomic status and
  ethnic background.
• Nowhere is this ongoing transformation more
  clearly seen
• than in the age distributions of the Harris
  County population.

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FIGURE 14 THE PROPORTIONS IN FOUR AGE GROUPS WHO
ARE ANGLO, BLACK, LATINO, AND ASIAN OR OTHER
(2004-2009, COMBINED)
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FIGURE 15 EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT IN FIVE HOUSTON
COMMUNITIES (1994-2009)
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THE NEW IMMIGRATION TWO VIEWS

• The dominant pessimistic story Immigration is
  increasing
• dramatically, and it is producing a rapidly
  growing population
• of unassimilable foreigners. English will
  soon lose its status as
• the nations language. Poverty will grow,
  placing ever greater
• pressure on Americas already-overburdened
  taxpayers. The
• country is being swamped by a rising tide it
  cannot absorb.
• A different story of the future After
  accelerating in the 1990s,
• immigration has leveled off. The newcomers
  are moving out of
• poverty and assimilating at least as rapidly
  as the earlier immi-
• grants from Europe. The baby boomers will
  soon retire, and to-
• days immigrants and their children will be
  the voters and citi-
• zens, the workers and taxpayers of America
  in the new century.
• From Dowell Myers. 2007. Immigrants and
  Boomers Forging a New Social Contract for the
• Future of America. New York Russell Sage
  Foundation.

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FIGURE 16 MEASURES OF SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AMONG
LATINO IMMIGRANTS BY TIME IN U.S. AND BY
GENERATION (1994-2008)
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FIGURE 17 INDICATORS OF ASSIMILATION AMONG
LATINO IMMIGRANTS BY TIME IN THE U.S. AND BY
GENERATION (1994-2008)
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FIGURE 18 CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD HOUSTONS
ETHNIC DIVERSITY (19942009)
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FIGURE 19 THE OVERALL IMPACT OF THE KATRINA
EVACUEES (2006-2009)
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FIGURE 20 ATTITUDES TOWARD ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
IN HOUSTON (2007-2009)
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FIGURE 21 PERSPECTIVES ON ABORTION RIGHTS (FROM
1990 THROUGH 2009)
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FIGURE 22 SINGLE ISSUE VOTING AMONG PRO-CHOICE
AND PRO-LIFE RESPONDENTS
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FIGURE 23 BELIEFS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY (FROM 1997
THROUGH 2009)
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FIGURE 24 PERSPECTIVES ON GAY RIGHTS (FROM 1991
THROUGH 2009)
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FIGURE 25 INTERETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN BELIEFS
ABOUT DISCRIMINATION (2006-2008)
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FIGURE 26 CHANGING PERSPECTIVES ON THE AMERICAN
FUTURE (1988-2009)
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FIGURE 27 PARTY PREFERENCES AMONG HARRIS COUNTY
RESIDENTS (1988-2009)
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CONCLUSIONS HOUSTON AND AMERICA FACE SOME
FORMIDABLE CHALLENGES

• This city and nation will need to nurture a
  far more educated
• workforce, and fashion policies that can
  reduce the growing
• inequalities and prevent the rise of a new
  urban underclass.
• To attract the most innovative companies and
  talented indi-
• viduals, Houston will need to grow into a
  more environmen-
• tally appealing urban destination, and
  develop the research
• centers that will fuel the critical drivers
  of the new economy.
• If the region is to flourish in the 21st
  century, it will need to
• develop into a much more unified and
  inclusive multiethnic
• society, one in which equality of
  opportunity is truly made
• available to all citizens and all of its
  communities are invited
• to participate as full partners in shaping
  the Houston future.

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CONTACT INFORMATION
Professor Stephen L. Klineberg Department of
Sociology, MS-28 Rice University, P. O. Box
1892 Houston, Texas 77251-1892 713-348-3484 or
713-665-2010 or slk_at_rice.edu Contact Rice
University (at corrul_at_rice.edu
or 713-348-4225) to order printed copies of . .
. the report on 24 years of Houston surveys
(Public Perceptions in Remarkable Times, 2005),
or the report on the six major sectors of the
greater Houston area (Regional Perspectives,
2007) For further information, please visit the
survey Web site, at www.houstonareasurvey.org