2035 Houston Region Forecasts
Population and Jobs (draft data)
Population and Jobs (draft data)
These forecasts will be used to study traffic modeling for the new Regional Transportation Plan, which will set a direction for the next few decades. The most obvious observation that can be made is that enormous quantities of greenspace will disappear from the region in the next 30 years. In fact, all large green areas remaining in Harris County will vanish. It's first important to understand that H-GAC's forecasts are essentially based on recent trends and policies. So the projections do not reflect choices that can be made about public policies, particulary about transportation policy. As Metrostudy president Mike Inselmann has said "The city grows where developers buy land and they buy land where new transportation corridors get developed." An example of this dynamic is evident in the maps: they show significant new development happening all along the proposed Grand Parkway, which is shown on H-GAC's maps as a new transportation corridor - although most of it doesn't exist yet, and no construction contracts have been let for expansion.
The colors and number ranges used for these maps are not the same as the ones H-GAC uses. The Gulf Coast Institute has been working on a system that divides land uses into four categories: urban, suburban, rural, and frontier. The categories are based on population per square mile. H-GAC uses a 10,000-foot grid cells, which means each cell is around 3.5 square miles. The numbers, then, should be divided by 3.5 to get an approximation of the number of residents per square mile. Green is used to denote frontier and rural densities, yellows are suburban, and reds are more urban, with black the most dense. This system provides an easy way to see quickly how each area is expected to change. Because regional greenspace is so closely tied to air, water, and food, it is a leading indicator of quality of life and place. The intent of using this system is to give decision makers a tool for understanding the choices they may want to make.