Race and affluence shape spatio-temporal urbanization trends in Greater Houston, 1997 to 2016

Urbanization results in increasing impervious surfaces with the potential to threaten fragile environments and heighten flood risks. In the United States, research on the social processes driving urbanization has tended to focus on the twenty-first century, but less is known about how temporal trends arose from the spatial layout of the urban land upon which this growth was founded. To address this gap, we present a novel interdisciplinary synthesis using neighborhood-level census data in tandem with a satellite-derived annual land cover change time series to assess the role of race, affluence, and socioeconomic status in shaping spatio-temporal urbanization in the Houston metropolitan area from 1997−2016. Results from cross-sectional and temporal regression models indicate that while social dynamics associated with historical versus recent urbanization are related, they are not identical. Thus, while temporal change in Houston's urbanization is driven primarily by socioeconomic status, the social dynamics associated with spatial disparities in urbanization relate primarily to race, regardless of socioeconomic status. These results are noteworthy as urbanization in Houston does not fully comport with existing theoretical perspectives or with empirical findings nationally. Instead, we suggest these findings reflect the city’s politics and culture surrounding land use. Thus, beyond its important social and environmental implications, this study affirms the utility of fusing socio-demographic data with satellite remote sensing of urban growth, and highlights the value of the socioenvironmental succession framework for characterizing urbanization as a recursive process in space and time.