Experts say Hurricane Beryl, which landed as a category 1, revealed that the city’s infrastructure may not successfully withstand stronger storms.

Hurricane Beryl, which hit Houston last week, could be a ‘warning shot’ for more intense and unpredictable storm seasons, writes Dylan Baddour for Inside Climate News.
Beryl struck Houston as a category 1 storm, still causing damages and power outages for millions of residents. “For Matt Lanza, a meteorologist and managing editor of Space City Weather, it raised a disturbing prospect: what if the mild hurricane hitting Texas had been stronger?” According to Lanza, “This week’s experience suggests the city is ill-prepared to handle such a disaster.”
The region is taking actions to bolster its defenses against future storms. “Offshore, federal authorities are advancing plans to build an enormous, $57 billion system of barriers and gates, which has been called the largest civil engineering project in U.S. history and is expected to take 20 years to construct.” Meanwhile, the city of Houston is widening bayous and offering buyouts to homeowners in flood-prone areas.
Making Houston less vulnerable is a major undertaking, “backtracking, to some extent, on decades of booming development driven by the hubris of the energy age,” Baddour writes. “The transformation would entail making space for the water, pulling back from the edges of the bayous to create a giant network of wide greenways through the metro area.”
FULL STORY: Hurricane Beryl Was a Warning Shot for Houston

Rethinking Redlining
For decades we have blamed 100-year-old maps for the patterns of spatial racial inequity that persist in American cities today. An esteemed researcher says: we’ve got it all wrong.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

California High-Speed Rail's Plan to Right Itself
The railroad's new CEO thinks he can get the project back on track. The stars will need to align this summer.

San Francisco Muni Raises Fares a Second Time
A 10–cent fare hike for adults is part of the agency’s plan to chip away at a growing budget deficit.

Electric Grid Capacity Could Hamstring EV Growth
Industry leaders say the U.S. electric grid is unprepared for the increased demand for power created by electric cars, data centers, and electric homes.

Texas Bill Supports Adaptive Reuse in Commercial Areas
Senate Bill 840, which was preliminarily approved by the state House, would allow residential construction in areas previously zoned for offices and commercial uses.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions