What do you think?
Rate this book
Power Moves: Transportation, Politics, and Development in Houston
Since World War II, Houston has become a burgeoning, internationally connected metropolis--and a sprawling, car-dependent city. In 1950, it possessed only one highway, the Gulf Freeway, which ran between Houston and Galveston. Today, Houston and Harris County have more than 1,200 miles of highways, and a third major loop is under construction nearly thirty miles out from the historic core. Highways have driven every aspect of Houston's postwar development, from the physical layout of the city to the political process that has transformed both the transportation network and the balance of power between governing elites and ordinary citizens.
Power Moves examines debates around the planning, construction, and use of highway and public transportation systems in Houston. Kyle Shelton shows how Houstonians helped shape the city's growth by attending city council meetings, writing letters to the highway commission, and protesting the destruction of homes to make way for freeways, which happened in both affluent and low-income neighborhoods. He demonstrates that these assertions of what he terms "infrastructural citizenship" opened up the transportation decision-making process to meaningful input from the public and gave many previously marginalized citizens a more powerful voice in civic affairs. Power Moves also reveals the long-lasting results of choosing highway and auto-based infrastructure over other transit options and the resulting challenges that Houstonians currently face as they grapple with how best to move forward from the consequences and opportunities created by past choices.
Power Moves examines debates around the planning, construction, and use of highway and public transportation systems in Houston. Kyle Shelton shows how Houstonians helped shape the city's growth by attending city council meetings, writing letters to the highway commission, and protesting the destruction of homes to make way for freeways, which happened in both affluent and low-income neighborhoods. He demonstrates that these assertions of what he terms "infrastructural citizenship" opened up the transportation decision-making process to meaningful input from the public and gave many previously marginalized citizens a more powerful voice in civic affairs. Power Moves also reveals the long-lasting results of choosing highway and auto-based infrastructure over other transit options and the resulting challenges that Houstonians currently face as they grapple with how best to move forward from the consequences and opportunities created by past choices.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2018
11 people are currently reading
93 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 1, 2019
Power Moves is a well written and diligently researched study of the history of Houston’s transportation journey starting in the post WWII 1950s interstate age and ending in the present day.
The early mad dash to build sprawling roads in a city free of zoning laws had a devastating effect on the working class poor living in certain parts of the city at that time. Communities of black and Mexican-American Houstonians were completely demolished for the benefit of wealthy elites and developers who had political ties and economic interests in seeing these roads built.
The author shows the evolution of what he calls “infrastructural citizenship” in Houston, the collective opposition to harmful planning and development, and discusses the successes and failures of these movements to affect political change.
The spirit and heart of the people of Houston is on full display in Power Moves. Citizens who care about their community enough to spend unending amounts of time and effort to stand up against what seems to be an unmovable force.
Still, having driven through Houston countless times, it’s hard for me to not feel discouraged at the direction that transportation planning has taken in the city, in spite of community involvement. Ribbons of concrete being endlessly widened with willful ignorance of the principle of induced demand. Will decision makers see that even a 20-lane section of highway is not enough to satisfy the ravenous desire of people to drive when it’s convenient?
Decision makers today will have to deal with past decisions in their attempt to make good mobility decisions that benefit the collective, not just the people with money and power.
The early mad dash to build sprawling roads in a city free of zoning laws had a devastating effect on the working class poor living in certain parts of the city at that time. Communities of black and Mexican-American Houstonians were completely demolished for the benefit of wealthy elites and developers who had political ties and economic interests in seeing these roads built.
The author shows the evolution of what he calls “infrastructural citizenship” in Houston, the collective opposition to harmful planning and development, and discusses the successes and failures of these movements to affect political change.
The spirit and heart of the people of Houston is on full display in Power Moves. Citizens who care about their community enough to spend unending amounts of time and effort to stand up against what seems to be an unmovable force.
Still, having driven through Houston countless times, it’s hard for me to not feel discouraged at the direction that transportation planning has taken in the city, in spite of community involvement. Ribbons of concrete being endlessly widened with willful ignorance of the principle of induced demand. Will decision makers see that even a 20-lane section of highway is not enough to satisfy the ravenous desire of people to drive when it’s convenient?
Decision makers today will have to deal with past decisions in their attempt to make good mobility decisions that benefit the collective, not just the people with money and power.
April 27, 2023
this is probably one of the most clearly written transportation/urban planning books that i've read. shelton deftly contextualizes houston development within the broader national trends of suburbanization and highway construction while weaving in personal narratives from residents who pushed back against and/or shaped this development. ultimately, this is a very measured account of what happened, and shelton shies away from advocating too hard for any one solution towards transportation development and instead notes that expanded democratic engagement with the planning process is a "double edged sword" that has lead to more inclusion in the planning process but also longer timelines and higher costs.
imo, the noted "downsides" are worth it, especially when it comes to addressing the needs of transit-dependent populations that have been historically ignored (low income, disabled, communities of color)! for example, the last chapter documents the conflict around constructing either an overpass or an underpass on the east side of houston. the underpass is more popular with residents, but is also costlier and has more environmental roadblocks considering the historic industrial pollution in the ground that will be disturbed by construction. because of these additional roadblocks, the city/county transportation agency reverses its original decision of constructing an underpass to instead build the overpass. my first thought when i read this was: "invest the fucking money, you bozos. why's the land polluted in the first place? clean it up!" but shelton doesn't really take a more justice-oriented standpoint and instead concludes that all of it is "complicated" and celebrated by some while destructive for others.
my issue with the centrism/measuredness shows up most prominently in shelton's central idea of "infrastructural citizenship". i'm not a fan in general of theories around citizenship because i'm sure that there are many non-citizens who were and are impacted by development that do not have the chance to engage with the state for obvious reasons. i'm wondering about them! while shelton notes that not all "citizens" are considered equal based on their race, class, and neighborhood, i think that lumping the resistance of suburban white middle class residents with the resistance of low income / middle class black & latinx residents leads to the sort of flattening of how the state regards these disparate groups.
overall i'm glad i read this! it helped me answer a lot of questions i had as to why houston looks like That(TM). houston's indeed a super interesting case study in transportation planning, and i feel like the future of what most of the united states will be like will be piloted there.
imo, the noted "downsides" are worth it, especially when it comes to addressing the needs of transit-dependent populations that have been historically ignored (low income, disabled, communities of color)! for example, the last chapter documents the conflict around constructing either an overpass or an underpass on the east side of houston. the underpass is more popular with residents, but is also costlier and has more environmental roadblocks considering the historic industrial pollution in the ground that will be disturbed by construction. because of these additional roadblocks, the city/county transportation agency reverses its original decision of constructing an underpass to instead build the overpass. my first thought when i read this was: "invest the fucking money, you bozos. why's the land polluted in the first place? clean it up!" but shelton doesn't really take a more justice-oriented standpoint and instead concludes that all of it is "complicated" and celebrated by some while destructive for others.
my issue with the centrism/measuredness shows up most prominently in shelton's central idea of "infrastructural citizenship". i'm not a fan in general of theories around citizenship because i'm sure that there are many non-citizens who were and are impacted by development that do not have the chance to engage with the state for obvious reasons. i'm wondering about them! while shelton notes that not all "citizens" are considered equal based on their race, class, and neighborhood, i think that lumping the resistance of suburban white middle class residents with the resistance of low income / middle class black & latinx residents leads to the sort of flattening of how the state regards these disparate groups.
overall i'm glad i read this! it helped me answer a lot of questions i had as to why houston looks like That(TM). houston's indeed a super interesting case study in transportation planning, and i feel like the future of what most of the united states will be like will be piloted there.
October 10, 2021
As a transportation professional in Houston, I greatly appreciate the attention to detail and vast amounts of research that went into the writing of this book. And beyond that, Shelton is a great storyteller. After reading this book, I can look at my city with fresh eyes to acknowledge its painful history of transportation infrastructure and ensure that we do better going forward.
Kyle Shelton gives a fantastic overview of the history of transportation infrastructure in Houston through the lens of “infrastructural citizenship”, a term he uses for residents’ political participation to shape their built environment. The first half of the book focuses on the development of the Houston region’s transportation system in the 1950s-60s, as well as the beginnings of infrastructural citizenship in Houston. The second half focuses on the evolution of Houston’s transportation decision-making from an elite-dominated endeavor to a much more democratic system from the 1970s onward. But far from solving all of Houston’s transportation problems, Shelton describes how this democratization led to diverse coalitions of Houstonians with conflicting visions of the city’s transportation network clashing in several referenda about the future of highways and transit in the city.
A surprisingly gripping read, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in transportation in Houston.
Kyle Shelton gives a fantastic overview of the history of transportation infrastructure in Houston through the lens of “infrastructural citizenship”, a term he uses for residents’ political participation to shape their built environment. The first half of the book focuses on the development of the Houston region’s transportation system in the 1950s-60s, as well as the beginnings of infrastructural citizenship in Houston. The second half focuses on the evolution of Houston’s transportation decision-making from an elite-dominated endeavor to a much more democratic system from the 1970s onward. But far from solving all of Houston’s transportation problems, Shelton describes how this democratization led to diverse coalitions of Houstonians with conflicting visions of the city’s transportation network clashing in several referenda about the future of highways and transit in the city.
A surprisingly gripping read, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in transportation in Houston.
April 13, 2021
Really enjoyed this, there aren't many histories of Houston that aren't just "meet this series of brave protagonists."
It really goes in to how land use, speculation, and racial politics built Houston, and how transportation is built into those decisions. And does it in a clear-eyed way that really takes post-WW2 -> Reagan-era politics for what they are and what they claimed to be. This reminded me of Battle of Lincoln Park a good bit: similar scales of storytelling and ways of telling a story.
It really goes in to how land use, speculation, and racial politics built Houston, and how transportation is built into those decisions. And does it in a clear-eyed way that really takes post-WW2 -> Reagan-era politics for what they are and what they claimed to be. This reminded me of Battle of Lincoln Park a good bit: similar scales of storytelling and ways of telling a story.
October 4, 2025
Ebook from the library. A very Houston centric transportation book. Very well researched, and made me realize how little of local political history I'm familiar with. The book topic may be dry but I found myself fascinated by the political battles of the 20th century revolving around local mass transit and highway projects. It would be interesting to see how the latest moves of Mayor Whitmire (the current one, not the 80s one) would play into the book today.
August 26, 2024
The book provides tons of useful context for understanding Houston's built environment. But I'm not sure the central theme of the book, 'infrastructural citizenship' is enough of a thesis for the reader to make sense of all the deeply researched historical detail.
I understood 'infrastructural citizenship' to essentially just mean that people care about their built environment, but maybe I'm missing a deeper meaning. Shelton certainly shows how changes to federal law allowed a much more inclusive range of Houstonians to exercise infrastructural citizenship. Shelton also shows how this increased citizen input has helped communities prevent municipal authorities from imposing unwanted infrastructure, but at the cost of locking in auto-oriented development.
In this way the book is not only useful for understanding why Houston is built the way it is, it also helps understand why a nation which was able to reshape its cities around the car in just a few decades has been largely unable to transition back to more efficient forms of transportation. The chapter on the Green Line provides a concrete example of this dichotomy. Shelton writes, "The Green line debates then, are the outcome of a laudable process; at the same time, however, such debates have turned many infrastructural developments into quagmires, contributing to the calcification of highway-oriented planning across the Houston region - a situation mirrored across the nation. (p.201)"
Ultimately, the book contains a wealth of information for anyone seeking to understand the built environment in America's fastest-changing big city.
I understood 'infrastructural citizenship' to essentially just mean that people care about their built environment, but maybe I'm missing a deeper meaning. Shelton certainly shows how changes to federal law allowed a much more inclusive range of Houstonians to exercise infrastructural citizenship. Shelton also shows how this increased citizen input has helped communities prevent municipal authorities from imposing unwanted infrastructure, but at the cost of locking in auto-oriented development.
In this way the book is not only useful for understanding why Houston is built the way it is, it also helps understand why a nation which was able to reshape its cities around the car in just a few decades has been largely unable to transition back to more efficient forms of transportation. The chapter on the Green Line provides a concrete example of this dichotomy. Shelton writes, "The Green line debates then, are the outcome of a laudable process; at the same time, however, such debates have turned many infrastructural developments into quagmires, contributing to the calcification of highway-oriented planning across the Houston region - a situation mirrored across the nation. (p.201)"
Ultimately, the book contains a wealth of information for anyone seeking to understand the built environment in America's fastest-changing big city.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews