Prophetic City with Stephen Klineberg

This talk is part of 2020-2021 Scientia Lecture Series – TRADE-OFFS

Sponsored by the Scientia Institute, Rice University, Houston, TX

SPEAKER:
Stephen L. Klineberg, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Rice University; Founding Director, Kinder Institute for Urban Research; Author of Prophetic City: Houston on the Cusp of a Changing America (2020)

“Prophetic City: Exploring Some of the Difficult Trade-Offs That Will Inform the Future of Houston and America”
Few cities exemplify more clearly than Houston the trends that are refashioning the
social and political landscape across America — the deepening disparities in life chances
(predicated above all else on access to quality education) in a global, knowledge-based,
high-tech economy; the epic demographic changes, as America (led by Houston) becomes
a microcosm of all the world’s cultures and ethnicities; and the new importance of quality
of place in determining the fates of cities. Building on 39 years of Houston surveys, we
explore the way responses to the growing challenges entail difficult trade-offs between
the city’s time-honored focus on maximizing short-term individual profits and its ability to
make the longer-term investments required for sustained and broadly shared prosperity
in a time of economic, demographic and technological transformation. These are the new
realities facing all of America. The jury is out, not only for Houston, but for the rest of the
country as well.