Houston famously has almost no zoning laws and is extremely developer friendly and car-oriented. To the point where a developer friendly mayor managed to knock

Houston famously has almost no zoning laws and is extremely developer friendly and car-oriented. To the point where a developer friendly mayor managed to knock us back thirty years in terms of mass transit, completely blocking a rail plan because the critics envisioned it sending people past their malls and new housing developments. It's also a very large metropolitan area thanks to a city charter that originally granted it broad annexation powers. The city proper is ~600 sq/mi or 1560 km^2. So there's not one single solution to our paving over arable land or water management. Realistically we should probably buy out people living behind / upstream Addicks Reservoir and rebuild the dam from just rammed earth with concrete caps to something larger and stronger. The dam was overtopped by this storm and Army Corps of Engineers had to release water from the reservoir due to concerns about that and preventing it overtopping in the "wrong" spot. See http://i.imgur.com/usZAici.jpg http://i.imgur.com/usZAici.jpg Since this storm is potentially the new norm expanding the area to catch and hold water is most likely the right path, but there's almost zero chance it'll actually happen.