Let’s get this out of the way first: Houston is enormous.

America’s fourth-largest city by population (and among the nation’s fastest-growing), the city is also geographically huge – according to at least one local researcher, the cities of Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago could all fit comfortably within Houston’s city limits.

And that size represents both an opportunity and a challenge as the city looks to maintain its dizzying pace of growth, keep its status as one of America’s most affordable cities and move its economy and housing market into the 21st century.

Zillow visited Houston as part of our Housing Roadmap to 2016 series of events focused on exploring local housing challenges in the communities most impacted by them. Our visit included a conversation with Dr. Stephen Klineberg, founder of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, and a panel discussion featuring insights from several local economists, developers, real estate professionals and researchers. We were also happy to tour a handful of the city’s newest affordable housing developments, and learn more about how Texans’ famous can-do attitude has shaped Houston housing over the past few decades – for better and worse – over a delicious Texas steak dinner.

What we learned provided invaluable context to our own research, and helped us realize that in Houston, size really does matter, in sometimes surprising ways.

What Worked Yesterday May Not Work Tomorrow

Over the past few decades, sprawl as a strategy has largely worked for Houston. Blessed with an open, flat landscape largely devoid of the kinds of natural obstacles that can constrain development in other coastal cities, Houston has long been, in Dr. Klineberg’s words, a “developer’s dream.”

For much of the latter half of the twentieth century, builders could construct huge tracts of housing far from the city center relatively cheaply, knowing that the region’s massive road network would help keep their projects both accessible and profitable. And the city’s famous lack of zoning made it easy to not only get projects off the ground cheaply, but also quickly.

But there’s no guarantee that the freewheeling, sprawling strategy of the past will continue to pay dividends going forward. Yes, the city still has abundant land, but there’s a real feeling that many in the city are growing weary of having to depend on their cars.

“This city is reinventing itself for the 21st century,” Klineberg said. “Sprawl has worked beautifully in the past, and this is a city built for the automobile. But going forward, that will have to change.”

And while Houstonians’ “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to fast development has enabled projects to get done, it has also served to mask a real and potentially crippling aversion to any kind of centralized planning process.

Houstonians are rightly proud of their independence, but the city can no longer afford to ignore some of the lessons learned in other large American cities struggling to balance affordability, growth and sprawl. According to Mary Lawler, executive director of Houston affordable housing developer Avenue CDC, there is room in Houston for the kinds of mandated inclusionary zoning practices widely adopted by other communities, but thus far shunned in zoning-averse Houston.

Match Game

Increasingly, the kind of housing that exists in abundance in Houston may not match what Houstonians say they actually want.

“There’s a 50/50 split among residents between those wanting the typical Houston, car-dependent, single-family home, and those wanting something more dense and walkable,” Klineberg said. “But how many people even have that choice today in Houston? There’s a real mismatch here.”

That half the population would want to live one way, and half another, is not a problem in cities with a diverse mix of housing options. But it is in Houston, where only 5 percent of the housing stock is smaller, denser, more walkable condominiums, according to Zillow’s research.

The lack of condos in Houston could represent an opportunity for denser development going forward. But there’s no promise that if developers build more condos, buyers will come flocking. Dense, urban neighborhoods sprinkled with high-rise residential towers and mid-rise walkups aren’t really a part of Houston’s landscape. Houstonians are building large numbers of townhomes, perhaps as a sort of compromise housing option that retains some of the space and community feel of single-family development, while also creating at least some density.

“The critical message is that Houston’s single-minded interest in single-family homes is not going to meet the needs of residents in the 21st century,” Klineberg said.

More Transit, or More Parking?

Among the few development regulations in Houston is a requirement that developers provide sufficient off-street parking for residents and visitors. But land used for parking lots and garages is land that can’t be used for other purposes, like affordable and workforce housing.

By re-thinking parking regulations, the city could open up “virtually unlimited” options for more innovative development, according to Raj Mankad, editor of Cite, Rice University’s architectural and design magazine. The city could also benefit from a longer-term view.

“When we build something that’s supposed to have a 50-year lifespan, we need to think not only about how that project will be used now, but 50 years from now, too,” Mankad said. “In 50 years, we probably won’t need all that parking.”

Houston’s seemingly inexhaustible appetite for new roads could also be waning. According to Tory Gattis, founding senior fellow at the Center for Opportunity Urbanism, the city’s Grand Parkway – a 180-mile loop through seven counties that could stretch from Houston to San Antonio if laid straight – is likely to be the last loop road the city will need for many years, Gattis said.

Cars will likely always be popular in Houston, if only as a kind of portable air conditioner, but increasingly they aren’t the only option in town. The city’s bus system was recently dramatically overhauled, the largest transit overhaul of its kind in a major U.S. city in decades. Houston is also investing heavily in the creation of an increasingly popular, miles-long series of bike trails connecting the city’s far-flung neighborhoods.

No Core, No Problem

Klineberg called Houston the epitome of the so-called “multi-centered metropolitan region,” a city with not one central business district, but several urban centers with clusters of housing, offices, businesses and amenities of their own.

Over the years, as Houston has grown out, several distinct economic centers have been created apart from the main downtown area, including the Texas Medical Center campus and Galleria neighborhood. As a result, in Houston, unlike other American cities, when housing development moves farther from the geographic center of the city, it’s not necessarily moving farther from job centers and amenities.

According to Gattis, there is affordable housing within a roughly 10-minute drive of all of Houston’s main job centers. And with construction of the Grand Parkway dozens of miles from the official downtown, Gattis said there’s a real possibility that employers will also begin locating farther from the city center to be closer to their workers.

It’s unclear if these diverse economic centers were created by sprawl, or if they helped encourage sprawl. But either way, the presence of multiple cores has helped keep housing both relatively affordable and accessible, and commute times in the city are relatively flat from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Education Impacts Housing

Houston in recent years has been an incredible job creation engine. But for all the high-paying energy sector and healthcare jobs created, there are also thousands of lower-paying service and custodial positions created, too. Houston is not immune to the kinds of income inequality and top/bottom affordability issues seeping in to other American cities, and efforts to combat the rising inequality in Houston begin with education.

According to Klineberg, historically, 70 percent of Houston’s jobs didn’t require a high school degree. But today, 65 percent of Houston’s jobs require a high school degree or higher, and many Houston schools may not be up to the task.

“When families are touring homes with a realtor, some won’t even look at otherwise great parts of town for them because the schools didn’t make their cut,” said Tory Gunsolley, president and CEO of the Houston Housing Authority. “People are limiting themselves.”

Compounding the problem, said Kenya Burrell-VanWormer of the Houston Association of Realtors, is a lack of available data on city schools. Limited and unreliable data on school quality is an enormous barrier to informed home shopping, she said.

As Houston’s neighborhoods change, however, there could be a bright spot. More people that care, have higher incomes and are more invested in their communities are moving in to more Houston neighborhoods. In other words, gentrification could be a positive force for change as it relates to Houston’s schools.

“In the 21st century, what you earn will depend on what you learn,” Klineberg said. “The only way to improve the lot of the poor in Houston is to invest in their skills.”

Houston, we Have a (PR) Problem

If you were asked to name America’s most diverse city by population groups, you might say New York. The fastest-growing? Maybe San Francisco. Most affordable? Probably Detroit, or another ailing rust-belt market.

But in reality, Houston is at or near the top of all those superlative lists, and more. That that isn’t immediately obvious to most Americans – let alone foreign visitors to America – speaks volumes about Houston’s PR problem. Houston’s reality – it is a vibrant, growing, well-educated, affordable and diverse city full of opportunity – doesn’t square with its popular image.

During our visit, we were constantly surprised by Houston, by the passion and thoughtfulness of its advocates and the creativity of its solutions to its mounting challenges. We’re happy to lift the lid on some of Houston’s successes – and yes, its struggles too – but we don’t want the conversation to end here. Please share your Houston stories and keep the conversation going by using the hashtag #HousinginAmerica.