Urbanization will reshape the architectural landscape of large American cities over the next 30 years with Houston outpacing the rest of the country. Houston is maturing and transforming itself from a city that has thrived on suburban sprawl model and is now moving towards a high density urban metropolis. This is what cities do as they mature and grow.

Houston is fortunate to have four major growth engines that will continue to sustain its rapid growth pattern:

1. Houston is the energy capital of the world.
2. The Texas Medical Center is the largest and fastest growing medical center in the world.
3. Houston is home to the second largest port in America and is soon to become the largest port once the widening of the Panama Canal is complete in 2012.
4. Texas and Houston, in particular, are the beneficiary of job and retirement migration from all across the country.

Poised for rapid urban growth, Houston is a city without zoning which leaves the future urban form of our city in the hands of private enterprise, developers, architects, planners, and civic leaders. Setting forth a clear vision for creating a more beautiful city is the essential challenge facing Houston.

We have abundant tracts of underdeveloped land throughout the inner city in need of new and sustainable development strategies that mitigates Houstonians' reliance on the automobile. The answer lies in collaborative planning between private enterprise and civic leaders coming together to balance entrepreneurial vision with civic pride of place. Great cities of the world have figured this out long ago, where ego, wealth and greed are tempered into a great vision that also serves the common good.

A classic example of this phenomenon is the development of Rockefeller Center in New York. John D. Rockefeller deployed his great fortune, political influence, and architectural vision to transform a struggling neighborhood in Manhattan into one of the truly great urban assemblies in America. Rockefeller accomplished this during the trough of the Great Depression of the 1930's, risking his entire family fortune during the process. Today Rockefeller Center stands as a symbol of great urban vision at a colossal scale that successfully balanced entrepreneurial spirit with a desire to create a strong sense of place with enduring value to the community it serves.

Houston is abundantly ripe with similar opportunity for an urban vision and a chance to make Houston a more beautiful city. One of the urban planning ideas that has been dancing through my mind for some time now focuses on Post Oak Boulevard between West Alabama and Uptown Park.

The big idea is to master plan Post Oak Boulevard into Houston's premiere mixed use Urban Village District combining retail, entertainment, urban residential and commercial office uses. The west side of Post Oak Boulevard from The Galleria to Uptown Park has already established itself as an upscale urban district with some of Houston’s best office space and retail, i.e., Williams Tower, Post Oak Central, Four Oaks Place, Galleria, and Uptown Park.

Future commercial developments at Boulevard Place and Redstone’s new office and hotel development will continue to embellish the commercial nature of the west side of Post Oak. The east side of Post Oak Boulevard remains a largely suburban strip mall development in its current state stretching from the Container Store at the South end of the boulevard to California Pizza at the North.

What is sorely lacking in this area is high density housing that would allow residents to live, work, eat, shop and be entertained in the same neighborhood. What one can envision is a Garden District of midrise and high-rise urban residential apartments laced together at the street level with a tree lined promenade of cafes, coffee shops, boutique retail, pocket parks, fountains and public sculpture. The scale, texture and flavor of an urban residential lifestyle we can aspire to is found in the Garden District neighborhoods of London, Paris and Barcelona, where the street life is active 24 hours a day.

For the past 20 years, the Christmas season has been kicked off by flanking both sides of Post Oak Boulevard with fake Frasier firs and dressing them up with Christmas lights and ornaments. Let us grace the Boulevard with authentic specimens of the Boulevard's namesake trees....Post Oaks! Forget pulling out the fake trees each year and enjoy the majesty of live oaks year round.

At the same time, enhance the tree-lined promenade with paved surfaces of natural stone, architectural lighting, graphic signage, benches, fountains, public art and landscaping to enrich the pedestrian experience. Providing an attractive pedestrian environment will attract retailers and restaurants to firmly establish Post Oak Boulevard as a 24-hour Urban District. Most importantly, though, the District will become a walkable community that will reduce Houstonians need for cars and set a good example of a sustainable development strategy that others can follow.

I envision a first step of bringing landowners and stakeholders together to embrace a unified and coherent vision for Post Oak Boulevard as Houston's Premiere Urban District with a strong emphasis on a high density residential development strategy. The goal of bringing the stakeholders together is to establish a retail entertainment /urban residential overlay zone to guide future development along the Boulevard.

Other cities have embraced similar urban strategies for sustainable development. Vancouver, B. C. and Austin come to mind as two cities that have successfully implemented similar urban strategies with astonishing results. In the mid-1980s Vancouver implemented a Downtown Living First strategy in order to curb suburban sprawl. This move resulted in a vigorous development of high density urban residential construction for the next 25 years that got residents off the freeways and into walkable 24-hour urban communities.

Austin Mayor Will Winn implemented a similar strategy for downtown Austin in early 2000 to encourage 25,000 new residents to the CBD. Today, Austin has an equally healthy and vibrant urban life in its CBD that lessens the reliance of automobiles on area streets and freeways.

It is my hope that by 2030, Post Oak Boulevard will be bubbling with pedestrian life in an attractive and vibrant mix of high density development and urban living. History has taught us that a city’s greatness is measured in large part by the quality of their arts, architecture and urban environment. Setting forth a clear and compelling vision will motivate mankind to achieve great things in life.

I am reminded of Daniel Burnhams words to the people of Chicago as they set out to host the 1896 Columbian Exposition, “Make no small plans, for they have no magic to stir men’s blood. Make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram, once recorded, will never die.”

As we look to the future, let us dedicate our lives to making Houston a great city and a more beautiful place to live.

Scott Ziegler is the Founding Principal at Ziegler Cooper Architects.