Superneighborhood 27

“In parts of Central America, people don’t say they are coming to Texas or Houston. They say they are coming to Gulfton.” Beatrice Marqez (Quoted in Debra Viadero, “Personal Touches” Education Week) In cities across the United States, sandwiched quietly between the newly coveted urban space of the central city and the suburban sprawl of the periphery, are outwardly conventional landscapes that have experienced profound transformation, yet are seemingly overlooked. These landscapes are neither urban nor suburban, but a conglomeration of both, a hybrid condition mixed from one part global city, one part garden suburb, one part swinging singles complexes, and one part disinvestment. These landscapes are unexpected, in that they surprise, challenge, and overturn our paradigmatic expectations of space and its use. In Houston, the Gulfton community—or Superneighborhood 27—is one of these landscapes and its history tells a story of successive encounters between people and space, between myths and realities, and between that which is fluid and that which is static. More precisely, it is a story of fluid populations, successively occupying static space, and in the process inverting long held myths and providing insight into future realities. Today, Gulfton is simultaneously globally linked, locally severed, socially connected, and physically divided—it is the definition of encounter. The Facts: Densest Neighborhood in the City of Houston 3 square miles 45,000 Residents (70,000 Estimated) 1 out of every 28 people in Houston live in Gulfton 15,000 Apartments 72 Different Languages 42 Different Countries

Volume Editors
David Covo & Gabriel Mérigo Basurto

ISBN
0-935502-57-2