Improbable Metropolis:
Houston’s Architectural and Urban History

Others have said this before. Nevertheless, it needs to be reiterated. Even in 2021, there is a dearth of architectural and urban books dedicated to Houston. A quick search brings up tomes devoted to the old East Coast cities, but only a handful of books on the fourth largest city in the United States, a Gulf South city with one of the most diverse populations and economies in the country. Notable Houston-centered books such as Tyina Steptoe’s Houston Bound (2015), Stephen Kleinberg’s Prophetic City (2020), Lars Lerup’s One Million Acres and No Zoning (2011), and Joe Feagan’s Free Enterprise City (1988) have helped dispel some lazy and simple readings of the city. Barrie Scardino Bradley’s Improbable Metropolis: Houston’s Architectural and Urban History adds one more dimension to this scholarship by telling the story of an unlikely metropolis that came into its own against all odds in the New South. This book is a deep dive into Houston’s architecture from 1836 to 2017 from an author who has engaged extensively with this city’s architectural and urban history as a writer, archivist, editor, and the executive director of the Houston Architecture Foundation.

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