Houston Chronicle Live is a virtual event series that peels back the curtains on our newsroom. Readers are invited to join us for VIP interviews, fascinating Q&As and on-the-record discussions on topical issues.
In a recent investigative series, reporter Yilun Cheng explores how officials continue approving tens of thousands of new homes in Houston floodplains. Who profits and who pays the price for building and investing in flood-prone areas? What are the political connections of the top executives who continue to build in floodplains? And how can consumers protect themselves? On Thursday, November 13 at 11 am CST, Cheng and deputy data editor Caroline Ghisolfi will be joined by environmental lawyer Jim Blackburn and flood mitigation expert Sam Brody for a private Zoom event on the high cost of floodplain development.
Our events bring live journalism straight to your laptop, and we encourage attendees to ask questions. Register for the live Zoom event here.
Jim Blackburn is an environmental lawyer, planner and professor of environmental law at Rice University, where he co-directs the SSPEED Center and leads the energy and water sustainability minor. He shifted from litigation to focus on teaching, research and sustainable planning through his firm, Sustainable Planning and Design. Blackburn is the author of The Book of Texas Bays and A Texan Plan for the Texas Coast, and co-author of Birds: A Book of Verse and Vision. His awards include Rice University’s Distinguished Alumni Laureate Award and the International Crane Foundation’s Good Egg Award, among others. He also co-founded the Trinity Edwards Springs Association and Bayou City Initiative and serves on the boards of the Matagorda Bay Foundation and The Aransas Project.
Sam Brody is a coastal environmental planner and flood mitigation expert whose research focuses on sustainable and resilient coastal development. He holds joint appointments as a professor of urban planning at Texas A&M University and as the George P. Mitchell ’40 Endowed Chair in Sustainable Coasts at Texas A&M–Galveston, where he directs the Center for Texas Beaches and Shores. Brody authored Rising Waters: The Causes and Consequences of Flooding in the United States and works with public and private partners to develop coastal and flood mitigation plans. He earned degrees from Bowdoin College, the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Yilun Cheng is an investigative reporter for the Houston Chronicle covering the policies, practices and decisions shaping the region’s urban and suburban growth. Her reporting explores how development, infrastructure and government accountability intersect, including investigations into tax break programs that benefit developers over renters, floodplain failures and suburban inequality. Previously a City Hall and politics reporter, she has exposed corruption, waste and systemic failures in city governance. Cheng previously covered immigration and marginalized communities for the Columbus Dispatch as a Report for America fellow, and her work has appeared in Slate, the Chicago Reader and Borderless Magazine. She holds degrees from UC Berkeley, Columbia University and Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.
Caroline Ghisolfi is the deputy data editor for the Houston Chronicle. Before coming to Houston, Caroline was at the Austin American-Statesman, where she was part of the team selected as a Pulitzer finalist in public service. She trained in data journalism in multiple roles at the Associated Press and holds a journalism master’s degree from Stanford University.
This article originally published at EVENT: Who profits and who pays the price for building in Houston’s floodplains?.