Three mayors make Plan Houston a reality

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Everyone in attendance at the Building This City event would agree that Houston is nothing like it was in the 1980s and 1990s.

In fact, the city has changed by leaps and bounds since Houston last hosted the Super Bowl in 2004. Return visitors will see a greater array of restaurants, high-rise buildings and green space.

The Super Bowl LI matchup between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons is expected to generate $350 million for Houston.

Some of the new sights and sounds for the Big Game are due to Plan Houston.

The plan was an idea formed by the Mayor Lee Brown administration, pushed heavily by the Mayor Annise Parker administration, and is gaining even more steam with the Mayor Sylvester Turner administration.

"I was advised as mayor by law, Houston required that we have a master plan for the city which no other mayor had ever done as I understand so we started that and out of that grew Blueprint Houston that we have today," said former Mayor Brown.

"There's this idea that because we're an unzoned city, we don't need to do any planning," said former Mayor Parker. On the contrary, the least restrictive you are, the more you have to do planning to make sure you don't have any train wrecks down the road." 

"We're building a city, not for yesterday or today, we're building a city for the future," said Mayor Turner.