The Kush City Innovation District: Debilitation and Innovation Network Connectivity in Houston's Midtown

• In Event: Domains of Critical Drug Studies: Absent Pleasures and Risky Presents in Emerging Spaces of Harm Reduction - I

Abstract

Innovation districts promise to build futuristic economies through transformative place-making in cities around the world. The Midtown Innovation District of Houston, Texas, is expected to open in 2020 with its hub in a renovated Sears department store. The de/re/construction and non/function of the Sears and surrounding site emblematize certain elements of urban America’s socio-historical landscape, including post-war consumerism, Jim Crow, and gentrification. The currently “vacant” site is known for being visibly populated with those whom I call the “midtown street population,” including homeless people as well as users and dealers of the synthetic cannabinoid known as “kush.” To interrogate the prospect of technology/innovation-driven “transformation,” I draw from disability studies, urban studies, and drug studies to analyze the stories held within and told about this site. I gather these stories from social media commentators, local news media, and interviews with professionals who either are affiliated with the innovation district or provide supportive services to the midtown street population. These stories re-ascribe transformative power to the Innovation District by narrating the site’s past/present as degenerate but its future as prosperous. However, these stories also challenge the notion of transformation with those of continuity and connectivity by revealing that innovation networks mark the bodies of the midtown street population while debilitation networks mark the architecture of the future Midtown Innovation District.

Author

• Mary Claire Neal, Rice University