> Most of it is a depressed concrete wasteland of sprawling blight and freeway lanes far from any natural beauty with weather that causes people to stay indoors most of the time.

Hm. "Depressed concrete"? And concrete in Manhattan is hyperactive, and concrete in Japan is meditative?

I absolutely loved not having a commute in Houston (I could get to work in 15 minutes!). The average commute in Houston is shorter than in ANY comparable European city.

Weather is probably the reason Houston became so successful: pretty much nobody WANTS to spend a lot of time outdoors in summer. So city architects ended up building the city for humans and not buses and bikes.

> far from any natural beauty

My backyard was periodically visited by deer, I had a family of crows living in a tree, and my neighbors had a beautiful garden.

> Fertility tracks religion.

It primarily tracks urban density, which is also associated with religion.