When a proper developer builds a home or sub-division in Houston, they bring in fill dirt and do compactions until the houses rest on small hills. You get frequent flooding (about once a year) but it rarely reaches the house before the flood prevention systems have a chance to divert and control it. The problem here is two-fold, as discussed in the article, these people built there homes INSIDE the flood diversion systems and never did due diligence on their home purchase to find out that they were in homes literally designed to be flooded and unscrupulous developers who improperly built or ignored the creation of new flood control when up-building developments that made previously safe areas at risk like the HP plant that flooded. Of course this implies that the city code/design/inspectors/etc. were not doing their jobs as well.

There are some junk hills, filled with toxic waste. You wouldn't even try to snowboard these, lest build a home there.

The good thing about Houston is that everyone is there in together, the rich and the super rich.