A STORM JUST BEGINNING TO GEL, causing a premature twilight, makes the battle lines clear. The land lying below, almost perfectly flat, can only wait. Above, there is so much sky. Thunderstorms never affect the next valley over. With no hill or mountain cover to hide in, no canyons from which to imagine the sky as only a narrow threat, the metropolis is at the mercy of the wild.

What will the end of our civilization look like? In Houston the answer is abundantly obvious; sneak previews lurk in vacant and abandoned lots spread throughout the city.

The swamp may have been drained and paved in places, but it lurks at the edges, ready to pounce back. Buildings old and new rot, wilt, mold, and rust away piece by piece. Grasses and weeds sprout in cracks in the concrete, wreaked by seasonal stirrings of soil alternately drenched and baked. Soon grasses and occasional wildflowers grow over everything, obscuring views of what people had built.

In the midst of most metropolises, it is hard at times to imagine a future of anything but more development, more roads, more buildings: more sprawl. But in Houston the ultimate future seems clear: when mankind is done, nature will take over.