IN HOUSTON the relationships between the natural environment and these manmade implants precariously seated in it are stark, naked, astonishing. Even tiny footholds here, set in a soft layer of mud, tell stories about much more than the individuals who made them and the obstacles they face, about more even than regional realities. Such instances describe similar, seminal battles everywhere. And in Houston, the museum of late 20th-century development, the stories correspond -- often quite baldly -- with a more universal condition: the simple effort of a society to keep itself alive.

In Houston, the battles between an idealistic colonizing force and a not-always-malleable environment are visible at large and small scales. Often, they are as apparent in a quick drive through a small section of town as in a detailed analysis of the region's economy at large. You can see them clearly in a few square inches of a parking lot or in a view of a shopping center from the air. You can feel them genuinely in a few steps of a brief walk out a front door, or in a lifetime of decisions and relationships and experiences in a city on the Texas Gulf Coast.