Cover Photo: Art by Hanna Barczyk for Catapult
Art by Hanna Barczyk for Catapult

The Case Against Making a City “Beautiful”

On finding beauty in Houston amidst the ugliness, and what the city stands to lose from increasing gentrification.


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Bryan Washington is the author of Lot, with fiction and essays appearing in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, BuzzFeed, Vulture, The Paris Review, Boston Review, Tin House, One Story, Bon Appétit, MUNCHIES, American Short Fiction, GQ, FADER, The Awl, Hazlitt, and Catapult. He’s the recipient of an O. Henry Award, and he lives in Houston.