Houston: Opportunity City

G

Gone To Texas

500+ Posts
Growing up in San Antonio, my impressions of Houston reflected my limited experiences there: riding terrified in the back seat while my father cursed at the congestion, breakfast at Grandy's before going to Astroworld (where we subsequently rode the tilt-a-whirl, which minutes later caused my brother to deposit his biscuits and gravy on the boarding platform of the Cyclone), and watching baseball indoors. That and the smell of chemicals.

It wasn't until college, after traveling there with natives, that I learned to appreciate Houston, flaws and all.

I thought this was a nice article, particularly if you're a fan of the city. The Link

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Houston is a "working man's/woman's town".

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houston isnt that ugly of a city if you avoid the southeast loop area and then south along 45 south of the loop.
 
Houston is a great city that could be even greater if we didn't have small minded boobs like John Culberson and formerly Tom DeLay represent us.

Houston is much more similar to New York in many ways than to other Texas cities in that it is a magnet which draws immigrants. The vitality that brings is great and with the entrepreneurial spirit that the city has makes for a diverse group of people who have "made it".

This is a great city to build a career in. As a lawyer, you will find as sophisticated work here as anywhere in the country and I can you tell that since I used to live and work in Manhattan. What is even better is that the pay is high and the cost of living is low.

The city is maturing and is taking baby steps in valuing things that make a difference in quality of life like historic preservation, sensible land use planning, etc. I truly believe that if we can develop an effective mass transit system, continue to develop Inner Loop areas to reflect an urban nature through sensible land use controls (read no more ******* suburban style CVSs in Midtown), andclean up blighted areas like 45 North that this city could legitimately join the ranks of other world class cities.
 
Actually, talking with some left-of-center Houston (and Houston-area) city manager types recently, they all agreed that losing DeLay meant losing a lot of funding for all sorts of projects. Transportation. Health care. Social services. Etc.

DeLay brung home the bacon.
 
I love Austin. I've lived here for 20 years now, and it is my home. It's where my professional life and connections are, and it's a great place to raise a family.

But I was born and raised in Houston (Sharpstown hospital and a Jesuit boy). And when I read articles like that about the town -- about MY town -- it brings a tear to my eye. Houston is handshakes and hustle. It's a classic melting pot -- even in 1988, we'd go off campus to eat lunch at a chinese deli where they didn't speak much English. Or to the Taqueria down the street -- not much English there, either. And we were greeted at both of them with a smile and hustle -- and good grub.

When Houston -- without a instant's hesitation -- reached out to those fleeing Katrina (which hit me quite hard, as New Orleans is my mother's hometown), putting them in the Astrodome (the stadium I grew up on) in her final days. Dammit, that was MY town, and I couldn't have been more proud.

Houston's the kind of place that doesn't care so much about who you are, or what you look like. It cares about what you DO. And that attitude is both professional and personal. Houston remains one of the friendliest places I have ever been. It was easy for me to strike up friendships with folks of every economic demographic, every race, every nationality. It just came naturally there.

Austin IS much more like San Diego, which is both good and bad. We definitely attract the intellectual capital, but we don't pay much attention to the folks who make the trains run on time, so to speak. This town is a MUCH more segregated society than Houston (some of you may recall my story of my trip to the HEB on Fountainview at T-giving a couple of years ago -- all patrons were solidly middle class to upper middle class, and I saw every ethnicity imaginable, including more mixed-race couples than you could shake a stick at).

Houston is a big-assed pot of gumbo. It's a mess to make, and a mess to eat, and the ingredients change from batch to batch. But if you're willing to belly up to the table and sop it up with a good crusty piece of bread and a smile on your face, it's a glorious place.
 
Only people from Houston think they are soo much different than Dallas. Houston has just as many $30k millionaires. It has just as many people living in suburbs nowhere near downtown. It's people are just as pretentious.

One town smells of oil and is near the nastiest beach on the gulf coast. The other smells of sooners and is surrounded by nasty lakes.
 
Both Dallas and Houston are great cities. The article mentioned that. I love it in Houston, I hope the gentrification keeps happenning, and the growth starts going up, not out..
 
There is a lot of residential development densifying Inner Loop areas and former wastelands like the East End are being gentrified.

Houston is a fantastic place to live. I live near Montrose and commute out to Memorial City area for work. Other than for work the boundaries of where I frequent would be the Galleria to the west, downtown to the east, 59 to the south and I-10 to the north. I never have to worry about traffic and get to enjoy the wonderful urban amenities this city has to offer.
 
Houston: It just makes too much sense not to...

I never leave the loop except to go to the airport. Traffic is not an issue for those who actually live in Houston.
 
If someone says the venture to the Galleria yet they do not have to worry about traffic, I must question everything that person has said - unless that person sleeps during the day and goes out at night.
 
Just too spread out and full of SUVs with W stickers. There are some nice charms about Houston, I know, I was raised there, but after just leaving the area and traveling the rest of the US and the world, the city isn't much to me. It is just like Dallas to me, nothing different, which is just like LA, or Phoenix, or any other big spread out city in the southern US. Austin kicks the **** out of it for what I appreciate in a city.( And Austin still lacks many many things to make it an actual city.)
 
The problem with generalizing about Houston is that it's just too big and diverse to be easily defined.

The area people refer to as "Houston" can mean almost anything within a 40 mile radius of downtown. Other than LA, most big city names refer to a much smaller geographical area. Even LA is filled with tiny communities with their own identities. Compton is not the same as Bevery Hills. Orange County isn't the same as Anaheim. In many people's mind however, Houston is Houston.

It's only 10 miles from Manhattan to Newark, but no one tries to make generalizations about them as if they were one place. Stamford, Conneticut is same distance from Wall Street as the The Woodlands is from downtown Houston. Everyone realizes that Stamford and downtown NYC are not the same, but many people lump Houston's inner loop into the same bucket as the The Woodlands.

It's about 40 miles from San Francisco to San Jose and there are least 20 separate cities in between. I don't think anyone would paint Oakland and Sunnyvale with the same brush.

What's amazing to me is that even though Houston isn't much of a tourist destination, the the NY Times travel writer grasped the essence of Houston on his first visit and summed it up better than I ever could have done on my own when he wrote:
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I'm sorry, but did iamtiger go to school? Dang, what lousy use of the english language. I feel like my brain is being sucked out of my head when I read his posts.

Houston, great city if you live in the burbs. Some downtown isn't too bad, and some is downright superb. The highways are built to go fast on, and make money for the city, nicely done, Houston.

Stay out of the bad areas, and you'll have a great time. Wander into the Fifth ward by accident, without a GPS, and, watch out. You will come out with either some crack or a gunshot wound. Take the crack, throw it out immediately. (that was a joke, son)

I had to go to people's homes to do service work, and never knew what the environment would be when I get there. After 3 "episodes" in the Projects in Houston, I packed my stuff.

Loved the beach access, NASA, and all that, not ready to get killed just yet.
 
I love Houston for all of the reasons already mentioned.

I wouldn't trade my four years on the Forty Acres for anything, but I always knew I would be coming back home.

I do want to clarify one thing though. Many people on here have mentioned Houston's response to Katrina. Yes, Mayor White made it happen, no question about that. But it was the people of Houston that made the difference. I had no part in it, but they were turning volunteers away from the Dome and the George Brown Convention Center. Literally turning them away. It didn't matter that the people that needed help weren't from Houston; weren't even from Texas. They needed help, and Houstonians turned up in droves to do whatever needed doing.

Yeah, that still makes me proud.

Dallas sucks though.
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