Well, now, to be fair, NO city in Texas has non-joke mass transit, with the possible exception of Austin, which is a smallish college town (and thus, shorter distances to transport more drunk kids) and is full of dirty hippies anyway.
Disclaimer: I live in Dallas now but would move back to Austin in a half a heartbeat. The above is as much of a joke as Houston’s mass transit. No dirty hippies were harmed in the making of this legal disclaimer.
Speaking as someone who REALLY wanted to go to Rice and thus planned to live there, Houston is ugly as shit, has a horrible climate and has soul-crushing traffic.
Eh, I guess you’re right. I think of cosmopolitan cities as not only being diverse, but also having that je ne sais quoi that gives a city standing.
I hear shopping strips, and I think parley voo fransay, not joie de vivre.
The weather and the traffic are the things I’ve heard people gripe about the most. The weather I grant is not optimal for many people, but is the traffic really that bad for a big city? Rush hour traffic definitely isn’t great, but I don’t know if it’s really worse than what I’ve seen in Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and other big cities. I understand why my dad who lives in a city of 100,000 people complains about being stuck in traffic here, since there is so little traffic back home for him, but I don’t understand when I hear people from other big cities saying how the traffic here is bad.
I’ve lived in Houston for five years now and absolutely love it. I could move somewhere else if I had a compelling reason to do so, but I could also see myself spending the rest of my life here. I’m not upset when I hear that people don’t like Houston, I’m just sometimes confused when their reasons for not liking it don’t make sense to me.
I don’t know that Houston is misunderstood. If anything Texas as a whole is conceptualized in a very different way than it really is.
However, as a non-Texan I’ve always known that Houston (and also Austin) were Texan cities that were very much “non-Texan” and “worldly” cities.
When I’ve visited Houston the thing that I always scratched my head about, was just about everyone I know down there actually live in places like Sugarland, which is what, like a 90 minute commuter? I don’t get people who willingly drive that much every single day.
Native Houstonian here. I’ve lived in several different foreign countries: Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, The People’s Republic of Austin - but I kept coming back to Houston because Houston is a great place. Yeah, we’re not perfect, but we’re good. We’re the 4th largest city in the country and right now, our economy is picking back up and it looks like we’re starting another boom cycle.
As far as the comments about the humidity: if you think Houston is bad, try New Orleans. Houston is where New Orleanians come to dry off.
Jim moved from houston suburb to city, because he said, in houston there are no watering restrictions. Has to keep his truck clean ya know.
Lamar, do you live in Omaha? I certainly don’t know of any Serbian restaurants here, let alone full-on Asian supermarkets. I’m usually trumpeting our fair city’s virtues, but I wouldn’t describe it as **grude **describes Houston. (For the record, this is the sort of thing I would expect to hear about Austin, not Houston.)
If I’m missing something, please let me know where it is.
It doesn’t help that Houston’s signature movie is “Urban Cowboy.” 
Anyway I largely agree with the OP. But the problem with Houston is that it doesn’t really conjure up much of anything in the popular imagination, aside from perhaps the Stetson-wearing oilman archetype. If you’re a space buff, you probably know it for NASA. But other than that, the city doesn’t really have an image, good or bad. I can tell you that when I moved there after college I didn’t really have much idea what to expect, only that I was going to be living in a big ass city.
It’s soul is not one that’s easy to define. And in spite of having lived there, even I have trouble describing its attributes, other than evoking a general sense of it being a cosmopolitan and bustling place, much like what the OP did.
Still, I’d move back there in a heartbeat if the right opportunity presented itself.
In the process of auditioning for a summer theater program, I was grilled by an expert in voice and dialect as to where my parents were from because I didn’t sound like a native South Carolinian.
That’s Denver, sir.
Every city has shopping, downmarket areas, and, you know, shitters and drunk tanks. Paris, for example, is one of the worst cities for immigrants judging by their rioting.
There is no perfect city.
How the hell dis that happen?
Born and raised in Houston inside the loop, moved toAustin as soon as college came, and boy did I finally feel alive once I left. Houston is great for young families, cheap housing, jobs, but all my friends did was drink at bars in Montrose and drive home like it was legal, since Houston is so big and such a car city. I hated that. Now call Denver home, never want to live anywhere else, and almost dread trips back to Houston now. Best hole in the walls and Tex-Mex ever, though. At least it’s not Dallas, though! 
Are you referring to the “New Asian Supermarket” in South Omaha? That’s off All Races Square, I believe (which is kind of a neat little area in its own right). I meet with a foundation headquartered down there, and I don’t recall seeing it, or at least not being terribly impressed. Perhaps I gave it short shrift.
Now how about the Serb restaurant? You can get a good South Slavic meal at the Croatian Society during a special event, but I’m not aware of any good Slavic restaurants in town.
Did you look at the map? There’s a dozen of them. No, I don’t live in Omaha. I also don’t know how to Google for a Serbian restaurant, unless there’s a restaurant called “Serbian restaurant.” I was just making the point that the OP’s idea of cosmopolitan isn’t any different from a small city anywhere in the country. Vietnamese restaurants? A gay community? C’mon.
People of planet Houston …
Kneel before Zod!
I’m not saying that the great cosmopolitan cities are perfect. London has some pretty bad neighborhoods, but if you’d ask me what makes London so cosmopolitan, the first thing that would spring to mind would be things like the British Museum, the single most amazing museum in the world; or the posh stores in Bond Street are thereabouts where wealthy people from around the world come to shop.
Having lots diverse markets and food in strip malls isn’t the first argument I’d trot out. By this measure, even Falls Church, Virginia, is a crossroads of the world.
The best places in Texas are the ones with the fewest people.