Thinking about relocating to Houston with some friends and our fledgling web animation studio. Heard nice things about it but never been there. Anyone got the inside scoop on the people/places/things to do, or lack thereof? Traffic, pollution, crime rate, etc?
Looked up some stats on the town but they were either sterile or written from a tourist boards’ point of view.
I’m looking for the real deal. Any takers?
I’ll tell you, the weather stinks, but just wait 5 minutes it will change.
We have 2 main seasons here, summer and monsoon, with a sprinkle of cool thrown in for shock value.
The crime rate is about what you would expect for any major US city.
There is plenty to do here, we have great musems, a new baseball park, we have Astroworld (now known as 6Flags ) lots of clubs, ect.
I say come on down, we don’t bite , much.
Yuck!
I didn’t like it when I visited. I liked it less than Dallas (but more than Galveston). It seems to have the urban problems without the urban charm. I’m completely biased, of course, but if Nebraska isn’t available to you, Austin or San Antonio are the places to go…
Sweet Basil
I love the place. As Ayesha noted, there’s a lot of stuff here. It gets hot in the summer, but we have very mild winters. A hurricane gets us every 20 years or so, and there’s the odd tornado or street flood.
For a city of its size, Houston is not too hard to get around. Sure, there’s traffic, but the city is continually improving the infrastructure. The cost of living compares favorably with much of metropolitan America. I pay $325/mo. for a nice, if eccentric, 1 br. duplex in a nice part of town.
An active art scene, lots of museums, theaters, clubs, restaurants and the like offer entertainment, and Galveston and the the ocean are an hour away. One thing I think really adds to Houston’s vitality is the lack of zoning. The economy is chugging along and there’s Rice University,
Heck, I really need to leave for work, now! But you’ll get my drift, I hope.
I lived there for 2 years. Houston is hot, flat, chock-full of Texans, and the most alarming example of unchecked (no distinguishable zoning laws) urban sprawl in the entire country.
A recent EPA study declared Houston to have the “Worst Smog Problem in the USA”, at last toppling the Los Angeles dynasty. Congratulations, Houston.
I grew up in Houston but now live near Philadelphia. I miss Houston a lot.
I’m not blind to the problems of the cities, as listed by some previous posters, but I think they are far outweighed by the benefits–active arts groups, great restaurants, almost no cold weather, friendly people, low cost of living, and so on.
Houston is big. Where you live makes a big difference in how you like it.
Check out http://traffic.tamu.edu/traffic.html for a real time traffic map of the major freeways and toll roads. Watch it during rush hour. Most people have a 30-45 minute commute to work.
Use some site such as http://houston.sidewalk.com/ to find places that you might like. Then use mapquest.com to see where they are in Houston.
If you like the country, more than the city, you can live on the NW, W, or SW parts of town, outside Beltway 8, or even farther, outside the Grand Parkway.
If you like the water, just south of Houston you have the Clear Lake area [actually part of Galveston bay]. The down side is that to go anywhere else, you have to drive across Houston. Also it is seasonal, lots of fun stuff in the summer [and part time jobs], dead the rest of the year.
The areas inside the 610 Loop vary a lot. Avoid the entire east half. The SW quarter is nice, though they are building lots of apartments so the population density [traffic] will go up. The Heights area [west half, just north of I10] is starting to develop.
As you can tell, I don’t like the traffic. Avoid it if you can.
Tell us more about your interests and you can give more advice. People are friendly here; you may get more advice than you want.
I left out one other good bit–cheap real estate. You can buy a brand new 4 BR, 2 1/2 bath, two car garage, A/C, all that good stuff, for between $70,000 to $100,000. The same house in the Philadelphia suburbs would run $250,000 to $400,000.
These are all nice homes in pleasant Houstonian suburbs. If you worried about driving into town to work, don’t be. Businesses are springing up all over the area outside the 610 Loop, so you could live near the office (check out the homes near Compaq HQ, for example).
Never been there…because it sounds awful. Hot as hell. Awful traffic and pollution. Good ol boys riding around in pick up trucks with loaded shotguns. Crummy schools. People dumber than dirt. Gas guzzling oil economy. People who look like ZZTop. Racial problems.
Houston rocks. When I transferred from Boston two years ago, I had the choice of Dallas or Houston. I chose Dallas and got Houston. I don’t regret it. Yes, it’s flat. Yes, there’s traffic. Yes, there’s pollution. Yes, there’s no zoning. None of that matters because what’s important about Houston is the people. Houston is chock full of geunine, honest, and friendly people. I don’t think it’s fair to make a sweeping generalization of people in Dallas, but sometimes the culture in Dallas can make you feel like all that matters is being rich or being poor or being seen and being famous and Houston isn’t like that. The whole attitude here is just a lot more laid back than many other major cities.
Houston is incredibly diverse - there are many immigrants from all over the world - Vietnam, China, India, Africa, Central America - and they contribute to the vibrant cultural scene. We also have awesome museums, great colleges, and a burgeoning nightlife and live music scene.
Houston is also a great place to eat. We’re consistently in the top 5 American restaurant cities whenever those kinds of listings are published, and I seem to remember a statistic that there are more restaurants per capita than any other city in America. Something like that.
The cost of living is very reasonable, too. Houses can still be purchased in most areas for prices well below other cities, and there’s a glut of apartment units right now so rents are very low as well.
Houston is a great place to live!
…and hurricanes and flooding rains for days. Only good thing is their new baseball stadium looks nice.
I’ve always liked Houston…the only problem being that traffic sucks and I can never determine whether it reeks stronger of cowshit or oil refineries!
-SS:D
Traffic? You call that traffic? Granted there are occasionally times when it gets a little congested, but as a native New Yorker who travels to Houston, I’ve always regarded the relative lack of traffic problems as one of Houston’s virtues.
As for its other virtues they’ve been mentioned; fine town, nice cultural mix, very little urban build-up, good cost of living, great restaurants, cheap beer, etc.
johnnyharvard said:
Amen, brother. I grew up in Dallas and lived in Houston for about 4 years after I was on my own. I never realized how pretentious Dallasites were until I got away from them for a while. That’s why I moved to Fort Worth when I came back to the Metroplex. Dallas makes me self-conscious; Fort Worth makes me comfortable.
As for Houston, here are the pros:
- Some pretty good restaurants - Mama’s Cafe (Galleria area), Fandango’s (near Westheimer and Beltway 8 for cheap-ass but good fajitas)
- Top-notch cultural stuff - Alley Theater, Houston Opera, Museum of Fine Arts
- Proximity to beaches - Galveston, Bolivar, Surfside
- The Astros new ballpark looks nice.
- Friendly people
Here are the cons:
- Traffic, traffic, traffic
- Hot and humid summers (summer being roughly defined as March through November)
- Pollution from the refineries and all the cars on the roads - Did I mention the traffic?
- The constant need of Houstonians to convince the world that their city is way better than Dallas. Can you say “inferiority complex”?
- Sprawl - No place is close when you live in Houston.
- Oh, yeah! The traffic!