Would I - a soon to be ex-New Yorker - like living in Houston, Texas?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Just want to echo the HOT aspect. I lived in or around Houston for the past 35 years. From Memorial Day until mid-September, forget about any cold fronts coming through. The talk of the >100deg days is mostly braggadocio (which is common for a Texan). Dallas will generally have nearly twice as many three digit highs as Houston. However, it does not cool off at night. As mentioned, between Memorial Day and mid-September, the lows will hover around 80. Yeah, they may go down to 78 at 5 AM, but that is about it. You won’t be seeing anything below 70 until September (and probably late September, as the highest temps ever recorded in Houston are in September).

What hasn’t been mentioned, much, are the Tropical Storms and Hurricanes. I found Hurricanes are generally better than Tropical Storms, since Hurricanes are usually fast moving and will be there and gone in a day. Tropical Storms have been known to stick around for days and days. I have found that staying put is the best option, but if you live in a house, a portable generator is a good idea, maybe even one large enough to run a small window air conditioner. Hurricanes tend to arrive in the late summer. I sat through 3 or 4 of them and each one put my power out for 3 days or more.

42

True story:

While driving in downtown Houston about ten years ago, I was lost. Naturally, I looked at the street sign when I came to a stop so I could find out where I was. It was printed in only Chinese. My mind boggled.

I went to the next intersection, and the signs there were printed in both Chinese and English. I imagine some joker had scraped the English off of the other sign.

43

You’ve already gotten a lot of good advice, but I’ll chime in with my own experience because it may be of some value to you.

I am a gay man who moved from small town Oregon fresh out of college to Houston, TX. I relocated here not knowing anyone except a couple people through a gay gamer group over the internet, no family or friends or connections.

I’ve lived in Houston for over 5 years now, and I absolutely love it. I came from a very small town life, so my experience will definitely be different than coming from NYC. Everyone else has addressed your questions about weather, driving, etc… and I agree with them all (except for winter being miserable… winter here is wonderful even if it only lasts a short while and there really isn’t a spring or a fall, just summer).

I don’t know much about the gay scene in NYC, and what you like (do you go out to clubs a lot? are you into a lot of gay culture?), but in Houston I’ve been a part of Houston Gaymers now since I first moved here, and I’ve met all my current friends through it and I’ve had a great time. Houston has a small number of gay dance clubs and bars, you could probably count them on 2 hands (the notable ones anyway), so it’ll be a lot smaller than you’re used to in NYC. And they are all clustered in a very small geographic region (Montrose).

I don’t openly go around holding hands with my boyfriend in public, but I don’t feel like I need to hide it either (I call him “baby” at the grocery store and stuff within ear shot of other people, hold hands at the movie theater, etc). I’ve never gotten a dirty look or a foul word. I also have “come out” (I don’t really consider it that, but whatever) to many of my coworkers by just casually mentioning “oh I went to a movie with my boyfriend Marc” when they asked me what I did over the weekend, or things like that. None of them have ever given me any hassle, except for one possible time when I think someone from work got ahold of a phone or account I hadn’t secured and sent homophobic messages to my boyfriend. I was more careful locking things down when I was away from them and it never happened again, and I have no proof that it was any of my coworkers, just a hunch. And I work in the offshore oil industry… a very blue collar, conservative dominated career.

I consider myself a very lefty liberal, proud to be gay, blah blah blah, and I love living in Texas and Houston especially. Yes, Texas is a fucked up state at the state level, we only legalized Sodomy in 2004 and after 36 states have legalized gay marriage, we’re still waiting. We’re stripping women of their rights to abortion and contraception, and a number of other things I vehemently disagree with. But the way I see it, we neeeeeed more liberals to move to Texas because if we can turn Texas blue then it’s Game Over for Republicans. Remember that in 2008, 42% of Texas voted for Obama. That’s nearly half the state.

So that’s my input as a gay man who moved to Houston from the opposite coast. Hopefully this is valuable for you. If you have any more questions please PM or email me.

ETA: Keep in mind, **Clothahump **lives around these parts so there is that… :wink:

44

I’ve lived in the suburbs of Houston around 30 years and love it!
My hubby moved here 16 yrs ago from NJ.

He likes how much more friendly people are. They bother to say please and thank you. They smile at strangers on the sidewalk.
He loves the heat because it helped his asthma.
No more shoveling snow. This was a biggie for him.
Loves the beach. There are nice areas. We go to Freeport.
Great day trips from here. Lots of wildlife, historic towns, and bluebonnets in the spring.
TexMex is awesome.
Shorts in the winter!
Some of the best hospitals and docs in the country.

He misses diners. We have a few, but they’re less dinery.
He adapted to the pizza. Said it’s just a completely different food.
Misses mountain biking. Houston is FLAT. A speed bump in the road is high altitude. Hiking is the same as taking a walk.
Hates his commute, 90 minutes each way, yes that’s 3 hrs a day.
Summers are spent indoors.
No basements.

Houston is like a spider web. Most people live in the burbs and commute in towards the center loop. Living inside the loop is 3-5 times more expensive.

Don’t base your decision on a visit to just one section of town. It’s like night and day going from one highway to the next. Ask the locals where to avoid. As with everyplace, there’s some less desirable locations.

Corp world is extremely diverse. The trades, not so much. Everything else is in between.

You don’t have to know Spanish, I don’t. But if you do, you’ll have more job prospects being bilingual here. Especially in retail or services.

Great schools. They build them huge and decked out! But nice big bonds to go with that.

No state income taxes.
High property taxes.
Flood insurance.
A big hurricane every 10 years or so.

Good luck!

45

How did you live in Buffalo without a car and a drivers license?
If you just let the license lapse because you didn’t need it in the City, go get it renewed right now. Even if you have to pay for lessons and take the test again, like a teenager.

And if you have never had a license,–even more so: start learning to drive right now. It’s a basic life skill that is absolutely vital everywhere in America (except for a few very large cities, of course.)
It’s such a basic part of life that it may well hinder your job prospects when you move to Houston. Telling an interviewer that you can’t drive will not leave a good impression.

46

No, it would be called “perfectly normal”. Seriously, your post is a cartoonish parody of the modern-day urban south. Just stop.

47

The area around Rice U. is fairly aesthetically pretty. And while not on the coast, Houston’s fairly close to the coast, so you can see seashores, lots of temperate and subtropical birds, even dolphins if that’s your thing.

48

Fuck pizza… you can get awesome pho, bahn mi, enchiladas, tamales, hamburgers, steaks, seafood, Cajun/Creole, and just about anything else from anywhere else in Houston.

Seems like a fair trade to me.

As for the weather… it’s definitely hot in the late spring through early fall, but it’s not actually that hot. The average summer high is only around 94, which is in line with most of the rest of the Gulf Coast and Texas. What makes it uncomfortable is the humidity- where say… Dallas or Austin may be 97 degrees @ 50% humidity, Houston will be 94 with 75% humidity. Both are uncomfortably hot, but Houston’s just a touch more uncomfortable.

Winter temps are terrific, if you don’t like winters. Getting below freezing for any appreciable time is an EVENT. As in, anyone with any sort of plants or garden freak out and either bring them inside or wrap them up. This is because on the whole, Houston’s warm enough to grow a lot of tropical and semi-tropical stuff. Honest-to-God, I’ve seen bananas growing in Houston (on W. Bellfort between Kirkwood and Dairy Ashford, if you are curious), and my father nearly has a citrus grove in his backyard, with Meyer Lemons, 2 kinds of Mandarins, limes, and some weird thing called a Phillipine lime/Calamansi. All of which produce bumper crops every year.

It is a friendly place, and a welcoming one. Like I was saying in my earlier post, there’s a different vibe in Houston. I don’t really know why-my suspicion is that it has to do with the blue collar nature of a lot of the industry in the city.

About the diversity again; there’s a HUGE “Chinatown” (although it’s probably 90% Vietnamese) on the west side of town, between about Gessner and maybe Dairy Ashford along Bellaire Blvd. Street signs are in English and Chinese even. Further east, along US 59 at Hillcroft, there’s a large Indian area, and just north of there along Hillcroft, there’s a large Persian area. There’s a Jewish area in Meyerland (59 @ Braeswood), and in many parts of the city, you may as well be in Mexico, except that you can drink the water and the cops aren’t nearly so crooked.

49

Texans can be so friendly that New Yorkers sometimes find it annoying. You’ll find yourself having social exchanges in Texas you’d never have in New York.

Let’s say you want to buy a pack of gum. In New York, you’d go into a convenience store, pick out a pack of gum, go to the counter, pay the clerk, and leave the store. The only conversation would be about the money being exchanged and maybe a perfunctory “Have a nice day.”

But in Texas, people will want to talk to you. The clerk will ask you if you like gum, they’ll ask you if you’ve tried other flavors of gum, they’ll tell you about the kinds of gum they like, they’ll tell you a story about a time their uncle fell asleep while chewing some gum and the gum fell out of his mouth and got stuck in his moustache and he had to shave his moustache off and he ended up deciding he liked the way he looked without a moustache better so he decided not to grow it back but their aunt told him she liked the moustache so he went ahead if grew it back but when he did it came in all grey and their aunt didn’t like that so he ended up shaving it off again in the end anyway.

Now you might enjoy these friendly interactions. But sometimes you just want to be able to buy your damned gum and leave. And it gets really annoying if there are five people in line ahead of you and the clerk has a conversation with each of them and you end up spending twenty minutes just to get through the line.

50

I think you could theoretically be okay without a car. You said you’re gay, so you might want to live in the Montrose area, which is just west of downtown. If you also worked downtown then there is enough public transportation in that area of town that you could handle not driving.

I like the weather situation better than the other Texas cities. We get far more rain in Houston, so we are not in drought like conditions that you see in many of the rest of the state. Winters are considerably warmer with much of the season in the 40s and 50s and typically less than 10 days below freezing. Summer is hot, but I certainly like the heat more than the cold.

The economy is good overall although we haven’t yet seen major impacts from lower oil prices. Houston is the energy capital of the world with much of that being oil and gas. While there is a much more diversified economy now than 20 years ago, the oil industry still is a major part of the city’s economy.

51

While I have never lived in Houston (or New York) I do work in the O&G industry and I travel there once or twice a year so I will offer up a few comments/observations.

People are quite friendly. Prepare for hugs and strong handshakes, which may be a bit too much for some but they are genuine. At first it seemed a bit overwhelming for me but I got used to it.

There downtown area has come a long way with regards to entertainment venues. There are several choices for bars, concerts, and dining. A short train ride will take you to the museum district, some really nice jazz bars, and a great zoo.
One of the great things about Houston was the endless variety of choices when dining out. Are you in the mood for some Bosnian food? There is probably a restaurant close by.

Shopping is usually done is massive malls with a great many shops in them. The one that I liked was called “The Galleria” and in addition to all the stores, it had an ice rink and a hotel attached. The one thing to be aware of is that they air condition the crap out of these places, such that the inside is 60F while outside it is 95F. Take a jacket.

You have seen the comments regarding traffic in the area. Public transit is limited compared to what you are accustomed to in NYC, a situation that is not likely to change. Distance is measured in minutes not miles so you need to plan trips accordingly. Road construction is a constant along the major roads, so much so it reminds me of the guys in San Francisco that paint the Golden Gate bridge - by the time they finish one side it is time to do the other. For some roads, the goal of adding lanes is done by painting an additional line rather than actually widening the road.

The coastal area (Galveston) is a really nice place to visit. The beach is a low energy system so surfing might not be very exciting and the sand is not white due to its proximity to the Mississippi river, but does make for a nice weekend.

I do have one bit of caution relayed to me by colleagues who transferred to Houston from our offices in California. The popular narrative promoted by the outgoing Governor Rick Perry and other Texas officials is that the cost of living in Texas was far lower than that of California, due to primarily to the absence of a state income tax. The reality was that any savings from not having to pay a Texas income tax was more than offset by the cost of higher utilities, property taxes, and schools. You may not impact you if you don’t plan on buying a house in Houston.
All in all, a pretty good place. Enjoy yourself in Houston.

52

And… FTR, the tar balls on the beach are a natural phenomenon, not some sort of pollution indicator or residue from the 2011 BP oil well blowout. Just bring some lighter fluid or paint thinner, and you’ll be fine.

53

Well-adjusted adults can agree to disagree without trying to silence the opposition. Just a friendly tip.

54

I’m embarrassed that the thread title and the OP’s username had me expecting a surprise twist in the next (and final) season of Mad Men. :slight_smile:

55

Not to harp on the climate, but the following anecdote told to me by a medical resident from Bangladesh is illustrative.

He was out for a walk with his wife and two young children on a typical July afternoon in Houston (apparently when you grow up in Bangladesh, Houston heat is unexceptional). A cop cruising by spotted them and pulled over, inquiring to make sure everything was all right, i.e. that their car hadn’t broken down.

People tend not to take a nice leisurely summer stroll down the boulevard in Houston, unless it’s very early morning or after the sun has gone down.

by the way, tonight’s forecast low in Houston is 28F with a 10-20 mile per hour wind out of the north, so a nice January walk is probably not in the cards either (it’s not supposed to get above 41 in Houston until Sunday*, proof that blue northers do get that far south).
**as the newscasters there say (with anguish in their voices), look out for plants, pipes and pets!

56

For all the northerners who say that 28 degrees isn’t all that cold, you’re right.

But we don’t build or insulate for freezing weather down here either. At that level, burst pipes and dead plants are not surprising.

I grew up in Arkansas and moved down to Houston. It’s still somewhat shocking that you can buy houses up north without air conditioning. Seems antiquated or barbaric somehow. On the other hand, Christmas still never really feels right when it’s so warm down here. At least it would snow with some regularity even in Arkansas.

It also leads to the situation where maybe a dozen people will die of heat stroke during a bad summer in Houston while 300 will die in Chicago the same year. The heat may be worse down here, but we’re set up to get people out of it, hydrated, and into heat shelters and air conditioned public spaces, like gyms and libraries.

57

There are ways to make the heat more tolerable. As summer approaches just let your AC stay higher - high 70’s to mid 80’s. Mid 80’s inside isn’t bad with ceiling fans to keep the air circulating. Drink lots of water and spend enough time outside to acclimate yourself. I won’t say you’ll grow to love it, but at least it will reduce the blast furnace effect every time you step outside.

58

I’m not trying to silence the opposition, I’m trying to stop the spread of ignorance.

Thanks for the tip, though.

59

Yeah, even living a couple hundred miles north, the building standards are different. My parents are always asking if I dripped my faucets, etc… when they hear about a cold snap in Dallas, and I always have to explain that they do things differently here- we’ve had more than a week straight without highs above freezing and lows in the teens, and no pipes froze.

But yeah, I’m always a bit perplexed by the idea that people die from the heat in places like Chicago. Heat shelters, etc… are common, and there’s even a donation option on my electric bill to help the elderly/less fortunate with their electric bills/air conditioning in the summer.

60

There are heat shelters, but, since people may not have a clear understanding of how dangerous extreme heat is, some people, especially extremely stubborn older people, choose not to use them. They may have some mobility issues and feel like its a fuss and bother over nothing. Also, in a place like Chicago, it’s not a matter of paying for A/C - they may not have any airconditioning available in their home (no central; have never bought a window unit because never felt they needed it before).

We never had any A/C growing up in NYC. Old building, decorative cast iron bars made it impossible to install a unit in bedrooms, we never bothered with window units in other rooms. I still find an overhead fan is enough for most weather (we only turned our window A/C unit on a couple times last year as it was actually rather cool).