http://www.click2houston.com/news/2788047/detail.html Super Bowl Brings National Media Attention To Houston HOUSTON -- Two top national newspapers Thursday gave mixed reviews to the city of Houston. An article in The Wall Street Journal called Houston a patchwork of strip malls, car lots and topless clubs. The article even quoted a few Houstonians bashing the Bayou City. However, those who really enjoy living in Houston said the city is more than billboards and traffic jams. The New York Post published a different take on Houston. The article read: "An ambitious and painful revitalization of the downtown area, a new light rail ... increasingly self-confident neighborhoods with strong identities and one of the country's most diverse populations have, in the last year or two, turned this city-in-a-swamp into one of the most energectic places in the nation." Transplanted Houstonian David Margolin told News2Houston that when he first moved here, it took some time getting use to the city. "It's different, but I've grown to really love the city," Margolin said. __________________________________________________ Don't you just feel the love?
I'll be pissed if they lable Houston as a bad place like they did back in 94 during the NBA Finals... Good Food Good Night Life Good Strip Clubs Sounds like a good place to me!
None of it sounds right. Seems to me that, if you want to know what Houston is about, reading someone's review is the last thing you want to do. Whether they're insults or compliments, all the descriptions seem like a pale and misleading portrait of what Houston really is.
An article in The Wall Street Journal called Houston a patchwork of strip malls, car lots and topless clubs. yup...that sounds like the houston i know. i hate going back there and thats all i see. it sucks...just more and more of the same crap gets built over and over and over again. its like simcity or something.
Damn right. The only city uglier than Houston is Detroit. Take a drive down HWY 6 if from First Colony to Copperfield if you don't believe me. Nothing but useless, half-empty strip malls, gas stations, and numerous abandoned "Big Box" stores. But the good thing about Houston is the cheap movies. I still use my old UT ID to get into AMC First Colony for like $5.50. Also, the sports teams are really fun to watch. Here's a summary of what's gone down on HWY 6 recently: KMart -> HWY6 Fleamarket Venture -> Super KMart -> empty Builder's Square -> empty Wal Mart -> empty Target -> World's Largest $0.99 Kroger -> Giant $0.99 Other highlights.... A&W -> closed 50 popcorn flavors -> close pending Captain D's* -> Louis' BBQ Fast Trac Gas -> no customers ever there Albertson's -> pulled out after 2 months, now a Kroger CVS Pharmacy -> no customers ever there Gourmet 6** -> out of business, now a taqueria Video Joe's -> forced out by BB Walgreen's (West Airpt) -> no customers ever there Used Car lot next to Champion Ford -> changes every month.
That is true, especially in the suburbs where EVERYTHING is being built up like crazy. But Juan is right. You can't trust someone else's description of Houston. One man's trash-hole city is another man's gold-mine of interest and beauty.
The things you mention can be found in suburbs of any city in the country. I don't think Houston is the only city that has strip malls and Kmarts in the suburbs.
I agree that Houston is, uh, aesthetically challenged, despite a few bright patches in the darkness (Memorial Park, Rice and the Museum District, uh, Memorial Park...) But the people are cool. I've been to---or heard reports about---beautiful cities where the people leave something to be desired.
I find it hard to believe that anywhere in the Western world can be worse than Buffalo, NY. That said, and having never been to Houston, I can say that the impression I have of it strictly from what I've heard is that the assessment, partcularly about strip malls and parking lots, is consistent with common percpetion. On a semi-related subject, again as an outsider, I will say that one aspect of Houston which continues to boggle me is the incredibly poor attendance for Rocket's games. I know there is not tangible connection, but the reality of the latter makes it easier for me to believe other negative things about Houston.
This is the same everywhere in the US outside of the city (suburbs). Houston's problem is their so-called Downtown re-development project... Driving on 45 or I-10 seeing downtown from afar, it looks so dry and boring. A ferris wheel? Come on. I heard somewhere the original was supposed to be a 'Dallas-like' needle tower, but our great city hall rejected. They need to start mix zoning and add some shopping/retail districts downtown. Adding a bunch of high-priced lofts and condos only does so much (these people end up driving to Rice village or the Galleria to shop). Doing the bar and club thing has brought more activity to downtown, but not enough. It's still dead during the day on weekends. Give people a GOOD reason to come downtown besides something seasonal (plays, baseball, basketball)...I guess living in NYC and then living here has made me wish Houston would change... Houston is getting there, but it still has a ways to go...
Yes I love Houston because I was born here and am growing up here... I'm just from here. I don't think it's ugly. I think it's getting better...looking prettier and prettier! Downtown has changed quite a lot. But I don't think we are ready for the Super Bowl. It's a gradual process.. Okay..we just have a bunch of strip malls. So? I don't know..what else should there be? Where would you like to live?
I lived in Houston all my life and after finally getting away from there I can truly say that Houston is a dump. It pains me to say that also. Its dirty. There's terrible smog. The traffic is horrible. The list goes on and on. I never thought that I would ever live anywhere but Houston but now that I do not live there anymore, I cannot see myself ever coming back. Why go through all of that crap? There are things that I miss. Mostly the restaurants and sports. I truly hope that Houston can get its **** together because I do not want this label to be on my hometown. Houston will always be home, even if I never live there again.
Houston is the best city in the whole world. People got to make an effort to experience it. So much is hidden. How many people know about Bayou Bend? Is Club No Minors big in the suburbs? Those are really different experiences, both perfectly fantastic, that most people would miss. Houston has this incredible, vibrant, opportunistic culture that's right there to grab if you make the slightest effort. There's Viet-town, little India, River Oaks, downtown, midtown, East End, - you just gotta try. The real life of the city isn't in a frickin' hotel lobby or trumpeted with klieg lights as you drive by on the freeway (unlike Some Other Cities). The real heart of Houston is the people, and the incredible mix of cultures and independance in our uniquely not-master-planned, living community. Houston is a city that's really alive. Master-planned cities are born dead.
Don't know...never lived there, only visited. I can tell you, for a fact, that Los Angeles is the ego capital of the universe!!!!
Are you kidding? Soulless 8 lane superhighway suburbia is the home of vibrant urban culture? Right...both empirical and personal experience of having lived in Paris, New York, Chicago, Houston, etc. tells me otherwise. The biggest problem I have with Houston is the way people just decide to build stuff on empty land all the time. I can't tell you the number of places where you can drive by an abandoned gas station/grocery store/etc. in a vacant lot and then see a new gas station/grocery store/drug store..right next door, quite frequently beign the same franchise as the one that used to be in an abandoned building...talk about blight.
