3 Best/Worst Things About Houston? (Victoria, Galveston: real estate market, violent crime, houses)

[EugeneBKLYN]

Alright, I don't know much about the city, but I from my personal knowledge I can tell you what I like and hate.


Best:
Cheap land
Nice Winter and Spring
Lil Flip ()

Worst:
Hurricane susceptibility
Amount of illegals
Summers

Alright, thats my POV. Lets hear your's.

[ayannaaaliyah]

Originally Posted by EugeneBKLYN

Alright, I don't know much about the city, but I from my personal knowledge I can tell you what I like and hate.


Best:
Cheap land
Nice Winter and Spring
Lil Flip ()

Worst:
Hurricane susceptibility
Amount of illegals
Summers

Alright, thats my POV. Lets hear your's.

Best
Cheap land/housing
Cost of Living
Diversity of neighborhoods

Worst
Traffic
Summer months
Cost of Energy
Antiquated Dept. Motor Vehicles
Drivers
Illegals

[jfre81]

I'm kind of involved in an ongoing give-and-take on the Raleigh, NC forum (I used to live there) regarding their DMV....

Just about every governmental agency is antequated...can you elaborate? You might mention something aggravating that I might not think of. I can say it's aggravating to get anything taken care of over the phone with them...I had to get a ticket paid for and cleared from my record remotely before I could renew my Texas drivers license

Good:
-Diverse, friendly people
-Close to the water, even if nothing here will remind you of South Beach
-Lots of places to eat out
-Generally well-kept roads and highways considering the immense scope of the transportation infrastructure
-Perhaps the most well thought-out highway system in North America
-Lack of zoning has its headaches but it means just about everything you need on a daily basis is not far away
-Interesting, if rather experimental and offbeat, local music and art scenes
-Black ice and other winter-weather road hazards are extremely rare
-Great central location for air travel in the U.S. and Latin America
-Air conditioning is everywhere and keeping warm in the winter doesn't require a lot of energy and effort
-Beautiful, multiple skylines, if lacking in older (e.g. art deco) styles to mix with the modernist towers

Bad:
-Summer weather
-Spring/summer monsoons
-Rush-hour traffic, but some people do a lot worse. Plenty of alternates are available to the benefit of the savvy commuter
-Limited mass transit in a sprawled, decentralized city
-Energy costs. Thank the energy lobby and corrupt Texas politicians. Thank you once again, Tom DeLay.
-The METRO bus system still needs a lot of work, in terms of service and safety
-Lots of concrete and glass, but you didn't come here to see wheat fields. Concrete and glass can amplify the heat effect
-Lack of zoning keeps real estate market volatile - just about anything can and go just about anywhere - it's a double-edged sword if there ever was one
-Plenty to do everywhere but you've got to have a car and know where to go
-High rates of property and violent crime in sections of the city
-Pollution, especially on the east side, but not any moreso than you could expect an industrial city with the nation's busiest port to be
-The threat of hurricanes, though natural disasters can happen anywhere and hurricanes can be better prepared for
-Illegals are everywhere, not just Houston. They're up north too. They're wherever there is work.

There's a brief rundown, anyway.

[houstoner]

Best
Inner Loop neighborhoods
Arts and culture, particularly art scene
People (friendly, diverse, accessible, hardworking... too hard, if you ask me... I'd like to institute a citywide siesta)
Easy-peasy to start a business
Food, restaurants... numerous restaurants
Proximity to the Gulf (nice breezes; love the scent of salt water in the wind; humidity works wonders for my skin)
Thrift stores
Dive bars
Chinatown(s)
Diversity, diversity, diversity (I read somewhere that Houston today looks like the rest of the nation will look 25-30 years from now)
Driving the freeways at night, in the wee hours of the morn'
The hidden gem-scavenger/treasure hunt aspect of living here (I like it so much I've made a business out of it!)
Laid back-ness and mild winters combine for the perfect storm of shorts, flip flops, backyard BBQs and frozen margaritas in December, although I think this is just a Texas thing... which brings me to my last "best":
It's in Texas
And you get all this for the low price of... um, very little: $ or $$ as opposed to $$$$$

Worst
Too spread out which brings me to my second most-hated aspect:
You must drive everywhere
Lack of regard for history

Lack of zoning doesn't bother me one iota. Makes for some interesting juxtapositions. The lack of reverence for historical structures bothers me, but I console myself with the thought that Galveston's just down the road; there's plenty of history in other Texas towns and Houston will always be Houston. I think the city fathers took that "building forever" thing a little too literally. How do I know I'm in Houston? When a 101-year-old mansion in the Heights gets bulldozed with nary a peep from anyone (well, okay, maybe a peep), only for a planned pseudo-Victorian to get put up in its place. Keeps things interesting. I mean, you never know when or where another Church's Fried Chicken will pop up next, maybe next to Lakewood Church? Formerly the Summit, home of the Rockets... see? If not for all that, how would I know where I was? Interesting, I'm tellin' ya. The comforting part is the old maxim applies: the more things change around here, the more they stay the same.

[ayannaaaliyah]

Originally Posted by jfre81

Just about every governmental agency is antequated...can you elaborate? You might mention something aggravating that I might not think of. I can say it's aggravating to get anything taken care of over the phone with them...I had to get a ticket paid for and cleared from my record remotely before I could renew my Texas drivers license

Texas DMV Antequated=you have to wait 2 weeks for a drivers license, even if you already possess a "valid" out of state d.l.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by ayannaaaliyah

Texas DMV Antequated=you have to wait 2 weeks for a drivers license, even if you already possess a "valid" out of state d.l.

You did not get a temporary?

[Mr. Football]

Best
Food
Homes
Texans

Worst
Humidity
Lack of Zoning
Illegals

[groens]

i have to agree with houstoner on most all counts...but i can't agree 100% on "inner-loop neighbourhoods" as a "best"...
the heights i LOVE, (shame on them for tearing down ANOTHER priceless & salvagable piece of history!) and old 6th ward, (which is older than the heights) i LOVE, but both have way too many homeless people, especially old 6th ward. (i used to live in both areas)... also, i now live in another inner-city neighbourhood, and it has really gotten bad. there is virtually no police presence & the noise factor from passing cars (rap "music"/bass) is driving us crazy! it has rattled our windows so much that now we wear earplugs constantly. not to mention, i have called the police on several occasions due to assaults/gunshots/noise/etc, & have had no response. (once i called the police for an assault & 4 hours later, after calling back 4 times, a dispatcher called ME back asking if we still needed a unit!!! by then the culprit was long gone!) just unacceptable. just an inner-city thing, i guess.
anyway...
what i like about houston?
1.) xmas shopping in shorts
2.) close to the beach
3.) no zoning
4.) 24-hour places galore (for us night-owls)
5.) montrose area & great art scene/lib scene
6.) great blues bars
7.) storms/hurricanes (i absolutely LOVE STORMS)
8.) KPFT 90.1 FM radio
7.) whole foods market & local farmers markets/co-ops

what i don't like about houston:

1.) crime & gangs (& noise/graffitti, etc)
2.) humidity & usual summer temps (& elec bills!)
3.) illegals (in some of my local shops, the employees don't speak english!-- drives me MAD!!! not to mention the spam snail mail flyers that are all in spanish...)
4.) irresponsible pet owners & stray dogs/cats & chained dogs (& unneutered pets)-- this city is archaic in it's attitudes toward pets. yes, we just passed an ordinance regarding tethering, but it is weak at best.
5.) talk radio. there are no choices for libs except for one show on saturdays when it's not a game day (KTRH-- chris tritico, if he's still on) i hate that i have to listen online to another city's progressive programming.
6.) not vegan-friendly (vegan places very few & very far between!)
7.) can't walk anywhere. too hot, too far, and too dangerous to walk anywhere... not to mention there's absolutely nothing to see.

[Wysiwyg]

Best?
1) all new neighborhoods are good. nice to see a fresh start for everyone
2) 'art' and other other ethnic/gay/etc festivals arent really being forced to me to see (kinda a good thing sometimes)

Worst?
1) INSECTS, INSECTS, INSECTS. never had 6 stings in a 2" square of my skin before, that was swollen for a whole month. I didnt even feel them bite
2) Beater cars and work trucks. I've seen whole neighborhoods flooded with cars, mostly beat up cars and trucks. even saw hauler trucks(no cargo) parked on the tip of 'culdesac'. driveways and streets are filled up, theres almost no point for landscaping the frontyard. I also see too many cars stalled in the highways
3)200K house doesnt get you away from the construction crew neighbor - the guy with the beatup truck, whose whole family normally curse and chat at 95db... the person in your neighborhood that regularly brings more company worktrucks, (fugly) playa rides and construction crew in shaggy (not work) clothing and parties in the garage. definitely the family that gives HOAs reason to exist
4) still quite a white world. the all-talk american guy would not last very long in NYC firms, where diversity is not a charitable/friendly act but an advantage . in houston, the ethnic person still owes the american slacker - kind of attitude persist. kinda like nascar, skill and technological advancement is really not THAT important
5) Chinatown is not really chinatown. I miss those *real* chinese SHADY looking tea houses. houston chinatown is really vietnamese town - big difference here because its the chinese that is more inclined for grandeur, excesses and 'business feng sui' that makes a chinatown a beautiful chinatown
6) stuck in traffic in full blast summar heat going 45south(NASA area construction). sometimes in a car with no AC - I'm still mustering up the courage to do this again
7) exit ramps suck - basically the car exiting has to intersect paths with the cars merging in. this pretty much stalls a whole lane (or 2) and disrupts flow in the major highways. also flyover exist ramps are one lane - not good because chuggling/dying cars and overloaded trucks will most likely quit running here.
8) bit too mexico. there should be a mexico-town and maybe remove big signed tacquerias from 'chinatown', 'korean-town', 'india-town' lol

[mjewell]

Best:
Mild winter
Great housing
Outdoor activities

Worst:
Heat & humidity
Driving everywhere
Too much concrete