Gar <> wrote in message >. ..
> On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 19:05:00 GMT, Cindy Fuller
> > wrote:
>
>
>
> > Please don't keep us envying Houston!
>
> That's pretty sad. Houston sucks.

I'm going to have to speak up, because I've been so appalled at all
the Houston-bashing I've seen the last few years. I moved to Houston
about five years ago, and it is VERY underrated as a city and MUCH
nicer than outsiders (or people who lived/visited more than 5-10 years
ago) give it credit for.

Houston is a great place to live and a nice place to visit. It is a
cool city that gets a bad rap. Yeah yeah, I hear it used to not be
very nice years ago, but present-day Houston is not the same as the
Houston from the 80's or early 90's.

Why is it that when people bring up Houston it's so often something
negative? And truthfully, most of that is exaggerated or wrong. A
majority of the time, I find that people who speak badly of it are
usually misinformed.

I'm not the only one who feels so positively about Houston -- Places
Rated Almanac, one of the more respected sources for rating places to
live, has Houston in their top 10 overall ranking, and as the highest
ranked city in Texas.

One of Houston's biggest problems is that outsiders know so little
about it apart from the negative aspects (which every city has some
of). Even those in others Texas cities like Austin and Dallas are
guilty of this. When I moved from Austin to Houston, my friends in
Austin told me I was crazy and said such things as "why would you want
to live there?" Well, when I've since had some of those same people
visit me here and they have been very pleasantly surprised, a few even
considering a move here. My out of state friends and family have also
found Houston to be much nicer than they expected, with the exception
of the traffic (though traffic is much worse in L.A., Seattle, Bay
Area, etc).

One of the main problems is with the media and Hollywood, which
continue to portray Houston in a negative way. Everyone hears about
"Houston-based Enron" (few of us hear which city WorldCom is in), the
Houston mother who drowned her kids, the fraction of the year that the
weather is bad, the oil industry (as if there's nothing else), the
fact that there's no zoning (but there are some very strict
neighborhood ordinances), and the industry/refineries that are
characteristic of the industrial east side (but not of the rest of the
city).

And of course there are the ongoing fallacies that never seem to die
--
There is the unscientific "study" by Men's Fitness Magazine on Houston
supposedly being the "fattest city." A more scientific study by the
Centers for Disease Control found San Antonio as most obese, and
didn't even find Houston to be in the top ten. Of course the CDC study
is rarely mentioned; even WebMD went by the unscientific Men's Fitness
"study."
There is this idea that Houston is not a good place to live. Well, the
only "best places to live lists" mentioned by the media are usually
those done by magazines once a year or so, probably in an effort to
boost sales. We rarely hear of the ratings from Places Rated Almanac,
which is a more reliable source for this kind of thing.
There is this idea that Houston is a swamp. Maybe it used to be long
ago. But I can tell you after living in New Orleans, Houston is far
from being a real swamp -- high rainfall, some creeks/bayous, and a
few outlying wetlands do not equal a real swamp.
There is this idea that Houston is a big industrial blue-collar town
full of refineries. Although this may be characteristic of the east
side areas (Baytown, Channelview, Pasadena) it is not characteristic
of the rest of metro Houston. But you would be surprised at how many
outsiders think it is.
Along with that is probably the biggest misconception -- at the fault
of the media and politics -- that Houston is the "most polluted city."
Not only was it never technically "most polluted", it's not now
either. When Houston surpassed L.A. in ozone violations in 1999 and
2000, it was never mentioned that ozone is only one of six kinds of
air pollution as defined by the EPA. Instead, being high in ozone
violations was misleadingly overgeneralized into being "most polluted"
overall. And presently, Houston is neither highest in ozone, other
kinds of air pollution, or overall air pollution.
There is the idea that Houston must be full of hillbillies, cowboys,
uncultured hicks and the similar simply because what part of the
country it's in. Few people know that Houston is a leader in the arts
and has some of the country's finest programs and museum collections,
and the country's largest grouping of hospitals and medical research
facilities.

It is so often forgotten by others that Houston is a large (nation's
4th largest city), international port city much like Los Angeles,
Miami, New York, and Seattle, and that over 90 languages are spoken
here. The population is ethnically diverse and international.

Most people don't realize that Houston has top-notch arts programs,
fine museums, and a theater district second in size only to New York's
Broadway. It has the third largest number of working artists in the
country.

Houston's restaurant scene is also rated highly; in fact, it has been
rated as one of the best in the country by Wine Spectator, Esquire,
and PETA (vegetarian).

The cost of living is moderate to low, weather is mild overall, and
the crime rates are not particularly high for of city of this size.

I suppose outsiders just love to knock Houston because they can get
away with it rather easily since so many others are rather ignorant
about Houston. Basically, it's an easy target. To top it off, Houston
leaders do very little to counter all the misconceptions.