Leaving Houston, Texas, feels a lot like being released from jail early for good behavior. Make no mistake, I very much enjoy visiting with my friends there and just kicking back with them, but from as someone who has travelled extensively across the United States I feel that I’m not entirely unqualified to say that Houston truly is a bloody awful place.
It would seem that in Houston trees are as offensive as Janet Jackson’s left nipple is to a republican. The city seems to have a policy to cut down and destroy as many trees as possible, leaving in their wake characterless office buildings, parking lots, and ugly brand name malls that look like every other mall in America. Houston can claim to be the true site of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as, among the cities many unflattering accolades, it has chopped down and ‘redeveloped’ more forests and urban woodland areas than any other city in the United States.
The disappearance of vast numbers of Houston’s trees has also played not small part in the fact that the city now rivals Los Angeles for the title of having the worst air quality in the United States. Smog hangs in the thick air that surrounds the city which like all cities is getting hotter year upon year.
Of course it’s not hard to see why thick acrid smog poisons the air here. You can’t go anywhere without a car it would seem. Everyone drives everywhere, and everything seems so damn far away. Multi-lane highways link endless strip malls with yet more malls punctuated with apartments and office buildings and still yet more stores with huge parking lots spread before them like great lawns of concrete.
You would have thought than in one of the commerce hubs of America and indeed the world, Houston would be able to boast an impressive mass transit system, to rival that of London, Chicago, Tokyo or New York. But no, buses trundle from place to place near empty but for those who somehow don’t own a car. I’m even told that rather than invest in a new state of the art mass transit system the city will instead be expanding one of its already huge highways to twenty four lanes!
The need to commute everywhere by car might then have something to do with another unfortunate record Houston can claim. It is one of, if not the most, fattest city in America. Obesity is fast becoming the biggest health issue we are dealing with in todays western society, moving ahead of the now largely socially unacceptable behavior of smoking.
Another fascinating contradiction of Houston is the fact that in this city on the fringe of America’s so called ‘Bible belt’ and where a great many people attend church religiously, there seems to be as many adult video stores or strip clubs as there were gas stations. In fact, rather comically Erin, Jon and myself visited a huge 24hr adult video store on the way home from watching Jackass 2 at a movie theatre where they served red meat sandwiches and beer to you right there in your seat. I spoke with the guy at the counter of the porn store and asked him how many people actually visited in the middle of the night. He reported than it was mostly dead at such hours aside for pranksters like us, but the fact remains that in this city where the dollar is praised as much as Jesus, such a store wouldn’t remain open if there was no profit in doing so.
I did get to escape Houston for a day with Erin and Jon (both of whom are looking to escape the city for good themselves at some point to). The three of us headed to Austin. I’d heard a lot of good things about Austin and on this briefest of visits I was not disappointed.
We spent a couple of hours kayaking along the river through the city, basking in the sun not far from turtles that had much the same idea as us. Afterward we got smoothies from a cool place called Daily Juice where the the plastic cups they were served in were made from compostable bio-plastics, evidence that we were indeed in a city that thinks very different to its neighbors not so far away.
As ever though, my trip to Houston, as awful as the city itself is, was still thoroughly enjoyable. I find myself always wishing I had more time to spend with my great friend Erin and her oh-so-laid-back boyfriend, Jon. I also wish I had more time to hang out with the people people I’ve come to know through the Xanga blog community too. Hopefully some of them will take me up on my offer and come out to the UK sometime too, if nothing else I’d be able to introduce them to trees!
Next stop Colorado.
Wrote the following comment on Oct 22, 2006 at 10:20 pm
I totally enjoyed this post! I would love to come to England some day and see the trees! I have done a lot of traveling in other countries, but never England. My favorite places in the U.S.A. is Tennessee and Virginia…lots of trees! Texas does not have the different seasons, usually just hot and hotter! I have been in Texas (South of Houston) for over 33 years, it is not a beautiful place, most of the time not very pleasant…but it is home. I did enjoy your post. I have heard that it is always cool and rainy in England…is that true???
Wrote the following comment on Oct 23, 2006 at 7:36 am
We were talking about trees here at the office one day – the office being a General Contractor – we do commercial construction. One of our Project Managers was telling me about a job we’d done where we had to go to great pains to save a particular tree on the property. He said that if you damage a tree’s root system you often don’t see it immediately – that the tree can take several years to die. He also said that it’s a lot of trouble and can be expensive to save those trees. Of course, in my opinion, it is worth it but in the opinion of the ones doing the work, saving a buck is more important. So there you have it, Houston is a city built on commerce – Commerce Rules – or should we say Money Rules? It sucks.
However, there are some bright spots – on my entry today I posted a link to a new park in downtown Houston that had its groundbreaking ceremony the other day.
Wrote the following comment on Oct 23, 2006 at 8:38 am
Simon, You got the “facts” straight about Houston but missed the heart of it.
You’re right, H-town is a butt ugly place .. but it’s an ugly place with a lot to offer …. Major League Baseball, NFL Football, NBA Basketball, MLS (American Professional) Soccer, World Class Theater, Opera, Symphony, Ballet. In addition, it’s one of, if not the finest and most diverse restaurant cities in the USA
The topper, however (as you yourself experienced), is the people. I’ve lived in NY, LA, San Francisco, New Orleans and elsewhere … this place has the friendliest most caring people I’ve ever been around.
I hate the ugly along with you .. but, because of the people, I’ll likely spend the rest of my days here.
Wrote the following comment on Oct 23, 2006 at 8:56 am
The city does indeed have a lot to offer it’s many residents. But like many places it’s guilty of backward thinking with regards to urban development. Public transport and a hideous lack of trees is much much more than a little problem. So while I think it’s great that the city has all this great stuff, none of that will be any use if you need to wade through flood water to get there.
Having said that though, I don’t mean to pick on Houston alone for it’s backward thinking. Most towns and cities across the western world still use backward thinking to develop with complete disregard for the long term headaches that such shortsightedness will surely bring.
Wrote the following comment on Oct 23, 2006 at 1:42 pm
“none of that will be any use if you need to wade through flood water to get there”
Flooding isn’t the result of poor planning … unless you consider bad original location as poor planning. Any place that records 6.3″ (160 mm) in an hour and 28.5″ (724 mm) in 12 hours is going to flood .. or, if you want to go back to 1979 .. (I’m not making this up) 43″ (1092 mm) in 24 hours.
Just last week we had 12″ in 48 hours at my hacienda … it helps keep my yard green :-)
Wrote the following comment on Oct 23, 2006 at 1:46 pm
We’ll have to agree to disagree with that one mate. Water needs to find its way to ground. Man made drainage is only so good. I was reading a report only the other day in a magazine that was hammering Houston for making “catasrophicly bad decisions” regarding the available land for water run off and soaking. Sure the flood you had was bad and would most likely have been bad in any case. But surely you’ll not argue that continued development has no effect in such a situation?
Wrote the following comment on Oct 23, 2006 at 7:11 pm
hi simon. i gotta give props to my city for providing extremely cheap door-to-door bus transporation for the disabled. my husband lp, who has multiple sclerosis and can’t drive anymore, can travel anywhere in this enormous city for just a $1. good, bad & ugly, i still love my hometown & the friendliness that is houston.
Wrote the following comment on Oct 23, 2006 at 7:16 pm
It’s good to hear you all love your hometown, and it’s no surprise to me that you do. It does indeed have some great things to offer. Please don’t take offense at what I wrote.
All I am stating is an opinion that of all the places I have seen in the United States (and believe me I have seen A LOT of the U.S) Houston is not ranked at the top of that list or anywhere near it for things like it’s beauty or forward thinking environmental outlook. But when it comes to the welcome I receive in any American city, Houston would be hard to beat for sure!
Wrote the following comment on Oct 23, 2006 at 8:58 pm
well i’m glad you at least got to spend one day in my hometown! it’s funny, because once i tell people i’m from austin they go “oh” like it all suddenly makes sense to them…
houston is pretty much a big ‘ole armpit but you know what? i love this city because it has the best people. and i chose to move away from my homeland because it was easier to go without great scenery than it was to go without great people. that being said, my closest friends and family live there and i miss them very much. fortunately it’s not that far so it’s no big deal just to run over and say “hi” to everyone pretty frequently.
Wrote the following comment on Oct 25, 2006 at 8:49 pm
i can name a lot more cities with a lot less character and very unpleasant places to be. people don’t come to houston cause it’s pretty, although we do have an impress skyline. people come here because it’s the land of opportunity, my friend. and does part of the city being under sea level have anything to do with flooding… probably. with a city that’s growing as fast as it is, you’d have to have pretty big highway systems too. check out atlanta. no one walks over there. everything’s too spread out. or look at dallas/fort worth – same thing. besides dallas/fort worth is a crappy city. might not have the pollution, but the people aren’t nearly as nice and that city obviously has no vision. anyway, houston’s not as bad as you make it out to be. besides, if you didn’t like it so much you won’t keep coming back, right?
Wrote the following comment on Oct 26, 2006 at 2:37 am
I’ll refer you to my earlier responses Cara. :-)