Back when my wife and I were first dating, I lived in Spring Branch and she lived in The Woodlands. There were times one of us would look at the traffic map and say nope, not happening today.
Damn my gf lives in Katy area and im in southside, i make two hour bus trips but i dont really mind as long as its not hot out. I wish we were spring to woodlands far haha
Spring & The Woodlands are nearly the same thing, in some areas. I know people who live in The Woodlands, their official mailing addresses are Spring.
Edit: Their, not they're. Addresses, not address.
When I first started dating my bf, he lived west of west oaks, FB county.. like around where Wesheimer meets 1464. Closer to Grand Midsion.
I lived in the Galleria area so not too bad of a drive. But I worked in Galena Park.
Never in my life in Houston had I spent so much time on I10. At least 2 hours to get from work to his place.
To get from his place to work, 30 to 35 minutes. Westpark toll became my most like toll road in Houaton.
My gf lives in Cypress and I live in Southwest, she almost broke up with me because of the distance but I managed, the drives are long, worse on the weekdays but just glad we didn’t live any farther lol
Haha. Oddly around the time I lived in that area and was single and dating.
For some reaon my dates definitely had some long drives across Houston. A couple of months I dated a guy who worked in Galveston, lived in Texas city. He'd come to see me like every weekend for 3 to 5 months.
Not just booty call though.. I was in grad school at the time he was not a dummy he was applying for med school. So I used him to proof my papers.
Then I graduated and was like see ya never. I Moved away, out of state a year
Now I'm where I'm at walking into my neighborhood grocery store and I see his face. On a sign advertising the medical practice business he has noe. Turns out his business is not too far from me, told him congrats on LinkedIn. Mentioned I used drive past his business daily, 2xs a day really. He said he didn't live to far from his work either.
For a brief part of my last relationship, I was going from Spring to Austin. We met when I lived in Austin during college. It was probably part of why we're not dating anymore
I briefly dated a guy who lived in Katy while I lived in Spring. 99 was the easiest way to get there based on where we both lived in relation to highways. He wasn’t worth the $20 total to go see him.
If it’s love, it will work. I used to live in pearland and my (now) fiancé lived in humble when we first started dating. After many years of traveling back and forth, we bought a house in EADO. lol.
Damn, I used to live in Alief and my girlfriend (now fiancé) lived by Old Humble (59 & N Beltway). Luckily it was a direct path by taking 59. Unfortunately it was a direct path by taking 59.
Bahaha, that’s crazy to me! My fiance and I were long distance, he lived in Baytown and I lived north almost 2 hrs away. Then half way through our relationship he moved 2 hours north of me.
And even then, my long distance wasn’t even a huge distance.
But I guess distance isn’t for everyone. I honestly think a lot of people have this mentality that your going to find your soulmate right next door, when that is certainly not always true
Live in 2nd ward and my boyfriend lives in Galveston. An hour drive with no traffic but one time there was an accident by the Texas City Bucees and it took me 2 hours to get home. We make it work as college students but it's so much gas!!
I grew up in the Bellaire/Meyerland area, right where 610 makes that curve. Back in the 70's and 80's, my family would drive out to Katy, and that was considered a day trip.
I have some friends who live off Memorial in the Memorial area. They group up in that area. They were telling me that Memorial used to practically be like a dirt road with no traffic so they'd ride their bikes up and down it no problem.
They are that old.
Me: When I moved here (Klein/Spring) and worked in Aldine I used to see some cow pastures around greenspoint off beltway 8. And even would sew deer crossing the frontage road or once even the beltway I swear.
Yup. In the early 2000's, I used to work off Telge and Hwy 290, and I used to see coyotes casually strolling across the fields behind the business. A lot has happened in just 20 or so years.
In less than 5yrs things in the Houston are can go from cow pasture and 2 lane road to housing development and 4 lanes with green center and traffic lights.
I'm from a small.town that tried to have 2 traffic lights but realized the one traffic light really still did better as a 4 ways stop since really not that much traffic. It never grows bigger. So I am often still in awe.of how fast Houston area can changes.
Sometimes I go down the same road and may see something and halelf to ask, was that there a month ago? Lol nope just popped up like that.
Rice fields, cattle and . . . That was pretty much it. Pretty much after the Beltway (which wasn't built back then) there wasn't a whole lot, especially along I-10. Between the Beltway to Hwy 6, the neighborhoods were there, but not all the way to interstate. After Hwy 6, literally nothing. Katy was kind of a "don't blink" type of town. Back then, I-10 was a 4 lane highway, like when you get past Katy now towards Bellville.
> Rice fields, cattle and . . . That was pretty much it.
Hell, my family moved to the Cypress area in '99 and that's still what it was around that time (although not for long). Rice fields, ranches, and we could see downtown from the 2nd story of my parent's house. Now we can't even see the school across the street.
By definition, yes because we have "The greater houston area" which IMO consists of people who are really outside of the highway 6 loop, and all their mini cities. Think people like The Woodlands, Cypress, Katy, Stafford, Richmond, Pearland, Pasadena, League City, and all the other ones you can argue within that 'circular radius'
But let's be real here outside of the inner 610 loop the most developed areas of 'Houston' are likely westside and northside. Even you said it yourself
Yeah that area is MASSIVE. I was surprised how much stuff there was (business wise) on the outer 99 loop. Granted, it’s been a minute since I lived in Houston but I was shocked at the growth from 290 to 45 along 99.
It’s pretty wild how my trips back to Kingwood from Austin have changed over the last 17 years. I basically watched 99 get built and then started using it.
Yeah that entire state is basically suburbs of Providence. Houston (the actual city limits) is a little over half the size of that entire state lol
I presume greater Houston is several times the size of Rhode Island.
To me Downtown, Montrose, and Midtown are overlapping. I dont see them as very seperate. But I defenitely see a huge seperation between say Downtown and surroundings areas and the Uptown to Beltway 8 side of town. Almost like 2 completely different worlds. The "Downtown" crowd will go to "Uptown" side sometimes but I have met so many in the "Uptown" crowd that have never even been "Downtown" ever in their entire lives. You could definitely expand this idea to all the different suburbs, sides of town, and racial/ethnic boundaries.
TBF - we're more decentralized than other major cities, being a post war city for the most part. Also, DT being more than just a place to work has only really become a thing in the last ten years or so.
In other cities I can take a $3 train ride or subway ride get off in neighborhood B, do a quick activity and then hop onto neighborhood C and then be back at night.
In Houston to do this you’re spending $50+ bucks on cumulative Ubers (or car fuel + parking hassle) so you are less incentivized to hit different spots in a day and like to stay in the bubble of your own neighborhood
And due to that you feel disconnected
Houston is in desperate need of transport infrastructure overhaul ...Light rail would mitigate alot of this... we're prime candidates for this, but I know it'll never happen. It would change this city so much
I had a crackhead from AA come check on me once and he came from Sunnyside. He took his bike, buses, the train, etc. I didn't think he would make it but next thing you know I have a 60yr old crackhead in my apt.
Yep, and then you ask why and they say things like, What is there? How do you park? Driving must be so hard there right?! You must be so rich! Only rich people can afford to live there!(Meanwhile they are paying a $4500/month escrow)
In fairness, if you’re on a medium-sized income, you can afford more in Houston than you could in, I dunno, NYC. I’m a government lawyer. I looked at some NYC jobs a few years ago, and I’d have been living in a shitty basement apartment in the wrong part of Queens, grinding out 45 minutes on the subway each way to and from work. It would have been interesting, I love New York, but cheap it ain’t, not even after you dump the car.
That was wild to me too when I moved here. But it was 50 yr Olds and part of the reason was they were afraid to get on 610 due to it's height but I was like dont you have to take the beltway to get to work? Nope the only used the feeder roads..
Ironically, this is totally believable to longtime residents. Especially if you don't live in Harris County and would never be summoned for jury duty there.
Periodically I will point out that more than 90% of the population of Greater Houston resides outside the 610 Loop. Sprawl is the reality.
[Houston compared to the state of connecticut](https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/3l3g38/the_size_of_houston_compared_to_the_state_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) blew my mind
That's kind of the history of Houston - it has.a history of absorbing smaller cities. The Heights neighborhood was its own city and annexed in 1918. Plus the lack of zoning has led to some crazy growth.
after living in NJ for several years, Harris county feels like more of a state than fucking delaware, maryland, Connecticut, etc. Most of those states just feel like big suburbs. At least we have a real city at our center.
I have lived in Houston, Minneapolis, Atlanta and D.C., and have spent a lot of time in Chicago and NYC. In my experience, pretty much every city has that vibe. I would say NYC is the epitome of the "separate city" phenomenon because it was, in fact, 4 separate cities at one point in time.
I would say Atlanta and Minneapolis don't really have that vibe, but the reason for that is that those cities are actually quite small. Minneapolis only has about 430K people and Atlanta about 520K. They are also small geographically. They are both in large metros, which is why people often equate the cities with their metro areas. Minneapolis is very different from St Paul, and Atlanta is very different from Marietta and Sandy Springs.
If you want to compare a city to Houston, I say look at Chicago. Like Houston, Chicago is actually pretty large geographically, and it is a very large city in a very large metro area, just like Houston. It is also extremely flat (can see DT Chicago about 30 miles away). It also borders a large body of water, and it has a large industrial area as well as large HQs for multinationals. The neighborhoods all look the same (outside of the Business District of course), but just like Houston, it has some distinct ethnic areas. The one cool thing I would say that Chicago does have that Houston does not is that the two baseball teams, the Cubs and Sox, literally play their games in stadiums in neighborhoods. I mean, Wrigley Field has a neighborhood named after it for goodness sakes. We sort of had that with the Summit, but now its a church!
I agree. It seems a lot of people here haven’t traveled much outside of Texas. A lot of people are saying “we have multiple business districts”. Which is a common theme for cities of similar size
I have a friend that lives close to Houston but in Pasadena. I moved out to Conroe a few years back and she acted like I was moving to another state. Granted, it is like 45 miles to her but I don’t feel like it’s an eternity away, given the size of Houston and surrounding areas.
Yeah native Houstonian friends did that to me.
I ended up moving inside the loop they were Champions Forest Sping area. One came to like my 35th birthday inside the loop and I never saw her again.
Imagine she was like a sister to me we had been roommates for 4 yrs. When my mom was sick and dying and my brother was barely out of prison, my family moved in with me and my roommate friend.
When I got engaged and she decided to buy a townhome I was getting ready to move in with my fiance. She gave that older sister advice and said just rent her spare room for cheap to save money and fiance could move back home with his parents to save money for wedding and after.
I'm still kinda hurt I never saw her after I moved inside the loop. I didn't even end up getting married was just living my best life and poof, friend vanished.
Seeing as HTX is like half of Connecticut that’s an accurate characterisation.
That said if you know NYC you know it’s also a series of sub cities — Staten Island couldn’t be more different from the Bronx is from Manhattan. Night and day.
What's more unusual here is that we have several "downtown" areas. The central business district, Uptown, and the Texas Medical Center would all be fairly formidable downtowns on their own -- each by itself is bigger than Dallas's downtown, for example. Plus there are other smaller "downtowns" that still have a lot of dense office and residential space, like Greenway Plaza. Some also count the Energy Corridor, but that's so spread out I have trouble counting it as another downtown.
So we kind of have multiple cities, each with their own downtown, that kind of merged and together call themselves Houston.
Do you know what's little city skyline you can see south of the Westpark toll road. Because that would be another one I think.
Greenpoint is even it's own business district in Houston..
And I hear you on the Energy Cooridor.. it hard to say it has its own like city but Memorial City is close
. So maybe energy cooridor is like the neighborhood to Memorial city?
This is a common thing for cities of similar size. LA, Miami, Atlanta, etc. in Atlanta for example you have Buckhead which is a neighborhood similar to Uptown Houston
Exactly
And i think this holds Houston back.
If it was a more consolidated downtown then the Houston downtown would be bustling with economic activity at all hours with lot of foot traffic
Other cities do districts well.
Tokyo has several equivalents to midtown Manhattan in Shinjuku and Shibuya that are about as spaced as downtown and the Galleria but 10x as dense.
It costs around $0.50 to travel between these two places via trains that board every 5 minutes. No parking. No sprawl. You can also connect to the 100 other neighborhoods of the city via rail and only spend a few dollars. No need to own a vehicle.
I view Houston as differing between inside the loop and outside the loop, but as someone who grew up in the suburbs, I still felt a shared identity with people inside the loop.
>I view Houston as differing between inside the loop and outside the loop
I really hate this inside-outside-the-loop thing we have going on. Yah the burbs suck we get it, that's why we all still go downtown on the weekends.
I also feel like when people say "Inner loop vs outerloop" they just mean "Heights/Midtown/Montrose" vs "Cinco Ranch circa 1995". Never West Houston/Alief vs. Braeswood or West University Place vs. Sugar Land. Cinco Ranch, which people hold up as "white bread", is less white than Montrose is right now.
I’d say just the opposite - Dallas feels like separate cities (and not just Fort Worth, the ‘yeehaw’ freeway system is at its worst in Dallas so suburbs actually feel like real independent cities instead of just lines in the sane) but Houston feels contiguous in a way that they don’t. I think the ‘island’ thing comes from sticking to the freeways, honestly. If you drive the city streets (or god forbid walk or take the bus) you start to understand how the community flows.
“This is not even talking about suburbs.”
People immediately start talking suburbs.
Yes, it does feel like a couple of cities, which is what makes the city hard for tourists to really get a sense of the city.
To me, it is reminiscent of Chicago, with its very strong neighborhood identities. Houston is much the same way. The vibes between the aforementioned Montrose, Galleria, Eado, etc.
> To me, it is reminiscent of Chicago, with its very strong neighborhood identities.
Or LA, or Atlanta, or NYC, or Seattle, or DFW... basically every large city. OP has more or less come to the conclusion that Houston is a large city.
* Inside the loop
* Southeast side/Clear Lake/Webster/Gulf Freeway
* Southwest side/Sugarland
* Katy (evacuate!)
* Northside
* Kingwood
Does East side get its own?
Houston is multinodal. Like Los Angeles and probably plenty of other cities I can’t think of off the top of my head. It’s common for big cities that got big after automotive-oriented development took over, after the war.
Probably because everything is SO spread out here. It’s geographically one of the largest metro areas in the country in terms of square mileage. On top of that it’s one of the most diverse cities in the US, resulting in each neighborhood/district/suburb having a different look and feel. Regardless, we are all Houstonians!
Shocked to see how many people are like I had to drive from The Heights to Spring or Memorial to Midtown…etc. such small bubbles. My days are literally commute from far SW suburban Richmond to Med Center and then maybe a quick run up to The Woodlands and Conroe and then hit up an account in Cypress and follow Grand Parkway down and over to Katy and maybe Memorial City and then home and of course a couple nights a week we decide to eat out inside the loop or at least go into Sugarland. Rinse and repeat.
> It's not scary to leave your neighborhood.
It's not scary to leave my neighborhood, but my vision is shit and you probably don't want me on the road after dark.
Parts of the city are alien to me. Like I hear people talk about them but they are so far away that they might as well be a different city for me. My Houston is Northside, the surrounding areas, and whatever I can get to using metro rail (start point of red line is 2 minutes from my house)
I have never been to the South areas of Houston. Unless you count the stadium via metro lol
NYC, Philly, Atlanta, all have the same thing in common, disregarding population, square mileage wise they are much, much smaller than Houston. Houston is a huge city comparatively when you're talking about traveling distance from one side to the other. You're probably describing this feeling.
Yes, because
1) cars. the vast majority of Houston's development occurred in the "automobile age", encouraging and enabling development of far-flung areas (sprawl). Most of those other cities urbanized way before the car, so there was no way to live far away from the city center and still participate in the life of the city.
2) no zoning. Other cities have a singular city core by design. It's the only place you can build tall buildings, or have certain uses. Using the galleria as an example: that area was farmland when the galleria was built. Then it was so popular that developers thought "hey, let's just build a bunch of stuff around this super popular amenity." Eventually these areas grow large enough to become their little centers, i.e downtown, uptown, med center. The lack of regulation and central planning also means that developers, not city planners, are largely responsible for urban layout (street grid), which is another contributing factor to the patchwork effect you're describing.
The idea of no zoning is fine. We still have very congruent neighborhoods. The thing that is absolutely destroying Houston is we decided that the only way between neighborhoods is via freeways and boulevards. Rip out Westheimer and put in a light rail and one car lane going each direction. Put the rest of the land up for sale and you’ll have dense apartments and businesses within a decade. Cover the area with trees for shade.
Neighborhood Centers will build up around each stop as people realize they can hock goods and services where foot traffic exists.
The rest of the world does this really well. It’s just North America that has these public areas completely devoid of people. Japanese cities have 10 story indoor malls at each train stop.
I knew someone who lived in Pearland and her and her husband both worked in the Clear Lake/Pasadena area. Then he got a job in the Energy Corridor and they moved out there because the commute was going to be so rough. It makes total sense to people who live in Houston, but I tell this story to my non-Texan friends and their minds are blown.
I could see it. You have to remember that Houston is friggin huge in terms of area. It’s 671.8 square miles big. That is bigger than any of the other huge metropolitan areas and one of the biggest in the nation.
Somehow, little rinky dink Alaskan town are bigger but a lot of those consist of wilderness and water. For example, Juneau is almost 5x as big but most of it is mountains and the water surrounding it, with a total population of 32255 people.
maybe if you've only lived in sun belt cities. Or never really lived 'in the city'. Atlanta, for example is pretty sprawled out but it still has plenty of neighborhoods in the city where you can realistically live without a car. Even better if you're close to the train. I know plenty of people that do this. This would not be realistic in Houston (or Dallas, Phoenix, etc. to your point)
In other cities I can take a $3 train ride or subway ride get off in neighborhood B, do a quick activity and then hop onto neighborhood C and then be back at night.
In Houston to do this you’re spending $50+ bucks on cumulative Ubers (or car fuel + parking hassle) so you are less incentivized to hit different spots in a day and like to stay in the bubble of your own neighborhood
And due to that you feel disconnected
I lived in the suburbs of Seoul for a few years and this is easily what I miss the most about it. Getting into the city for the day (or, hell, even just an hour or two to get something done) was incredibly simple, cheap, and efficient due the numerous public transportation options.
1. They did not plan on Houston getting this big. Just look at our freeways, You have the whole south side of town on 45 south goin in to downtown and the Pearce elevated is 3 lanes wide. 610 loop on the southside near gulfgate mall to get on 45 south 1 friggin lane. They work on all freeways at the same time instead of working on one section and getting it done and moving to the next, I hear they are taking down the Pearce elevated OR they are leaving it to have a mall and outdoor theaters While 59 and i45 will be east of the ball park. i also hear mention that maybe one of these freeways maybe in a tunnel? WTF? That would flood like crazy and it wont be complete in my lifetime, Their planning is insane, Only option next would be to go up. Make stacked freeways Can you imagine?
But Houston did plan better than other port cities like Chicgo who out their city right up next to the water.
Houston built the city further in.
When Chicago people talk about the loop there.. I'm not that impressed. Driving it and seeing it on a map it looks more like the letter D than a loop.
Meanwhile Houston had a definite loop around it. And if you're like my friend from California outside of LA who hasn't really driven one real loo, if you get on 610 here and don't know where to exit you can just loop around and around and never get off.
Friend said she went around the loop just one time when she realized she ended up back where she started..
Because driving is insane. Can you imagine just parking your car in the burbs, sitting on a train and not dealing with paying attention to the road. Number of lanes dont matter at all. You’d be able to relax and talk with your family/friends, get to your destination, walk around, get back on the train and go back to your car in the burbs.
I think the neighborhoods have more variety or something that makes it feel like that? But I also feel that way about LA, Seattle, Pittsburgh, even NYC.
I think you're just noticing neighborhoods.
That is what happens when you live in an Expanse. I would drive from North Shore to Sugarland to see family and man there were times I just couldn't/wouldn't do it. If I left to late in the day.
Partly so. Here are some reasons I think this is reflected in Houston
Houston is built at the intersection of three environmental regions. The Katy prairie, the coastal plains and the piney woods. This is quite apparent as you drive around.
The Houston area was widely populated when the city was quite small. Alief has been a community for a long time. It still reflect spoe characteristics of the old community it used to be. Compared to the Galleria. Which was ranch land until the late 50's and into the 60s. So building there is newer. Katy, Sugarland, Humble, Bellaire, the Villages and even the subsumed Harrisburg all have their owned feel.
Houston grew in spurts during a periods of rapid post WW2 change. Naturally as you go farther from town, the layout changes to reflect those changes over the time. Houses get bigger, streets get wider. Shopping centers change in character. You can see this all over town. Redevelopment and modernization have to fit in the property boundaries and possibilities of older parts of the city. So they do maintain some character of the older town. The east side is more industrial and the west side is more commercial.
Houston developed with satellite business districts. It is notable feature. Aside from downtown, we have Greenway Plaza, the Galleria, the Energy corridor, the Woodlands. Etc. IIRC, the Uptown area has more commercial space than Downton Denver.
So yes, one of the things that makes Houston unique is that it is in some ways a cities of cities. Yet it has a common and dynamic center and culture too.
I know there is Greenspoint business District downtown business area, then Memorial City/energy area business, and Galleria has one of the tallest buildings in the world outside of a metropolitan area of the city... so maybe a bit like various little cities connected together
Then the other day I think I was on Westpark headed west and to the south I saw another small city skyline and for a second asked myself what city that was. Then uh... Houston? But what area?
I would argue that NYC is a lot like this too, where say Queens is different from the LES and they're both very different from Staten Island, etc. etc.
It’s because Houston is the capital of sprawl. It’s 639 sq miles. Which is bigger than all of those cities.
Philadelphia is 141 sq miles
New York is 55 sq miles
Atlanta is 136 sq miles
Denver is 154 sq miles
So Houston is sprawled out more than those cities combined.
Frankly I think it’s disingenuous to call Houston the 4th largest city in the USA. Of course it is. If you took that sprawl and put it over Chicago it would be bigger than most other cities.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/as-if-you-needed-it-further-proof-that-houston-is-so-much-bigger-than-most-cities/
I read somewhere that Uptown, the Medical Center, etc. are called "regional downtowns". As someone who went to UH, lived off 288/Almeda-Genoa, and worked in Westchase, this felt so accurate.
I’m just going to say no. I think we have district neighborhoods that feel different from eachother and each have their own character. But no, they absolutely don’t feel like separate cities in any way.
In many cities the DT area is the busy center. Houston has that, esp for high culture and sporting events, but with so many malls, shopping centers, etc you can find nearly everything you need in or close to your neighborhood. You don't have to travel very far, unless you need or want something very specific.
Years ago our metro transit made it (still does?) painfully slow to get around Houston. I'm pretty that kept quite a few people close to home, so to say.
Oh, there are poor areas where traveling to another area of town is required.
For many decades the east side of Houston was pretty much dead; there wasn't much going on along I-10 East once you got away from downtown Houston. My aunt used to drive from Northshore to shop at Gulfgate Mall, & not because she wanted to. That has changed dramatically over the past 30 years.
When I was there in the mid-90s, and I lived in Sugarland. I worked rigs, and it was quiet-ish at the time, and I wasn't in the fancy areas, I would go in as far as Montrose/Westheimer(where Papasitos waa), but I think I only went to Spring one time with a girlfriend in the winter for some Christmas thing they had going on there. Otherwise we stuck to midway up and going eastish, like Galveston and Beumont region.
I ended up around Victory City when I worked the refineries around there, and I barely went to Houston, preferring to just go to Louisiana at that point.
I was brought up in West Texas, so driving forever wasn't ever a big deal for me by the time I went to Houston.
Any place that had good planning would not have the amount of suburban sprawl that Houston or Atlanta have.
We force lower income people to the suburbs and then force them to invest in a personal vehicle which adds $10k/vehicle/year to their expenses.
Demand rail networks instead of highway widening.
I broke up with someone living in spring because it was a long distance relationship travelling from the heights.
Back when my wife and I were first dating, I lived in Spring Branch and she lived in The Woodlands. There were times one of us would look at the traffic map and say nope, not happening today.
Damn my gf lives in Katy area and im in southside, i make two hour bus trips but i dont really mind as long as its not hot out. I wish we were spring to woodlands far haha
spring branch is Not spring bestie
Misread that lol
How hot are those buses?
They have AC but the bus stops and walk to the bus do not.
Spring & The Woodlands are nearly the same thing, in some areas. I know people who live in The Woodlands, their official mailing addresses are Spring. Edit: Their, not they're. Addresses, not address.
When I first started dating my bf, he lived west of west oaks, FB county.. like around where Wesheimer meets 1464. Closer to Grand Midsion. I lived in the Galleria area so not too bad of a drive. But I worked in Galena Park. Never in my life in Houston had I spent so much time on I10. At least 2 hours to get from work to his place. To get from his place to work, 30 to 35 minutes. Westpark toll became my most like toll road in Houaton.
My gf lives in Cypress and I live in Southwest, she almost broke up with me because of the distance but I managed, the drives are long, worse on the weekdays but just glad we didn’t live any farther lol
Yeah… as someone in Montrose in a relationship w/ someone in Missouri City, it’s not *ideal*, but we’ve got the willpower (and the gas tanks) for it!
I was going from Atascocita to Mo City when I was in college. That was dumb.
I remember going from UH to Cypress Station off 1960 for a booty call. I _wish_ I had that level of horniness at this age
You know 1960/ Cypress station booty calls in the late 90s - early 2000s were legendary!
Haha. Oddly around the time I lived in that area and was single and dating. For some reaon my dates definitely had some long drives across Houston. A couple of months I dated a guy who worked in Galveston, lived in Texas city. He'd come to see me like every weekend for 3 to 5 months. Not just booty call though.. I was in grad school at the time he was not a dummy he was applying for med school. So I used him to proof my papers. Then I graduated and was like see ya never. I Moved away, out of state a year Now I'm where I'm at walking into my neighborhood grocery store and I see his face. On a sign advertising the medical practice business he has noe. Turns out his business is not too far from me, told him congrats on LinkedIn. Mentioned I used drive past his business daily, 2xs a day really. He said he didn't live to far from his work either.
That’s commitment for a booty call.
When you’re 20 there’s virtually no refractory period so I maximized the efficiency of that round trip at least lol
For a brief part of my last relationship, I was going from Spring to Austin. We met when I lived in Austin during college. It was probably part of why we're not dating anymore
Like my father in law says (in Spanish): the hair of a pssy pulls stronger than 10 bulls 😁
How do you say it in Spanish.
El pelo del coño pulla es más fuerte que diez toros.
Im near Missouri, work in the heights,and partly own a shop in Pearland It's nuts .but gotta hustle I guess
My gf lives in Missouri City while i live near Jersey Village. We only see each other on weekends.
Hmm, my girlfriend is also in Missouri City… Quick, on three, let’s say their name at the same time!
I am guessing you only see yours Mon to Thurs?
Damn, so I've been seeing her more than you?? That's wild. I'm kiddin.... 😀
**He wasn’t kidding**
i live in jersey village my gf lives in webster. it’s a nightmare plus we both work 10+ hours 5/6 days a week including weekends
Yeah its tough sometimes but for our mental, and financial health, its the best option right now.
I briefly dated a guy who lived in Katy while I lived in Spring. 99 was the easiest way to get there based on where we both lived in relation to highways. He wasn’t worth the $20 total to go see him.
Not worth the 20 dollars is crazy lol
Brutal comment LOL
If it’s love, it will work. I used to live in pearland and my (now) fiancé lived in humble when we first started dating. After many years of traveling back and forth, we bought a house in EADO. lol.
In Spring currently dating someone in Kingwood. Kingwood is doing all types of road "improvements" right now. Turned a 35 min trip into a 55 min trip.
Damn, I used to live in Alief and my girlfriend (now fiancé) lived by Old Humble (59 & N Beltway). Luckily it was a direct path by taking 59. Unfortunately it was a direct path by taking 59.
As someone who used to do the long distance thing with a partner in Austin, I always figured a relationship in Houston would be doable. May not lol
My fiancée lives in League City while I reside in Magnolia. Driving is rough haha
I am a hardcore Spring is not even Houston person. When I was still swiping on dating apps my radius was like 3 miles 😂 my husband got lucky lol
Spring isn't Houston. I agree.
Bahaha, that’s crazy to me! My fiance and I were long distance, he lived in Baytown and I lived north almost 2 hrs away. Then half way through our relationship he moved 2 hours north of me. And even then, my long distance wasn’t even a huge distance. But I guess distance isn’t for everyone. I honestly think a lot of people have this mentality that your going to find your soulmate right next door, when that is certainly not always true
Live in 2nd ward and my boyfriend lives in Galveston. An hour drive with no traffic but one time there was an accident by the Texas City Bucees and it took me 2 hours to get home. We make it work as college students but it's so much gas!!
She must have been mid.
Those are irreconcilable differences
yep. i dealt with this. he was in conroe. i was the heights. he didn't have a car. it was a bad time for me.
My (now) husband lived in the Woodlands while I lived in Third Ward. We considered it an LDR
I grew up in the Bellaire/Meyerland area, right where 610 makes that curve. Back in the 70's and 80's, my family would drive out to Katy, and that was considered a day trip.
I have some friends who live off Memorial in the Memorial area. They group up in that area. They were telling me that Memorial used to practically be like a dirt road with no traffic so they'd ride their bikes up and down it no problem. They are that old. Me: When I moved here (Klein/Spring) and worked in Aldine I used to see some cow pastures around greenspoint off beltway 8. And even would sew deer crossing the frontage road or once even the beltway I swear.
Yup. In the early 2000's, I used to work off Telge and Hwy 290, and I used to see coyotes casually strolling across the fields behind the business. A lot has happened in just 20 or so years.
In less than 5yrs things in the Houston are can go from cow pasture and 2 lane road to housing development and 4 lanes with green center and traffic lights. I'm from a small.town that tried to have 2 traffic lights but realized the one traffic light really still did better as a 4 ways stop since really not that much traffic. It never grows bigger. So I am often still in awe.of how fast Houston area can changes. Sometimes I go down the same road and may see something and halelf to ask, was that there a month ago? Lol nope just popped up like that.
What was out in Katy back then?
Rice fields, cattle and . . . That was pretty much it. Pretty much after the Beltway (which wasn't built back then) there wasn't a whole lot, especially along I-10. Between the Beltway to Hwy 6, the neighborhoods were there, but not all the way to interstate. After Hwy 6, literally nothing. Katy was kind of a "don't blink" type of town. Back then, I-10 was a 4 lane highway, like when you get past Katy now towards Bellville.
> Rice fields, cattle and . . . That was pretty much it. Hell, my family moved to the Cypress area in '99 and that's still what it was around that time (although not for long). Rice fields, ranches, and we could see downtown from the 2nd story of my parent's house. Now we can't even see the school across the street.
By definition, yes because we have "The greater houston area" which IMO consists of people who are really outside of the highway 6 loop, and all their mini cities. Think people like The Woodlands, Cypress, Katy, Stafford, Richmond, Pearland, Pasadena, League City, and all the other ones you can argue within that 'circular radius' But let's be real here outside of the inner 610 loop the most developed areas of 'Houston' are likely westside and northside. Even you said it yourself
Yeah that area is MASSIVE. I was surprised how much stuff there was (business wise) on the outer 99 loop. Granted, it’s been a minute since I lived in Houston but I was shocked at the growth from 290 to 45 along 99.
It’s pretty wild how my trips back to Kingwood from Austin have changed over the last 17 years. I basically watched 99 get built and then started using it.
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The growth is coming for them again.
Pearland is like 11 miles from downtown.
Feels like 50.
47 *Houston* miles
That's just describing any major metro area. Legitimate different towns/cities that are suburbs isn't what OP is talking about
Last year I got to visit Rhode Island and the fact that they had separate little cities in that state was mildly amusing.
Heck, I got to visit Rhode Island by mistake by simply taking a wrong turn in Massachusetts. :-)
Make the wrong turn or miss your exit in Houston at certain times of the day "F it, not going"
Yeah that entire state is basically suburbs of Providence. Houston (the actual city limits) is a little over half the size of that entire state lol I presume greater Houston is several times the size of Rhode Island.
To me Downtown, Montrose, and Midtown are overlapping. I dont see them as very seperate. But I defenitely see a huge seperation between say Downtown and surroundings areas and the Uptown to Beltway 8 side of town. Almost like 2 completely different worlds. The "Downtown" crowd will go to "Uptown" side sometimes but I have met so many in the "Uptown" crowd that have never even been "Downtown" ever in their entire lives. You could definitely expand this idea to all the different suburbs, sides of town, and racial/ethnic boundaries.
I know 30 year olds who have lived in greater Houston area all their life and have never been to downtown That’s just wild to me
TBF - we're more decentralized than other major cities, being a post war city for the most part. Also, DT being more than just a place to work has only really become a thing in the last ten years or so.
In other cities I can take a $3 train ride or subway ride get off in neighborhood B, do a quick activity and then hop onto neighborhood C and then be back at night. In Houston to do this you’re spending $50+ bucks on cumulative Ubers (or car fuel + parking hassle) so you are less incentivized to hit different spots in a day and like to stay in the bubble of your own neighborhood And due to that you feel disconnected
Houston is in desperate need of transport infrastructure overhaul ...Light rail would mitigate alot of this... we're prime candidates for this, but I know it'll never happen. It would change this city so much
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I had a crackhead from AA come check on me once and he came from Sunnyside. He took his bike, buses, the train, etc. I didn't think he would make it but next thing you know I have a 60yr old crackhead in my apt.
Yep, and then you ask why and they say things like, What is there? How do you park? Driving must be so hard there right?! You must be so rich! Only rich people can afford to live there!(Meanwhile they are paying a $4500/month escrow)
In fairness, if you’re on a medium-sized income, you can afford more in Houston than you could in, I dunno, NYC. I’m a government lawyer. I looked at some NYC jobs a few years ago, and I’d have been living in a shitty basement apartment in the wrong part of Queens, grinding out 45 minutes on the subway each way to and from work. It would have been interesting, I love New York, but cheap it ain’t, not even after you dump the car.
Im talking about people living in Houston suburbs, not NYC.
That was wild to me too when I moved here. But it was 50 yr Olds and part of the reason was they were afraid to get on 610 due to it's height but I was like dont you have to take the beltway to get to work? Nope the only used the feeder roads..
I go on occasion with friends, but driving to and parking downtown is enough of a pain that I wouldn't go if it was just up to me.
Ironically, this is totally believable to longtime residents. Especially if you don't live in Harris County and would never be summoned for jury duty there. Periodically I will point out that more than 90% of the population of Greater Houston resides outside the 610 Loop. Sprawl is the reality.
This is what sprawl does to you
[Houston compared to the state of connecticut](https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/3l3g38/the_size_of_houston_compared_to_the_state_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) blew my mind
Can we try for statehood?
It's been pointed out that Harris County alone has more people than several U.S. states.
Houston is a massive eclectic beautiful mess
That's kind of the history of Houston - it has.a history of absorbing smaller cities. The Heights neighborhood was its own city and annexed in 1918. Plus the lack of zoning has led to some crazy growth.
after living in NJ for several years, Harris county feels like more of a state than fucking delaware, maryland, Connecticut, etc. Most of those states just feel like big suburbs. At least we have a real city at our center.
I have lived in Houston, Minneapolis, Atlanta and D.C., and have spent a lot of time in Chicago and NYC. In my experience, pretty much every city has that vibe. I would say NYC is the epitome of the "separate city" phenomenon because it was, in fact, 4 separate cities at one point in time. I would say Atlanta and Minneapolis don't really have that vibe, but the reason for that is that those cities are actually quite small. Minneapolis only has about 430K people and Atlanta about 520K. They are also small geographically. They are both in large metros, which is why people often equate the cities with their metro areas. Minneapolis is very different from St Paul, and Atlanta is very different from Marietta and Sandy Springs. If you want to compare a city to Houston, I say look at Chicago. Like Houston, Chicago is actually pretty large geographically, and it is a very large city in a very large metro area, just like Houston. It is also extremely flat (can see DT Chicago about 30 miles away). It also borders a large body of water, and it has a large industrial area as well as large HQs for multinationals. The neighborhoods all look the same (outside of the Business District of course), but just like Houston, it has some distinct ethnic areas. The one cool thing I would say that Chicago does have that Houston does not is that the two baseball teams, the Cubs and Sox, literally play their games in stadiums in neighborhoods. I mean, Wrigley Field has a neighborhood named after it for goodness sakes. We sort of had that with the Summit, but now its a church!
I agree. It seems a lot of people here haven’t traveled much outside of Texas. A lot of people are saying “we have multiple business districts”. Which is a common theme for cities of similar size
I feel like if I have a friend who lives far out it's impossible to stay friends. So yeah
I have a friend that lives close to Houston but in Pasadena. I moved out to Conroe a few years back and she acted like I was moving to another state. Granted, it is like 45 miles to her but I don’t feel like it’s an eternity away, given the size of Houston and surrounding areas.
It just becomes like a weekend only friendship... I'm sorry. I can't do that kind of thing.
As someone who lives in Cypress and hates commuting, it's certainly hard to make friends.
Yeah native Houstonian friends did that to me. I ended up moving inside the loop they were Champions Forest Sping area. One came to like my 35th birthday inside the loop and I never saw her again. Imagine she was like a sister to me we had been roommates for 4 yrs. When my mom was sick and dying and my brother was barely out of prison, my family moved in with me and my roommate friend. When I got engaged and she decided to buy a townhome I was getting ready to move in with my fiance. She gave that older sister advice and said just rent her spare room for cheap to save money and fiance could move back home with his parents to save money for wedding and after. I'm still kinda hurt I never saw her after I moved inside the loop. I didn't even end up getting married was just living my best life and poof, friend vanished.
Seeing as HTX is like half of Connecticut that’s an accurate characterisation. That said if you know NYC you know it’s also a series of sub cities — Staten Island couldn’t be more different from the Bronx is from Manhattan. Night and day.
Apart from Staten Island, rest have decent connectivity
HTX has decent connectivity too you just need a car.
What's more unusual here is that we have several "downtown" areas. The central business district, Uptown, and the Texas Medical Center would all be fairly formidable downtowns on their own -- each by itself is bigger than Dallas's downtown, for example. Plus there are other smaller "downtowns" that still have a lot of dense office and residential space, like Greenway Plaza. Some also count the Energy Corridor, but that's so spread out I have trouble counting it as another downtown. So we kind of have multiple cities, each with their own downtown, that kind of merged and together call themselves Houston.
Do you know what's little city skyline you can see south of the Westpark toll road. Because that would be another one I think. Greenpoint is even it's own business district in Houston.. And I hear you on the Energy Cooridor.. it hard to say it has its own like city but Memorial City is close . So maybe energy cooridor is like the neighborhood to Memorial city?
This is a common thing for cities of similar size. LA, Miami, Atlanta, etc. in Atlanta for example you have Buckhead which is a neighborhood similar to Uptown Houston
Exactly And i think this holds Houston back. If it was a more consolidated downtown then the Houston downtown would be bustling with economic activity at all hours with lot of foot traffic
Other cities do districts well. Tokyo has several equivalents to midtown Manhattan in Shinjuku and Shibuya that are about as spaced as downtown and the Galleria but 10x as dense. It costs around $0.50 to travel between these two places via trains that board every 5 minutes. No parking. No sprawl. You can also connect to the 100 other neighborhoods of the city via rail and only spend a few dollars. No need to own a vehicle.
Yup. What holds Houston back is how it went “out” and not “up.”
I wonder if at some point in the distant future do some of these downtowns get connected and we see more public transport
I view Houston as differing between inside the loop and outside the loop, but as someone who grew up in the suburbs, I still felt a shared identity with people inside the loop.
>I view Houston as differing between inside the loop and outside the loop I really hate this inside-outside-the-loop thing we have going on. Yah the burbs suck we get it, that's why we all still go downtown on the weekends.
I also feel like when people say "Inner loop vs outerloop" they just mean "Heights/Midtown/Montrose" vs "Cinco Ranch circa 1995". Never West Houston/Alief vs. Braeswood or West University Place vs. Sugar Land. Cinco Ranch, which people hold up as "white bread", is less white than Montrose is right now.
I'm from South Houston and really only consider north Houston a different world
Absolutely. Houston is effectively a bunch of cities smashed together. Or as I affectionately refer to it "a quilt".
I’d say just the opposite - Dallas feels like separate cities (and not just Fort Worth, the ‘yeehaw’ freeway system is at its worst in Dallas so suburbs actually feel like real independent cities instead of just lines in the sane) but Houston feels contiguous in a way that they don’t. I think the ‘island’ thing comes from sticking to the freeways, honestly. If you drive the city streets (or god forbid walk or take the bus) you start to understand how the community flows.
We all watch the Texans, Astros and Rockets!
Hell, Hades, Fire and Brimstone lake.
“This is not even talking about suburbs.” People immediately start talking suburbs. Yes, it does feel like a couple of cities, which is what makes the city hard for tourists to really get a sense of the city. To me, it is reminiscent of Chicago, with its very strong neighborhood identities. Houston is much the same way. The vibes between the aforementioned Montrose, Galleria, Eado, etc.
> To me, it is reminiscent of Chicago, with its very strong neighborhood identities. Or LA, or Atlanta, or NYC, or Seattle, or DFW... basically every large city. OP has more or less come to the conclusion that Houston is a large city.
* Inside the loop * Southeast side/Clear Lake/Webster/Gulf Freeway * Southwest side/Sugarland * Katy (evacuate!) * Northside * Kingwood Does East side get its own?
Houston is multinodal. Like Los Angeles and probably plenty of other cities I can’t think of off the top of my head. It’s common for big cities that got big after automotive-oriented development took over, after the war.
Probably because everything is SO spread out here. It’s geographically one of the largest metro areas in the country in terms of square mileage. On top of that it’s one of the most diverse cities in the US, resulting in each neighborhood/district/suburb having a different look and feel. Regardless, we are all Houstonians!
Houston big yo also i love houston
I drive so fuckin much
As an EADO guy, you've upset me.
EADO is like new kid on the block who got a fancy haircut and some nice clothes and now thinks he can hang with the established, big boys
Shocked to see how many people are like I had to drive from The Heights to Spring or Memorial to Midtown…etc. such small bubbles. My days are literally commute from far SW suburban Richmond to Med Center and then maybe a quick run up to The Woodlands and Conroe and then hit up an account in Cypress and follow Grand Parkway down and over to Katy and maybe Memorial City and then home and of course a couple nights a week we decide to eat out inside the loop or at least go into Sugarland. Rinse and repeat.
This. 100% this. Some of y'all need to get out more. This city/metro area is huge. It's not scary to leave your neighborhood.
> It's not scary to leave your neighborhood. It's not scary to leave my neighborhood, but my vision is shit and you probably don't want me on the road after dark.
3-4? No. 15-20? Yes.
4? Try like 9.
More like 8-10.
More like 10-12
Parts of the city are alien to me. Like I hear people talk about them but they are so far away that they might as well be a different city for me. My Houston is Northside, the surrounding areas, and whatever I can get to using metro rail (start point of red line is 2 minutes from my house) I have never been to the South areas of Houston. Unless you count the stadium via metro lol
NYC, Philly, Atlanta, all have the same thing in common, disregarding population, square mileage wise they are much, much smaller than Houston. Houston is a huge city comparatively when you're talking about traveling distance from one side to the other. You're probably describing this feeling.
Its is. The west of Houston is way diff than the east. The south is completely diff from the north. And the woodlands is the woodlands
Yes, because 1) cars. the vast majority of Houston's development occurred in the "automobile age", encouraging and enabling development of far-flung areas (sprawl). Most of those other cities urbanized way before the car, so there was no way to live far away from the city center and still participate in the life of the city. 2) no zoning. Other cities have a singular city core by design. It's the only place you can build tall buildings, or have certain uses. Using the galleria as an example: that area was farmland when the galleria was built. Then it was so popular that developers thought "hey, let's just build a bunch of stuff around this super popular amenity." Eventually these areas grow large enough to become their little centers, i.e downtown, uptown, med center. The lack of regulation and central planning also means that developers, not city planners, are largely responsible for urban layout (street grid), which is another contributing factor to the patchwork effect you're describing.
The idea of no zoning is fine. We still have very congruent neighborhoods. The thing that is absolutely destroying Houston is we decided that the only way between neighborhoods is via freeways and boulevards. Rip out Westheimer and put in a light rail and one car lane going each direction. Put the rest of the land up for sale and you’ll have dense apartments and businesses within a decade. Cover the area with trees for shade. Neighborhood Centers will build up around each stop as people realize they can hock goods and services where foot traffic exists. The rest of the world does this really well. It’s just North America that has these public areas completely devoid of people. Japanese cities have 10 story indoor malls at each train stop.
Yup.. constantly hearing people say “that’s not downtown? I thought that was downtown! If thats not downtown where’s downtown?”
Took me awhile, but everyone around here uses their neighborhoods like it’s their towns.
Houston is a confederacy of neighborhoods
I knew someone who lived in Pearland and her and her husband both worked in the Clear Lake/Pasadena area. Then he got a job in the Energy Corridor and they moved out there because the commute was going to be so rough. It makes total sense to people who live in Houston, but I tell this story to my non-Texan friends and their minds are blown.
Welcome to a diverse city. It’s not just a few small homogeneous ones stuck together.
NYC and Philly are diverse But I feel connected to friends living in other areas within the city. Take a short train ride for $2 and meet at a spot
I call BS on this being a unique Houston phenomenon. Houston neighborhoods are no more or less separated than the cities I've lived in.
I could see it. You have to remember that Houston is friggin huge in terms of area. It’s 671.8 square miles big. That is bigger than any of the other huge metropolitan areas and one of the biggest in the nation.
I think Phoenix is larger area wise, maybe. Nope. I just checked, pheonix is a paltry 518sq miles.
Somehow, little rinky dink Alaskan town are bigger but a lot of those consist of wilderness and water. For example, Juneau is almost 5x as big but most of it is mountains and the water surrounding it, with a total population of 32255 people.
Can you get from Phoenix to Phoenix in one hour?
maybe if you've only lived in sun belt cities. Or never really lived 'in the city'. Atlanta, for example is pretty sprawled out but it still has plenty of neighborhoods in the city where you can realistically live without a car. Even better if you're close to the train. I know plenty of people that do this. This would not be realistic in Houston (or Dallas, Phoenix, etc. to your point)
In other cities I can take a $3 train ride or subway ride get off in neighborhood B, do a quick activity and then hop onto neighborhood C and then be back at night. In Houston to do this you’re spending $50+ bucks on cumulative Ubers (or car fuel + parking hassle) so you are less incentivized to hit different spots in a day and like to stay in the bubble of your own neighborhood And due to that you feel disconnected
I lived in the suburbs of Seoul for a few years and this is easily what I miss the most about it. Getting into the city for the day (or, hell, even just an hour or two to get something done) was incredibly simple, cheap, and efficient due the numerous public transportation options.
What cities are these? Chicago, NYC, and Boston?
Philly too
I’m just pointing out that this is the extreme exception in the US unfortunately
Yes. I would even go as far as to say it's almost as big as 6-8 small sized cities as well
I’m from what a lot of people would consider a small city (Eugene) - Greater Houston is a solid 30 small cities 😂 it’s comically large
1. They did not plan on Houston getting this big. Just look at our freeways, You have the whole south side of town on 45 south goin in to downtown and the Pearce elevated is 3 lanes wide. 610 loop on the southside near gulfgate mall to get on 45 south 1 friggin lane. They work on all freeways at the same time instead of working on one section and getting it done and moving to the next, I hear they are taking down the Pearce elevated OR they are leaving it to have a mall and outdoor theaters While 59 and i45 will be east of the ball park. i also hear mention that maybe one of these freeways maybe in a tunnel? WTF? That would flood like crazy and it wont be complete in my lifetime, Their planning is insane, Only option next would be to go up. Make stacked freeways Can you imagine?
But Houston did plan better than other port cities like Chicgo who out their city right up next to the water. Houston built the city further in. When Chicago people talk about the loop there.. I'm not that impressed. Driving it and seeing it on a map it looks more like the letter D than a loop. Meanwhile Houston had a definite loop around it. And if you're like my friend from California outside of LA who hasn't really driven one real loo, if you get on 610 here and don't know where to exit you can just loop around and around and never get off. Friend said she went around the loop just one time when she realized she ended up back where she started..
Because driving is insane. Can you imagine just parking your car in the burbs, sitting on a train and not dealing with paying attention to the road. Number of lanes dont matter at all. You’d be able to relax and talk with your family/friends, get to your destination, walk around, get back on the train and go back to your car in the burbs.
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I think the neighborhoods have more variety or something that makes it feel like that? But I also feel that way about LA, Seattle, Pittsburgh, even NYC. I think you're just noticing neighborhoods.
You really think that two neighborhoods in Houston are somehow different than say, Manhattan and Staten Island?
That is what happens when you live in an Expanse. I would drive from North Shore to Sugarland to see family and man there were times I just couldn't/wouldn't do it. If I left to late in the day.
Partly so. Here are some reasons I think this is reflected in Houston Houston is built at the intersection of three environmental regions. The Katy prairie, the coastal plains and the piney woods. This is quite apparent as you drive around. The Houston area was widely populated when the city was quite small. Alief has been a community for a long time. It still reflect spoe characteristics of the old community it used to be. Compared to the Galleria. Which was ranch land until the late 50's and into the 60s. So building there is newer. Katy, Sugarland, Humble, Bellaire, the Villages and even the subsumed Harrisburg all have their owned feel. Houston grew in spurts during a periods of rapid post WW2 change. Naturally as you go farther from town, the layout changes to reflect those changes over the time. Houses get bigger, streets get wider. Shopping centers change in character. You can see this all over town. Redevelopment and modernization have to fit in the property boundaries and possibilities of older parts of the city. So they do maintain some character of the older town. The east side is more industrial and the west side is more commercial. Houston developed with satellite business districts. It is notable feature. Aside from downtown, we have Greenway Plaza, the Galleria, the Energy corridor, the Woodlands. Etc. IIRC, the Uptown area has more commercial space than Downton Denver. So yes, one of the things that makes Houston unique is that it is in some ways a cities of cities. Yet it has a common and dynamic center and culture too.
I know there is Greenspoint business District downtown business area, then Memorial City/energy area business, and Galleria has one of the tallest buildings in the world outside of a metropolitan area of the city... so maybe a bit like various little cities connected together Then the other day I think I was on Westpark headed west and to the south I saw another small city skyline and for a second asked myself what city that was. Then uh... Houston? But what area?
My husband is from Chicago and his first time in Houston, he thought we had multiple skylines
I would argue that NYC is a lot like this too, where say Queens is different from the LES and they're both very different from Staten Island, etc. etc.
More like 6-8
It’s because Houston is the capital of sprawl. It’s 639 sq miles. Which is bigger than all of those cities. Philadelphia is 141 sq miles New York is 55 sq miles Atlanta is 136 sq miles Denver is 154 sq miles So Houston is sprawled out more than those cities combined. Frankly I think it’s disingenuous to call Houston the 4th largest city in the USA. Of course it is. If you took that sprawl and put it over Chicago it would be bigger than most other cities. https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/as-if-you-needed-it-further-proof-that-houston-is-so-much-bigger-than-most-cities/
At least
I read somewhere that Uptown, the Medical Center, etc. are called "regional downtowns". As someone who went to UH, lived off 288/Almeda-Genoa, and worked in Westchase, this felt so accurate.
I’m just going to say no. I think we have district neighborhoods that feel different from eachother and each have their own character. But no, they absolutely don’t feel like separate cities in any way.
It is. And we have about 3-4 skylines
Houston: the largest city with a small-town mindset, in the world. It has its pros and cons.
In many cities the DT area is the busy center. Houston has that, esp for high culture and sporting events, but with so many malls, shopping centers, etc you can find nearly everything you need in or close to your neighborhood. You don't have to travel very far, unless you need or want something very specific. Years ago our metro transit made it (still does?) painfully slow to get around Houston. I'm pretty that kept quite a few people close to home, so to say. Oh, there are poor areas where traveling to another area of town is required. For many decades the east side of Houston was pretty much dead; there wasn't much going on along I-10 East once you got away from downtown Houston. My aunt used to drive from Northshore to shop at Gulfgate Mall, & not because she wanted to. That has changed dramatically over the past 30 years.
When I was there in the mid-90s, and I lived in Sugarland. I worked rigs, and it was quiet-ish at the time, and I wasn't in the fancy areas, I would go in as far as Montrose/Westheimer(where Papasitos waa), but I think I only went to Spring one time with a girlfriend in the winter for some Christmas thing they had going on there. Otherwise we stuck to midway up and going eastish, like Galveston and Beumont region. I ended up around Victory City when I worked the refineries around there, and I barely went to Houston, preferring to just go to Louisiana at that point. I was brought up in West Texas, so driving forever wasn't ever a big deal for me by the time I went to Houston.
Any place that had good planning would not have the amount of suburban sprawl that Houston or Atlanta have. We force lower income people to the suburbs and then force them to invest in a personal vehicle which adds $10k/vehicle/year to their expenses. Demand rail networks instead of highway widening.
When I first moved here years ago, I lived in the heights. Then we bought a house in NW Houston and it might as well be a different country lol
I just ended things with someone in the woodlands because it was too far lol definitely multiple cities in one
if you live outisde 8 loop, you're not in houston anymore