I posted this in the Houston vs. New York?! post, and it fits here just fine. Enjoy!
Getting back on topic, people are too one-way (as it seems most people are with just about everything in their lives whether it is food, politics, or in this case cities). Preferences and opinions aside, we (people in general worldwide) find it hard to put things into perspective that we individually do not agree with and/or understand which almost always leads to naiveté and arguing that goes nowhere with varying levels of extremity depending the case at hand. It is all about perspective in anything that is mediated.
I have lived in New York a total of 5 years in my life and currently choose living in Houston (both are reasons I am speaking here), but my home "city" is America itself. I was born circa 60 years ago in Guam (military family). Looking in the 2007 World Almanac I have personally lived in 26 of the 50 largest consolidated metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. and have recently been back to nearly all of them in the past 10 years due to business and to time on my hands. I have a large family and an extremely extensive friend network that, with all the cities I have lived in, encompass the top 53 CMSAs in the greatest country in the history of the world. I have lived in and visited most of the worlds global Alpha, Beta, and Gamma cities, with friends and family currently living in them as well. I am unfathomably blessed to be in the position that I am in, in my life. If only those on this forum and others could perceive what I have seen and experienced in it!
New York AND Houston/Houston AND New York are both truly remarkable places (when you truly understand the histories of many places on this planet).
When researching sources we are supposed to check our references for validity (to discern whether it is a primary are secondary source) and then check their references to make sure we know what we are talking about before we start spouting hoopla that turns emotions into defense/attack mechanisms. That is rarely done. Almost everything off of the Internet needs to be checked with dire scrutiny, especially on Wikipedia. Books are THE way to go, especially in cases such as this.
Beyond the fact that certain people will prefer one for the other and will pick out things they like/love/hate about both, the fact remains that they are both incredibly important, inextricably linked, and absolutely comparable. Taking the comparisons/similarities that have been aforementioned into account (some of which are strong, and some, weak) there are quite a few that are rarely known let alone mentioned. A couple of which really are huge and should shed light on why I choose Houston as my city to live.
The following examples are lifelong thoughts that I have conjured from texts and life experiences involving individuals in history, geography, and how they reflect on what is occurring today in what I do believe is THE MOST misunderstood, misinterpreted, and hated metropolis in the United States compared to the amount of dislike people have for other cities in the union.
New Yorkers should be proud of Houston, after all, it is the progeny of it. The Allen brothers (born and bred New Yorkers) came to Texas near the end of the Texas Revolution with the intent to found a prosperous city on or near the Gulf Coast. They wisely chose a landing upstream from where General Sam Houston fought and won Texas Independence on Buffalo Bayou with the future plan of dredging a channel for shipping lanes that would occur 75 years later with the steam of oil driving the way. (We all know that occurrences in history always lead to new occurrences down the road... S.H.'s victory straight-up led to the Mexican-American War which won America the rest of the current western U.S. with the Mexican Cession, minus the Oregon/Washington Territories and Gadsden Purchase.) This choice would be proven wisely in 1900 when Isaac’s Storm (the 1900 hurricane) destroyed Galveston which was on its way to becoming one of the largest metropolis’ in the U.S. (Estimates place it between 9 and 14 million people today had the worst disaster of any kind in the U.S. had not occurred – this and the desire to populate the rest of the state kept this from happening; this is why the other cities in Texas are as big in population as they are today.) At the time it was considered the ‘Ellis Island and Stock Market of the South’. So much for the Greater Galveston Metropolitan Area, the southeast region of Texas at this point belonged to Houston, thanks to thoughtful New York foresight.
Geography and the lingering notion of Manifest Destiny existing to this day are also prevalent and hardly ever noticed except by few individuals. Manifest Destiny was the driving force for the expansion and colonization of areas to the west of the original colonies starting in the Ohio River Valley. Many consider St. Louis and the Mississippi or Dallas and Fort Worth as where the East meets the West in North American. But people considered themselves to be in the west once they hit the plains and prairies of the Great Plains. It's never connected that when you cross the Mississippi the terrain is the same as before it was crossed, and that DFW is entirely in the plains. What settlers did notice though was that at one point heading west they were all of a sudden on the rolling, nearly treeless terrain of the Great Plains. They left a forest that extends from Nunavut all the way to... Houston, where the tree line ends on the convergence of the southern extension of the Great Plains and the sub-tropical/tropical Gulf Coast. The forest is all over the East Coast, South, and Eastern Midwest regions of the U.S. There is not another city in the U.S. that inhabits topography quite like this. The closest would be Minneapolis/St. Paul and Tulsa, but I do know that are not placed as such like Houston.
Another proponent is the individual for whom the city is named. Sam Houston was a Unionist that was like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson rolled into a single entity in that he was a victorious war hero and an extremely gifted orator (same field as writing only spoken) who owned slaves, like Jefferson.
Here are a select group of real quotes that I find truly intriguing and make my heart swell every time I read them (he said these during the most turbulent time in U.S. history in Texas which was a new Southern slave-holding state at the time:
"I declare that civil war is inevitable and is near at hand. When it comes, the descendants of the heroes of Lexington and Bunker Hill will be found equal in patriotism, courage and heroic endurance with the descendants of the heroes of Cowpens and York." "To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war. If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her, as she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder, and steel, she will starve you..." "I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverently to petition, that they will pray for this Union, and ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, the mercy preserve and unite us. For a Nation divided against itself cannot stand."
All of this is why New York and Houston should have no reason to get along. One is definitely not better than the other. Houston is still a child and IS GOING to be one of the metropolitan leaders of the world for centuries to come, just give it time and due credit. Its historical jumpstart began in 1901 with Spindletop (outside of Beaumont) followed by the fields of Humble and Goose Creek (nearly 50 years after the Gold Rush in California and 340 years after the incorporation of New York City). Perception and context is all that is needed to understand why I choose Houston as my city to live, "an American city, a place of dreams."
Houston is like a kitchen, "if you can't take the heat, then get out of it." I workout outside all during the summer at my age and if you can't handle it then you're not very strong minded. In my circles you're weak and an irritant for those who love this metropolis. Do not hinder this establishment, just make like tree... or tree cockroach (which are nothing special) and leave or fly away.
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