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This is a weird post. Houston isn't considered South Texas. South Texas is Corpus, Laredo, the Rio Grand Valley, and maybe San Antonio. Still, I'll include Houston since that is what the OP requested, and it is the city, along with LA that I've lived in the longest.
I looked through the categories the OP listed, and SoCal win all of them. Some of them like weather and natural scenery, SoCal crushes South Texas + Houston. Some of them like food, SoCal still wins in my book, but South Texas + Houston is very close.
In my opinion, SoCal offers more, but it comes at a price.
If you are upper middle class or above, as long as you don't "need" a 4000 sqft house, SoCal offers more things to do, and nicer weather to do them in.
South Texas + Houston is better if you are lower middle class or below, especially if you don't have at least a bachelors degree. There are a lot of blue collar jobs that don't require education in both places, but the COL is so much lower in Texas that you can still afford a house or condo while working those jobs, and live a more traditional middle class lifestyle. In SoCal, you are going to be doubled up in a crowded apartment with a long commute, while still living paycheck to paycheck.
This is a weird post. Houston isn't considered South Texas. South Texas is Corpus, Laredo, the Rio Grand Valley, and maybe San Antonio. Still, I'll include Houston since that is what the OP requested, and it is the city, along with LA that I've lived in the longest.
I looked through the categories the OP listed, and SoCal win all of them. Some of them like weather and natural scenery, SoCal crushes South Texas + Houston. Some of them like food, SoCal still wins in my book, but South Texas + Houston is very close.
In my opinion, SoCal offers more, but it comes at a price.
If you are upper middle class or above, as long as you don't "need" a 4000 sqft house, SoCal offers more things to do, and nicer weather to do them in.
South Texas + Houston is better if you are lower middle class or below, especially if you don't have at least a bachelors degree. There are a lot of blue collar jobs that don't require education in both places, but the COL is so much lower in Texas that you can still afford a house or condo while working those jobs, and live a more traditional middle class lifestyle. In SoCal, you are going to be doubled up in a crowded apartment with a long commute, while still living paycheck to paycheck.
Lots of times it is though. Morw times than not, it isn’t. But I’ve seen many times it is.
Also, the title doesn’t say South Texas. It says southern Texas. Houston and San Antonio are very close in latitude, so if we are saying southern Texas and not South Texas, Houston is easily included if San Antonio is.
I looked through the categories the OP listed, and SoCal win all of them. Some of them like weather and natural scenery, SoCal crushes South Texas + Houston.
At least the Piney Woods are real!
I prefer L.A. over Vegas because it's not overwhelmingly brown, but the fake trees end up fueling the annual wildfires. To add insult to injury, when the winter rains come a few months later, mudslides ensue. I really appreciate the chaparral coastal scenery, but I would have to live inside the concrete jungle of the L.A. Basin to avoid fires touching my property.
Living on the Westside of Houston, I tend to ignore the coastal areas around Galveston and the huge Bay to the east. But Galveston Bay is pretty massive, like S.F. Bay, but it doesn't dominate the metro. Houston surprisingly is the only stretch of the Texas Gulf coast to have a large interruption of land between the bays.
Houston has the oddity of having the L.A. Basin (largest Pacific coastal plain) next to S.F. Bay. Also the San Jacinto River is the oddity of not going far inland, like the other Texas rivers.
I prefer L.A. over Vegas because it's not overwhelmingly brown, but the fake trees end up fueling the annual wildfires. To add insult to injury, when the winter rains come a few months later, mudslides ensue. I really appreciate the chaparral coastal scenery, but I would have to live inside the concrete jungle of the L.A. Basin to avoid fires touching my property.
Living on the Westside of Houston, I tend to ignore the coastal areas around Galveston and the huge Bay to the east. But Galveston Bay is pretty massive, like S.F. Bay, but it doesn't dominate the metro. Houston surprisingly is the only stretch of the Texas Gulf coast to have a large interruption of land between the bays.
I'm familiar with Galveston Bay. I lived a few miles from the bay in far SE Houston. Actually, I guess I lived even closer when lived for a few years in Galveston in my 20's. I'm not saying Houston/Galveston is the ugliest natural environment in the world (that would be Dallas), though the refineries and petrochemical plants weigh against it, especially along 225, Texas City, Freeport, and Baytown. The silty water from all that rain that keeps the vegetation green leaves the Bay and Gulf filled with brown water and brownish grey dirt/sand. Not exactly picture perfect, but I've had a lot of fun at the beaches there, and at least there are less oil/tar balls on the beaches now than when I was a kid. I like the oaks near the bayous draped with Spanish Moss, and I like the green, but not as much as I like more sunny days.
As for your points about fire hazards in SoCal, I agree. That's one thing I like about living in the basin is not having to worry much about fires, with the exception of this year when we had a couple of weeks of really bad air quality from all the smoke blowing in. Still, it's not all concrete jungle. Most of us with houses have a nice green (and blue with pools) backyard oasis.
Lots of times it is though. Morw times than not, it isn’t. But I’ve seen many times it is.
Also, the title doesn’t say South Texas. It says southern Texas. Houston and San Antonio are very close in latitude, so if we are saying southern Texas and not South Texas, Houston is easily included if San Antonio is.
well the OP kind of contradicted himself or herself potentially because in the thread title it says Southern Texas including Houston but in the poll it says South Texas.Sorry for being too pedantic but South Texas is different than Southern Texas to some people so they are not universally considered the same.
well the OP kind of contradicted himself or herself potentially because in the thread title it says Southern Texas including Houston but in the poll it says South Texas.Sorry for being too pedantic but South Texas is different than Southern Texas to some people so they are not universally considered the same.
According to Wikipedia, South Texas doesn’t include Houston. But according to the general public it is pretty much 50-50. Period South Texas school of Law or example is in Houston
According to Wikipedia, South Texas doesn’t include Houston. But according to the general public it is pretty much 50-50. Period South Texas school of Law or example is in Houston
I'm familiar with Galveston Bay. I lived a few miles from the bay in far SE Houston. Actually, I guess I lived even closer when lived for a few years in Galveston in my 20's. I'm not saying Houston/Galveston is the ugliest natural environment in the world (that would be Dallas), though the refineries and petrochemical plants weigh against it, especially along 225, Texas City, Freeport, and Baytown. The silty water from all that rain that keeps the vegetation green leaves the Bay and Gulf filled with brown water and brownish grey dirt/sand. Not exactly picture perfect, but I've had a lot of fun at the beaches there, and at least there are less oil/tar balls on the beaches now than when I was a kid. I like the oaks near the bayous draped with Spanish Moss, and I like the green, but not as much as I like more sunny days.
As for your points about fire hazards in SoCal, I agree. That's one thing I like about living in the basin is not having to worry much about fires, with the exception of this year when we had a couple of weeks of really bad air quality from all the smoke blowing in. Still, it's not all concrete jungle. Most of us with houses have a nice green (and blue with pools) backyard oasis.
More sunny days--just not during the summer!!! The winter sunshine is always beautiful every year; one of the benefits of being in the southern latitudes. Last week it was pretty cool, now it's like a Northern summer.
London's East End was as ugly as Houston's Eastside because of the port. It's being gentrified, but is still a busy working port! San Pedro is the only area suffering from blight due to the port. Sad to see Long Beach being targeted in the riots earlier after being revitalized for the last decade!
Wildfires in SoCal--nobody bats an eye. Wildfire in Montgomery County is highly unusual that it becomes a top story on the local news.
Oddly, no homes were burned down. There is no fire season here in Texas, probably a trash burning accident or something like a campfire not being completely extinguished.
Looking at the satellite view of Google Maps (and turning off the labels), L.A.'s sprawl is very clear that you can make out the freeways. By comparison, Houston is pretty hard to decipher through the forests.
More sunny days--just not during the summer!!! The winter sunshine is always beautiful every year; one of the benefits of being in the southern latitudes. Last week it was pretty cool, now it's like a Northern summer.
You can get some nice days in Winter in Houston, but it isn't very sunny. Jun-October are the only months in Houston with >60% possible sunshine. Winter is actually the cloudiest time of year, with less than 50% possible sunshine in Dec and Jan. I remember one winter in Galveston where I went almost 3 weeks without seeing the sun due to constant overcast conditions. When I was complaining to some family in Houston about it, they told me they had had a couple of werks of clouds too, but by that time they were burning off by afternoon. I guess California isn't the only place with microclimates.
LA is greater than 80% possible sunshine in the summer, and only drops below 70% possible in May an June. The rest of the year it's between 70 and 80% possible sunshine. The tradeoff is the greeness and wild fire risk.
Yeah, I remember a bad week of that smoke from fires in the Yucatan when I was in High School. Thankfully, I don't have to deal with wild fire smoke on annual basis either. This was the first bad year in LA in over a decade. Sure, there are fires annually, but it requires a rare combination of big fires that are close to the city with offshore winds to bring smoke from them into LA.
Agreed, but this isn't real life. It's the "city vs city" section of a city-oriented website. I'd say that the people that post in this section usually care.
I believe those in real life care about urbanity as well, I mean not to this degree, but it's important to some.
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