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Well, if you compare Houston with the UK, Ireland or Portugal (and I mean the WHOLE countries, not just cities) I take Houston any time. San Diego is nice, but it's like Nice, or Costa Del Sol in Europe. Great for visiting, but expensive for living. I just don't feel that it's like a business city. If I had a ton of money, yeah, I would probably live in SD and chill...
Personally I could compare Houston to London, Madrid or Athens. Ok, there is less to see in Houston, but it is a big city with a lot of entertainment. After all, its a cultural capital of the South.
This is why people aren't to fond of many Californian posters.
Houston is twice the city SD is. More people visit SD because it's in California. Nothing more, nothing less. I like SD and would like to visit someday, however, It does not have more international importance than Houston...more visitors or not.
Oh, and in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...The bragging about the beach, zoo, and weather will be mentioned..again.
You've never even been to SD, so how do you know Houston is twice the city? You probably say you hate cauliflower without ever having tasted it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by borat4eva
As I said SD is for tourists and Houston is for business and living.
I don't even know what this means. But wouldn't you agree that the link I provided above squashes your belief of Houston's international image?
I lived in San Diego for four years. Lived in Houston many, many times and am so GLAD to be back here in H-town.
I've had some fond memories and some cool jobs out in San Diego...but man, Houston as a city just BLOWS it away.
There is NO place to work in San Diego that is like the Texas Medical Center. I've been working in the Texas Medical Center for the past four years now...and the Med Center street life has a MUCH more purposeful dynamic than any I've experienced out in the supposed Navy-frat boy-filled "America's Finest City." It is refreshing to experience true URBAN street life here along Fannin St. when I walk to work or need to grab something to eat as opposed to those Kodak kiosk, whitebread San Diego tourist streets. It is FAR more organic urbanity to see tons of people sitting or strolling in front of Hermann in the shade along Fannin than to see people line up for the Whaley House in Old Town San Diego (eating lousy fake Mexican food).
Heck, even at night, when I walk to the transit center, the Texas Medical Center with the busy action of cops, ambulances, street people, medical staff, regular pedestrians around the myriad facilities has a lively vibe with a strange nocturnal purpose. Bit of sci-fi vibe...I will never get that in La Jolla or Uptown Hillcrest or some cliched SoCal walking district. I love my job and I love the Texas Medical Center. I love my 25 minute power walks after work to the transit center.
San Diego? Do you really like those random police CHECKPOINTS (hello...this is the USA not the old-style Soviet Union or Third Reich!) where the National City PD, Escondido PD, San Diego PD, San Diego Sheriffs stop EVERY VEHICLE along orange cones, asking for YOUR PAPERS? If you think that is right or just...then you are sheeple ready made for a quasi-fascist regime. These are NOT the announced DWI checkpoints. They happen randomly in the daytime on regular days.
Houston? Nope. We don't worry about checkpoints. HPD or the Constables or METRO cops...they stop cars on an individual basis, at least. Those California Fascist Police checkpoints are ILLEGAL in Texas, where apparently we love freedom more so. Traps are NOTHING compared to those Cali checkpoints.
Houston has a Theater District of utmost superior construction, quantity and quality. San Diego...is there such thing as culture there, aside from surfer? (Cowabunga, dude!)
San Diego has the larger, better known zoo...but the Houston Zoo is still regarded as a top 10.
Houston has many sorts of specialized nightlife districts that have drastically gotten more vibrant over the recent years (Rice Village, Richmond Avenue, Washington Ave, Downtown, White Oak St., the Montrose, Uptown/Galleria, Midtown, New Chinatown). They have a far greater range of street scales and street textures. And outside of those clusters, people are ALL OVER the place in Houston. Tons of bars/clubs/cool cafes outside of the entertainment clusters. I'd rather have this variety than the usual cliched tourist concentration format.
I love me some White Oak St in the Houston Heights. I enjoy that post-WW II neighborhood style nightlife area. Try and find a venue with CHARACTER like Fitzgerald's in San Diego. But San Diego feels comfy to be near Los Angeles (but won't admit it) and so its streets and plastic commercial structures, ahem, copy L.A.'s style (yet there's no actual grand Hollywood campiness in San Diego). Houston does its own thang...thank you.
San Diego has...Gas Lamp. Pacific Beach. Uptown/Hillcrest. There are a few other areas...but THE SIDEWALKS ALL LOOK THE SAME. Ditto with the buildings-to-sidewalk scale. In Houston we get everything from Gulf Coast palapas, fringe-city superhuge PATIO DECK BARS (you will not find something like DECK HAUS in San Diego or the beaches), bungalows, converted mini-Victorian mansions as cafes/bars (you don't really see that in San Diego, let alone other cities)...as well as traditional commercial urban structures thrown in for good measure. We have skinny sidewalks, we have wide sidewalks.
San Diego does have a few converted houses as bars/cafes...but the placement is rather predictable and not anywhere as jagged and interesting as Houston's plethora.
Having a brew or Italian soda outside on a wide sidewalk patio in Houston like that of Front Porch Pub, CoCo's or Cyclone Anaya's along W. Gray in Midtown, feels like a slice of slick SoCal street (then there's the Komodo Pub, a 4th Ward structural leftover letting us know we are still in H-town). And when they finish Phase III in Midtown soon...even sweeter. But just a bit further west on W. Gray...where we have the likes of W. Gray Cafe, Byzantio, Cecil's Pub...where do you find that street scape in San Diego or SoCal?
Yes, I notice the unique, subtle treasures of Houston that Anal Urban Snobs seem to overlook.
Houston is a TRUE mix-n-match of varying street styles. You won't see or experience the zany Fairview St. street structure or vibe in San Diego. I promise you that. I mean, Taft Street Coffee, for one. Sitting at Boheme Bar looking across the little street watching people eat al fresco at the utterly cool mini-mansion called Ziggy's Bar...that oddball configuration is only in Houston, man.
Kensington in San Diego is cool, I love it...but it looks like a smaller version of Uptown/Hillcrest in structure. Period. Ditto for University and such. San Diego simply does not have the varying street fabric like Houston. San Diego in its street texture is merely Los Angeles Lite (but better than that sun-baked purgatory known as Orange County).
And San Diego sprawl seems dead at night, compared to Houston sprawl. Broad SD nightlife transit traffic there is limited to the entertainment areas. In Houston...nightlife transit traffic is all over the place: Westheimer, Richmond, Bellaire, Bissonnet, Hillcroft, Fondren, Louisiana, Travis...so Houston all around feels "more happening" than San Diego.
Houston has FAR GREATER ethnic appeal. San Diego is mostly for whites with some allowance for the Asians around Convoy.
Gas Lamp in San Diego will forever have a tourist/Navy/Caucasian general appeal. You don't see the broad number of blacks and Latinos partying there.
Downtown Houston is where blacks, Latinos, hipsters as well as white business types can at least share it en masse. Gas Lamp is kinda Disney compared to downtown Houston...at least in downtown Houston, I feel like I'm in a sci-fi Blade Runner environment (which is not everyone's cup of tea, of course). The only things interesting to me in downtown San Diego are the Horton Plaza and Bassam Cafe (if it's still around). But apart from that...it's...touristy monotony. But to see the downtown Houston white hipsters at Dean's Credit/No Tsu Oh bar...then watching the hip-hoppa peeps walking around...you don't see that overall mixing in Portland...or San Diego.
Houston is regarded as one of the great restaurant cities. San Diego...not so much.
In Houston, you can find a HECK of a lot more Colombian, Salvadoran, Guatemalan and misc. Central American eateries. In San Diego, I knew of only one Salvadoran pupuseria, though I am sure there might be more (which goes to show you how powerful San Diego's anti-Latino vibe is).
In San Diego, we lived in dumpy apartments or had to constantly share crappy ranch homes with dead, dirt lawns. In West Houston, we now have a decent, cute remodeled house in a neighborhood with magnificent green lawns.
In San Diego metro...you mention you live anywhere in South Bay...you are automatically marked down on the socio-demographic scale out there (generally Mexicans, Filipinos and trailer park whites). I scoff at my Filipino ancestors who live in those crappy ranch homes in Chula Vista or Imperial Beach yet they seem to want BMWs and Lexuses parked in front. At least their Mexican neighbors don't have that materialism.
In Houston metro, you say you live in West Houston and its' just one of those things. It's a mix of multi-racial working-class, upwardly mobile to wealthy in checkerboard fashion...and while that's got its flaws...at least we can safely say San Diego is quite more segregated. And I think lesser of cities that are segregated, including my old home town Chicago.
Houston commands economic superiority in shipping, medical arts and energy...and increasingly manufacturing. San Diego has a more diverse economy...but like Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, et al...San Diego HAS to be diverse because it evidently needs more than tourism to survive (and San Diego doesn't have a monopoly on tourism and hi-tech).
Houston's general grocery shopping is in my view better than San Diego's. Ralph's and Von's in SoCal sucked bad in terms of choices. H-E-B, Super Randall's/Kroger's...much, much better variety.
Burgers? In-N-Out? Bah. Once you've Beck's Prime or Christian's Tailgate...you'll never consider In-N-Out as a burger shack again (unless you're a die hard "Cali Rules" type).
But Niederfrank's Ice Cream in National City...that's the best in-store ice cream anywhere. I give San Diego that.
I had a dry, chalky skin issue in San Diego. That dry skin issue had vanished upon returning to Houston. I guess my moisture regained balance because I don't get that dry skin issue even in Houston's cool winter months.
Had a memorable time, to be sure, in San Diego...lots of people I fondly remember...but deep down we knew that SoCal was no place to settle roots. Too many towns and metros too close together, competing for resources, surrounded by ocean, mountains and desert and that's not good in a socio-economic context. In Houston, we have far less of a water issue...an issue that is not that easy to square away in Southern California, for example. I feel a lot more comfy surrounded by greenery and trees rather than desert/mountains on one side, huge ocean on the other...
I dreamed of living in SoCal when I was a kid. But having lived there four years, experienced it; I don't even dream of visiting anymore. I probably will visit someday, but for the past four years, I have not yearned to go back. And I do not even think about moving back to San Diego. Life here in Houston is quite good, really good...with my large patio deck in the back, sipping home-blended mango slushees. I could never have that deck in S.D. unless I was something like a lawyer or conniving real estate guru.
Way to perpetuate the Houston inferiority complex! Ever heard of "Less is More"? Your post reeks of desperation and it's just sad. You do Houston such a disservice by glamourizing an otherwise unglamourous city. Thanks to you, people will go to Houston expecting to see the champ d'elysees, Las Vegas Strip and Hong Kong density, all in one.
And seriously, who brags about the Texas Medical Center? Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins and Cleveland Clinic are more renowned than TMC, yet people from Minneapolis, Baltimore and Cleveland don't bring those places up to prove a point. What a joke.
Last edited by sdurbanite; 07-08-2012 at 10:39 AM..
People of city data this is what wordlyman was trying to say was happening and urban, I can literally count how many people I saw in that video on both hands
Now compare that to this very short min and a half video which is not even including the waterfront and gaslamp district which are full of pedestrians and it still has at least 10X more people than the 5 min video of Houston this is how much of a FAILED argument worldlyman's post was
San Diego is comprised of touristy fluff. Houston on the other demonstrates rawer, but to me, more fulfilling urbanity. Like I said, outside of San Diego's little concentrations...Houston has A LOT more going on outside of its party/entertainment areas. Houston all-around feels far MORE HIP and is MORE DIVERSE than touristy/fratboy cowabunga surfer San Diego.
Houston commercially has far greater diversity of structures and spacing than San Diego's monotonous sidewalk pattern (seriously Uptown/Hillcrest is not built too much or spaced differently than Gas Lamp). We have EVERYTHING from intimate street to open-n-wide here...everything from classic urban style to neo-uptown style. My videos demonstrate that easily.
Your Disneyesque San Diego vibe has nothing on Houston's and nearby environ's overall amenties and range of choices. And they say there's "nothing to do in Houston" or "people don't walk in Houston?" HA HA HA. That's not what my camera reveals:
And seriously, who brags about the Texas Medical Center? Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins and Cleveland Clinic are more renowned than TMC, yet people from Minneapolis, Baltimore and Cleveland don't bring those places up to prove a point. What a joke.
Well, as I said before if you look at the issue as an outsider (someone not from US) it would be different to what Americans think. Go anywhere in England, or even Europe and ask people if they heard of Houston, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Cleveland. You might find out that most people heard of Houston and Baltimore maybe, but Cleveland and Minneapolis is the same thing to Europeans and Blackpool or Lion to Americans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sdurbanite
You are as delusional as worldlyman.
Once again, I don't know Houston that well. Nevertheless Houston can be found in ANY global city list, but San Diego... I just don't see why some people get so defensive. Is it bad to live in a tourist town with a nice beach and zoo? If I had a ton of money I'd live in Miami, LA, San Diego or somewhere else with a beach. But as it is, I'd live somewhere affordable and where the jobs are easy to find!
If Houston has such an international image then why ,despite being twice as big as SD, does SD attract close to double the amount of international tourists?
Did you read my posts? I never said Houston was a place for Tourists
Your list shows most visited places in US by overseas tourists. But it does not disprove what I said, nor does it diminish it's international image, especially as business centre!
Houston worked to become what it is. It was not handed the topography of San Diego...but what have San Diegans done with it really? Turn it into a sub-fascist sunny purgatory.
Since slowdivide was kind enough to provide us of a video of downtown Houston when it was probably a Saturday morning...let's see what downtown is actually like on a regular business day:
Downtown Houston is not Disney...but considering our sprawl and multiple business districts...it looks like a busy enough place.
To sum it up it was a desperate and bitter attempt to boost up Houston's so-called urban areas over SD's. Typical Houstonite defense: Just post some pictures and videos of some suburban areas and hope it comes of as marginally urban to some forumers.
worldlyman: those places you posted have close to zero character and can be stand-by locations for Mobile, Alabama. I live close to an Albertson's shopping center that has more urbanity. You also said that SD is mostly touristy fluff? Of all the pics you can post of Houston you post pictures of a sparsely populated Macy's shopping center.
And it's got a loooooooooong way to go to even be mentioned among SD's ranks when it come to urbanity. You've proven nothing to counter that claim except say "Our neighborhoods are more urban than your neighborhoods"
Quote:
Originally Posted by worldlyman
Downtown Houston is not Disney...but considering our sprawl and multiple business districts...it looks like a busy enough place.
One thing you seem to not fathom is "busy enough place" in Texas is nothing compared to truly vibrant neighborhoods elsewhere around the country. As I've said Houston has a looooong way to go to become anything special from an urban point of view.
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