likes/dislikes (Houston, Dallas, Texas City: how much, home, neighborhoods)

[preciosa001264]

I'm moving to Houston soon. Can some Houstonians share with me their likes and dislikes of the city?

[nikku]

This is an easy one.
Likes: the people, the food, the entertainment, the diversity

Dislikes: the topography (no mountains, and the closest beach sucks), lack of public transportation coupled with urban/suburban sprawl, destruction of all the interesting housing architecture only to be replaced with a stucco monstrosity

[preciosa001264]

How about traffic/ time to get to places ( I know the city is pretty spread out)? Is the summer really THAT bad (I'm comin from Chicago where it stays between 80-95 in the summer). How safe is it? How about parking downtown (It's only garage parking here and is always about $20-30)?

[EasilyAmused]

Likes: Foodie Paradise, Small Town Flare in the Big City, The People, Easy of Life, Mild Winters, Great Mature neighborhoods with good sized lots all around town.

Dislikes: It takes 2 hours to get out of the Metro Region during the week, Exurban Sprawl,Cookie Cutter Master Planned Communities, Lack of nice beaches or mountains. The Weather---The summers suck.

[nikku]

Originally Posted by preciosa001264

How about traffic/ time to get to places ( I know the city is pretty spread out)? Is the summer really THAT bad (I'm comin from Chicago where it stays between 80-95 in the summer). How safe is it? How about parking downtown (It's only garage parking here and is always about $20-30)?

You have to drive everywhere, and from the suburbs (any suburb) to downtown it's about an hour one way, slightly less for some and slightly more for others.
Summers stay in the 90's with high humidity, though this last summer was fairly mild (but we did have little storm back in September...)
Parking dowtown is really easy and cheap, especially for such a large city where so many people drive. My work subsidizes my parking so I don't know how much my total contract is, but I think it's about $100-$150 a month. Definitely less than $10 for daily parking.

[preciosa001264]

I see, thanks for your opinions, they're really helpful.

[RVD26]

Traffic in the mornings for me is not that bad.
Of course, I leave my home at about 6:30 each morning.
I can get from Katy to the Galleria area in 30 minutes each morning.
The afternoon commute is a little longer, but still not too bad.
If you have to work in the city and your job allows flexible scheduling, take the earliest shift they have available.

[jfre81]

The public transportation works just fine (especially inside the loop) if you're not in too much of a hurry to get anywhere. You could say the same thing about driving and traffic, for that matter.

Traffic's a relative thing. It's terrible for the person moving here from a small or mid sized city and no problem for someone who's used to someplace like Los Angeles. I probably read more hyperbole about traffic and drive times than anything else around here. Both ways. Either that you can get from downtown to Pearland in 20 minutes or that it takes two hours and there's gridlock 24-7. Neither are true. You should be expecting a bare minimum of 45 minutes from downtown to most points outside Beltway 8, but it's not going to take you two hours to get out of the metro unless you insist on leaving at the evening rush. On Friday I made a trip to Texas City leaving at 3:30pm and returned at 6. This was a round trip. Granted it was Good Friday, but nonetheless.

[EasilyAmused]

Originally Posted by jfre81

The public transportation works just fine (especially inside the loop) if you're not in too much of a hurry to get anywhere. You could say the same thing about driving and traffic, for that matter.

Traffic's a relative thing. It's terrible for the person moving here from a small or mid sized city and no problem for someone who's used to someplace like Los Angeles. I probably read more hyperbole about traffic and drive times than anything else around here. Both ways. Either that you can get from downtown to Pearland in 20 minutes or that it takes two hours and there's gridlock 24-7. Neither are true. You should be expecting a bare minimum of 45 minutes from downtown to most points outside Beltway 8, but it's not going to take you two hours to get out of the metro unless you insist on leaving at the evening rush. On Friday I made a trip to Texas City leaving at 3:30pm and returned at 6. This was a round trip. Granted it was Good Friday, but nonetheless.

Jfre, if you want to go to Dallas on the weekdays during rush hour, it takes 2 hours to get past Conroe........that would be the Metro Region. Fridays, you know when people want to leave town after work......it's horrible. Just to clear Bentwater is a feat.

[Grunn]

dislikes:
Idiots who can't drive their cars properly then compound their incompetence by using cellphones etc.

Biting insects

Ugly concrete sprawl- remember those cheap cartoons where they used a drawn background on repeat- that's Houston, oh another CVS/McD's/crappy fast food place

Likes:

Freedom, diversity and choice.