Houston Travel Guide
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Situated on a flat, near featureless Gulf Coast plain, Houston sprawls from its center in vast tracts of subdivisions, freeways, office parks, and shopping malls. In undisturbed areas you'll find marshy grasslands in the south and woods in the north. Meandering across this plain are several bayous on whose banks cypress and southern magnolia trees chance to grow. Many visitors, imagining the Texas landscape as it is usually drawn -- barren and treeless -- are surprised by such green surroundings, but, in fact, the city is at the tail end of a large belt of natural forest coming down through East Texas, and the climate is much the same as coastal Louisiana and Mississippi -- warm and humid with ample rainfall.
Houston is the fourth-most populated city in the United States. If we compare the populations of greater metro areas rather than cities, then it ranks only 10th. Yet in geographical expanse Houston ranks second. The city is more than half as large as the state of Rhode Island and continues to expand outward. But in the past few years there has been a strong shift in residential construction toward downtown and the inner city. Town houses in the central part of town are going up at a furious rate, and lofts, condos, and apartments are now a major part of downtown construction.
Houston is not usually considered a tourist destination; most visitors come here for business or family reasons and are lured into playing tourists only after getting here. It is a business town, and the oil and gas industry remains the big enchilada, but other sectors have added so much to the local economy that oil and gas's contribution is only about 50%. The Texas Medical Center is the largest concentration of medical institutions in the world. It is virtually a city within a city, with 14 hospitals and many clinics, medical schools, and research facilities. Construction and engineering companies also contribute much to the economy, and the newest big player is the high-tech industry.
Houston's society is socially and economically wide open. Houstonians inherently dislike being told what to do, and this dislike cuts across the political spectrum: opinion surveys show that gun control is highly unpopular but so is government control over reproductive rights. Among urban planners Houston is famous (or infamous) as the only major U.S. city that doesn't have zoning, allowing the market to determine land-use instead. On the plus side, this love for individual freedoms gives Houston a dynamism that is palpable and has brought a flood of newcomers from around the world, who have found here a welcoming city. Houston seems to be growing more cosmopolitan every day, as ethnic restaurants and specialty shops spring up throughout the city along with exotic temples and churches -- Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Russian Orthodox -- built much like they would be back in the mother country. On the minus side, this is the land of Enron, the go-go company that preached to state and federal governments to deregulate the energy markets and then profited illegally from it. This is also a city that is struggling with an air pollution problem that has the local government painfully considering unpopular regulations to keep the city habitable.
The arts give proof to the city's dynamism. In the performing arts, Houston excels: an excellent symphony orchestra, its highly respected ballet and opera companies, and a dynamic theater scene that few cities can equal in quantity or quality. There are some excellent museums, too, and, if art isn't your bag, there's the world-famous NASA Space Center, which is unlike anything else on this planet. While you're enjoying the attractions, keep your eyes open and you can appreciate another thing Houston is known for, its architecture, which stands out for its bold, even brash character. This is, after all, home to the first dome stadium -- the Astrodome -- which was billed at the time as "the eighth wonder of the world." Several buildings are striking not only for their dramatic appearance but for their irreverence -- one skyscraper is crowned with a Mayan pyramid, another wryly uses the architectural features of Gothic churches for a bank building, and a pair of towers in the Medical Center unmistakably represent two giant syringes. There is little that is staid about this city, and the more time one spends here, the more this is appreciated.
Galveston is the opposite of Houston -- far from being a boomtown, its population of 60,000 isn't even double that of 1900. Once Texas's commercial capital, two events changed everything: the Great Storm of 1900, which remains the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the U.S.; and the dredging of the Houston Ship Channel in 1914. Today, Galveston is a good destination for families who want to visit small-town Texas, combining small-town easiness with a good mix of museums and activities that children can enjoy. Its old commercial district has more historical buildings than all of Houston, and is popular with visitors. But the main draw for visitors (mostly Houstonians) are the beaches.
East Texas is something else again. It borders Louisiana from the coastal cities of Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Houston all the way north to where the state meets Arkansas. The biggest attractions are large national forests, state parks, and the many rivers and lakes. This is why the area is visited more by campers and fishermen than any other species of traveler.
