Health concerns
-
6/2/2006
I lived in Houston for 22 years and moved recently. Overall, Houston is good place to live. It's not the terrible place some people paint it, and it's certainly not a cowboy city like sometimes the city itself likes to portray.
Cost of living: cheap. Duh. Even in good parts of town, it's reasonable. The area around the medical center and Rice University is great. Montrose, the Heights... Other areas are fine too-you just have to be willing to live with diversity-poor people are visible here, but many other cities don't allow them to be seen-which I think is worse.
Culture: Diverse! You can see everything! You just have to know where to look. The high school in my neighborhood had kids who spoke 65 different languages from 53 different countries.
Recreation: You Can go outside. Not in the hell of summer (as anywhere in Texas), but don't let people tell you it's an a/c bubble. For most of the fall-winter-spring, the weather is awesome. Yes, the summer sucks. It's better than freezing your butt off in the snow.
Asthma and allergies may be a problem when conditions are right, but it doesn't sit over Houston like it does in the bowl that is Austin, despite the latter city being billed as a green city. If you live in Austin long enough, you will develop allergies (ask a dr.), and possibly asthma-not true in Houston. I agree though-pollution is nasty-just look at most of the major cities in the world.
Mosquitos-this will be a problem in any tropical or even warm climate. Watch out for them.
Crime-this varies depending on where you are in town. I never had a problem living there for 22 years.
Sarah | Houston, TX