Houston has a pretty bad reputation with young people, at least many of the ones we’ve talked to. It’s been called a 9-to-5 city, a git’r’done place devoid of a soul and serving only as a place for people to start families, work and die.
And we wholeheartedly disagree.
There are plenty of things to do in Houston, and in our photography section (which will be out in the next few days), we plan to showcase a few hotspots in Houston that don’t get nearly as much traffic as they should.
And why don’t these places have more people in them? Well, put bluntly, we feel that the young people in Houston are lazy.
There. We said it.
It’s a generalization, most definitely, and we hope to receive plenty of letters, e-mails and responses from young Houstonians who love their city, but we have heard far to many UH students complain about Houston and our University. So let’s make something clear for those in question.
Houston isn’t New York City; it’s large and spread out and during the day, especially during the summer months when the heat index is rarely below 100 degrees, most people are indoors. That’s not to say that they are sitting at home waiting for it to cool off though. Far from it, chances are they’re exploring the Museum of Fine Arts, enjoying an independent coffee shop in the Montrose area, or eating in the Heights. Or maybe they are shopping in an outdoor-style mall like the one in the Meyerland area or experiencing our own China Town in all its glory.
But they’re doing something, unlike many young Houstonians who we see sitting around, complaining about how they would rather be in Austin, New York City, Chicago or Los Angeles, as if changing locations would change their work ethics, apathetic attitudes or lack of drive.
We’re not bashing any of those cities, but we are saying that our city has value if not just as much more. And if you’re too lazy to explore Houston and find those gems yourself, maybe you should move, because we get things done here.
“Only the truly boring can be truly bored here,” said the Houston Press’ John Nova Lomax. “Much of Houston’s glory is hidden off the freeways in those ‘dangerous areas’ you are supposed to avoid, so in that sense, Houston is a terrible place for the dull to visit but a great place for the brave to live.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
