About the author: Single white guy in his 30s who got a new 100% remote position and whose lease is about to be up. I have been looking at places to move because I live in New England and I hate it. I grew up in TN and am not liberal/progressive so New England is a bad fit for me in many different ways. My visit to Houston was during the week of 3/8/2020 to 3/15/2020; during the outbreak of TeberculophasyphalAIDS known as COVID-19. That will color some of what happened; mostly traffic.

For those who want a tl;dr: I am not moving to Houston because of the humidity. It was 80 and humid in March. I don’t want to experience July and August. It reminded me of all the summer days in Tennessee I didn’t enjoy, and whenever I move, I want to be able to go outside and visit people. There’s no shortage of things to do in Houston, but I want to be able to walk outside, or ride a bike, without feeling like I’m trying to breathe boiling tomato soup instead of air.

Where should I live?

Your budget is going to be the biggest deciding factor here, but if you are an engineer, or similar person, who can afford around $1k/mo to spend on rent, then I’d say target Spring, The Woodlands, or Katy. You can, of course, pick other towns, but in general you’ll want to live either north or west of the city. Why? Flooding. The entire land area is one large slant into the sea, and it isn’t until you are outside US-99 that you’re high enough above sea level to not worry quite so much about flooding. Still, check the flood plain maps and insurance claim maps of what happened during Harvey to get an idea of how prone your given choice is to flooding.

And to be clear, I’m not talking about 6 inches of water type flooding. I’m talking about an interstate that was 30 feet in the air relative to the surface roads being completely underwater during Harvey, and that 30-foot water not just being that one highway, but in every direction for at least half a mile. It’s flat in Houston. When it floods, it floods everywhere. Take flood risks seriously. 30 feet of water won’t be common, of course, but it can happen, and that’s more than a lot of places can say.

If you like living among trees, go to The Woodlands. If you like the open farmland of Illinois/Kansas, Katy will be much more your speed. That’s really about the only difference between them. Both places have singles, couples, places to walk/bike/play with your dog, malls, etc. They are almost identical mirrors of each other except for trees/open fields.

See also: “Driving in Houston” (tl;dr: make sure you’re far enough away from any road with a speed limit > 45MPH!)

Home / Apartment Prices

I planned to move into an apartment, but when I moved up to New England, I neglected to look into home prices. I won’t make that mistake again. Unlike where I live now, as you get closer to the city the prices in Houston don’t really seem to go up. $1000/mo in Conroe gets you about the same quality of apartment as it does in Aldine. The Aldine apartment might be a little smaller (like, 50ft^2) but that’s really not anything to worry about.

Once you get under $800/mo or so you might end up finding rent controlled apartment complexes or places you don’t want to live. One feature that is pretty ubiquitous of the nicer apartments (IE: those that are properly maintained, no junked cars sitting out, etc) is that they are completely gated communities. As in, if you want people to visit you, you’ll have to provide them a code to get into the complex’s main gate. And you’ll need to gate in/out after normal business hours. I personally find this concept horrifically annoying.

The reason for this is parking. It’s to prevent random people from using the apartment complex as a parking lot for whatever they want to do nearby. You would think that this means there is a lot of competition for parking spots, but there actually isn’t. It seems more like a solution to a problem that only kind of exists. The biggest thing it keeps out is the people who buy cheap cars, drive them until they break, and then ditch them in the nearest parking spot. It does keep those people out, and that’s the #1 problem for anyone who owns parking spots in Texas.

Homes are super cheap. Homes in a nice neighborhood in Spring will run you ~$220k in a non-masterplanned subdivision. If you go out to Katy you’ll find home prices more in the $350k range. If you’re moving from somewhere in New England, you’ll see these homes and think that they should cost in the $500k-$1,500k range. No exaggeration. Homes here are GORGEOUS for how cheap they are!

Talk to me about the Tollways

Houston has toll roads. Unlike Boston, you don’t have to use the toll roads just go get in/out of the city in a timely manner. In fact, I ended up driving on the toll way for about 5 miles at one point (to get back to the car rental place near the airport) and I wasn’t charged a toll for that particular stretch of the tollway. Cool!

When I was in Houston it was during the great Toilet Paper Hoarding Simulator event of 2020. Lots of people were working from home / not able to work, so the roads were far, far, emptier than normal. Many posts on /r/houston from the same time period were from locals commenting on how empty the roads were. It is entirely possible the tollways become super helpful for getting around once there is a normal level of traffic. The only people I saw actually using the tollways were people who wanted to drive > 100 MPH. That’s not a joke.

Driving in/near Houston

The road network is very well laid out. There are ‘feeder’ highways that run parallel to the interstate at 45mph, and every 2-3 miles there is a place to get on/off the interstate. If you miss your exit, you can drive forward 2-3 miles, take a loop through the underpass, and be on the feeder going in the opposite direction to get where you wanted to be. It takes a bit of extra time, but it’s really not bad, and all but ensures people merge onto the highway at speed, rather than causing massive traffic shockwaves at every entrance and exit.

Generally speaking, exist and entrances are done via ‘exit only’ lanes, so if you have “keep right” drilled into you, you’ll want to think of the right-most lane as the ’exit only’ lane, and stay one lane left of that.

But there is one drawback to Houston roads: they are LOUD AS FUCK! They used this horizontal cross-hatch pattern in the road surface to help move water off the road during rains, but it has the side effect of making the highways deafening. As in, 100 feet from the highway it’s going to be around 100 db. My hotel room was maybe 300 feet from I-45 and inside the hotel room it was 60 db with the door shut. 60 db, for reference, is about how loud people speak normally, when it’s a 1:1 conversation. Loud PC case fans, or box fans at full-power, typically max out at 52db.

Houston drivers say that driving on the roads there is tough, and traffic can be hard to deal with. If you’ve lived near any large city (NYC, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, etc) you’ll not see a difference from what you’re used to. If you’re coming from a smaller city (say, 1 million people or less) then, yea, it will be a culture shock. The number 1 piece of advice I have for those of you coming from smaller population areas is this: If your rear bumper is ahead of the front tire of the car in the lane next to you, you own that spot in front of them. This applies to things like lane changes into exit-only lanes, zipper merging, and lane collapses (right lane ends, left lane ends). It doss NOT apply when there’s a yield sign (IE: getting on the interstate).

When merging onto the interstate, you only own the space if you’re driving fast enough to actually be ahead of them, otherwise, tap that brake and slide in behind them, and accelerate better next time.

One thing Houston had a big issue with was reckless drivers. I’m talking about people who would go 15+ relative to the traffic around them (so, 25+ relative to the speed limit) and then weave across all lanes of traffic. If you spend an hour driving on I-45, you’ll probably see at least 10 people doing this. The way you keep yourself safe when dealing with such people is that before you put your signal on, you look in your rear/side view mirrors and see how fast all the cars behind you are going. If someone is coming up fast, wait to move until they pass. Then, when you think it’s safe to move, you put your blinker on, move over confidently, and wait to hear a car horn. The reckless people will invariably honk because how dare you not notice them cutting over 3 lanes of traffic at 90mph! The blinker is there to tell them how to get out of your way and try to help them not hit you.

Yes, the onus is on them to not cause an accident, but you aren’t Judge Dredd. Your job is not to bring justice to those people, it’s to keep your car moving safely. If they want to be asshats, that’s on them. Let them wreck someone else. Don’t give them a target.

The final thing to be aware of is the car modding culture of (probably Texas, if not just Houston). Here are the car mods you’ll see/need to care about:

1. Wide tire club (tires that stick out past the frame of the vehicle – mostly just aesthetic, not a problem)
2. Scythed Wheels During my entire time in Houston, I only saw one car with scythed rims, but the scythes stuck out 6-8” from each tire. This is a major liability to both vehicles.
3. Emissions system deletes: Get ready for a lot of smelly car fumes because so many people remove their catalytic converters. “Hey, let’s shit on the environment AND offend the people behind us for 2 more MPG and POWAAAAA!!!” … Grow the fuck up.
4. “Legally meets the requirements of being a muffler”. Lots of muffler mods, insofar as they basically remove the muffler. Less of a problem when driving and more of a problem when trying to sleep and someone drives their mustang by.

What are the people like?

Super friendly. Everywhere has mean, toxic, and bitter people. But overall, the people in Houston love strangers and are friendly to talk to. They want to know about you and what you’re up to and are happy to have a conversation that isn’t just superficial. If you’ve only ever lived in New England, Chicago, or LA this will be a huge culture shock for you.

A great example of the difference became apparent when I got back to New England and talked with one of the checkout ladies at the local grocery store. She, like almost all of the New Englanders I know, assumed that the mass hoarding of goods that I saw at HEB and other stores was because people were hoarding for themselves. The reality, though, is that largely those people were hoarding for their communities. See, in Texas, there’s a social contract to keep and eye out for those around you. If you see your neighbor doesn’t have power, you offer them food, or shelter, or heat, or water. Whatever they need. You help your neighbor because they are there. In New England and other liberal areas, people expect the government to provide for these needs, and in turn, they pay the government taxes. Texas has a totally different mindset: it’s the individual’s job to keep the people around them up and going, and the government’s job to stay out of their lives.

I want to be clear, both systems have their merits and problems. I want the reader to understand that two very different systems exist. Which one the reader prefers to live under is up to them, but if you move to Texas, you WILL be living in the one that requires you, rather than the State, to provide for basic needs. This is why the taxes are so low. This is why everything is so cheap; so that you can afford to do that. People who have plenty hoard so they can provide to those who don’t have enough. The road to Hell is paved with just as many good intentions as assuming the government could solve the same problem any better.

What about food?

BBQ is amazing here. Avoid chain restaurants of all sizes. The chains will still be good, but worse than what you could get elsewhere. Rendezvous, in Memphis, TN, remains the best BBQ I’ve ever had full stop. But the BBQ in Texas was at least as good as Rendezvous.

Blue Belle Ice Cream is also a native of Texas; get some. It’s better than Ben and Jerry’s and ½ the price.

How about parking?

I didn’t need to pay to park anywhere. Now, when visiting the Museum of Natural History, I did choose to park around ½ a mile away so that I could avoid paying to park right at the museum, but that was my choice. In general, you’ll find free parking at/near wherever you want to be. The city is laid out for people to drive around within it, and almost every store or restaurant I saw had a parking lot of some form.

Public Transit?

It exists, but…seriously, look at the size of Houston on Google Maps, and then compare it to the 4 public transit lines they have. For all indentured porpoises (sic) there is no public transit.

Is there stuff to do?

Hell yea brother! There’s stuff to do all over. You don’t have to live in Houston to find things to do. There are plenty of dog parks scattered all over, and people are friendly enough that even if you don’t have a dog, you can show up and just talk to the people who are there, while also getting to pet the dogs as they come by. Do wear clothes that can get muddy, wet, and slobbery though. It’s a dog park. Dogs are rarely clean.

There are malls, shopping centers, bars, and other activities in most of the more well-off neighborhoods (indoor Skydiving near The Woodlands and a few others I saw, but don’t remember where). And, if you want to get into the city itself, Katy and The Woodlands are both a 30-40 minute drive or less. K1 racing has indoor electric go-karts that go like 40-50 MPH. It’s hella fun. A bit pricey, but fun. There are plenty of shooting ranges, and they don’t require you to buy your ammo at the range to shoot there.

Meetup.com is fairly useless in the city, but that is a problem with a lack of providers for content, rather than a lack of people who want to participate. Most of the meetup groups want to make money off being a meetup leader. If you just want to hang out with people, make a group, host some events, enjoy people’s company. Or, go to a church (once the Human Malware outbreak passes) and meet people there, if so inclined.

How about dating?

The couples I saw were all about the same attractiveness. If you can look in the mirror and be honest with yourself, and are attracted to people about the same beauty level as you are, the odds are you’ll find someone without too many problems. If you want to punch above your weight class, regardless of gender, you are going to have a bad time. The city is mostly an app-based dating city though. There are no singles meetups or groups I could find. People tend to either meet ‘in the wild’, at church, or through apps. I see it as a blessing and a curse. It gives you a reason to improve yourself to the point that you are the peer of the person you seek to date, but it also means that if you wanted to trade (overweight, but a good provider) you’re SOL because there’s a good provider who is also attractive just around the corner.

Closing thoughts

Overall, I like Houston. I’d visit it again, and if I ever win the Bitcoin Lottery, I might have a winter home there. Katy, TX is the exact ideal of the life I want once I find a wife. Whether we have kids or not, both the master-planned and organic subdivisions in and around Katy are the exact type of place I want to live. That said, the humidity is just too much for me to deal with year round. I’ll need to find somewhere more north to live until I’m rich. Thoughts on Indiana vs Utah? (Indy vs SLC?)