You're Wrong About Houston and Here's Why

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As a Houstonian, I think this is a very accurate assessment of our city. I nominate "Not as bad as you were expecting city" as our new moniker.

City planners in America be like: "We need to make our cities more convenient for all the people who refuse to live here, rarely visit, and regularly cheer online for cities to go bankrupt."

I live in Houston and joke with people, "I don't leave the inner loop", but it's pretty accurate. This video does well to portray the nice pockets, but once you get outside the 610 beltway, it's a whole lot of suburban sprawl, parking lots, chain restaurants, and big-box stores.

So glad to see a YouTuber highlight all the things my hometown has done over the last several years to become more pedestrian-friendly. I’ve never particularly cared for other channel’s perspectives, mainly because they seem to focus on the suburban areas rather than Houston proper. We Houstonians are well aware of our car-obsessed reputation and many of us are ready to change it. Keep up the great work! P.S.: MKT stands for Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad. It’s how the suburb of Katy got it’s name, and they keep a rail car in their historic downtown district

Completely agree on your comment that one of the better ways for our society to reduce racism is just having people from various backgrounds doing day to day activities with each other.

Really satisfying to watch this video as a person who is working really hard to improve street safety and who doesn't own a car in Houston. Thank you.

Thank you so much for covering Houston and giving it a fair assesment. It is an agressivley car oriented city no doubt , but it has so much culture and diversity that redeems it as a great city. Most underrated food and art city in the US by a long shot.

I’ve been living in Houston close to 15 years. Both in the loop and outside the loop. The best of Houston is inside the loop. The Houston everybody hates is outside the loop. The problem is that majority of Houstonians live outside the loop and the experience can be similar to NJB’s video. With that said CityNerd assessment of the inner loop was pretty accurate. If you live in the loop or close by it, Houston can be a generally cool city. A lot of bang for your Buck. Outside of it though is the worst type of urban planning in all of the United States.

It's nice to see an urbanist youtuber highlighting what Houstonians are doing to enact change and improve their city instead of joining the "Houston Bad" circle jerk. I've never even been to Houston and this completely changed my ill-formed perspective.

Finally, an urbanist who puts his money where his mouth is, so to speak. Many "urbanist" YT channels love to dog on cities they've never been to or done research on; Houston being one of them. Flying out and WALKING around the city itself, then amending your original thoughts is a very honest way of rating cities. Looking forward to more city reviews 👍

I lived in Houston for the past 5 years before recently moving, and I'm just so thankful for this video from my favorite urbanist channel. The amount of urbanist hate that Houston gets because of a certain several million view video from a certain urbanist channel who judged an entire city by a sidewalk in the suburbs is absurd. By no means is Houston a perfect city from a walkability/public transit standpoint, let alone even close, but it has so much to offer that people from outside the loop/the city in general do not realize. Neighborhoods like Montrose have their issues with dilapidated sidewalks and little bike access, but you can still walk these dilapidated sidewalks, and they have access to dozens of delicious restaurants regardless of where you live in the neighborhood. There is such a wide variety of parks from the marshy memorial trails to the curated Japanese garden at Hermann, and as you start to bike (or run around) the city, you start to find connectors between the main parks through either the bayous, columbia tap to rail trail, or some of the newly constructed bike lanes down Waugh and other streets (I hope you got the chance to bike down Waugh, CityNerd. It was one of my partner and my favorite areas in the city). And I think one of the biggest things about Houston that does not get mentioned nearly enough is that it truly is a melting pot of culture. I previously lived in Chicago and originally grew up in the suburbs of San Jose, CA (I know, not your favorite area). These places were often touted as "melting pots of culture", but in reality Chicago is still one of the most racially segregated cities in the US and San Jose suburbs is primarily only a mixture of ethnicities of European/Asian/Hispanic descent. Houston is a true melting pot of the US and to an extent, the world. There is so much vibrancy and love in the city and although there are plenty of problems, there are truly good people there who are passionate about making the city better and not just making larger freeways to drive their giant Ford F150s down.

As someone who lives in the Houston metro & works downtown, literally nobody I have talked to about the highway expansion is excited for it. Even commuters are starting to understand that highway expansion is just construction and the inconvenience it brings for years so we can all sit in larger traffic jams.

CN's ability to find silver linings and positive things to say is incredible. This video isn't sugarcoating Houston, it's showing what viewers might be interested in if we ever visit (read: actual useful info for the people who actually watch his videos). Another banger from the best urbanist youtube channel.

THANK YOU! It’s wild how people use my city as an example for all the things they’re upset about.. that we have or are building. We didn’t just expand our freeways, we voted on a county level years back to build the now over 400+ miles of dedicated “bikeways” as we call them (non motor roads) or bike lanes, the 3 rail lines we didn’t have prior to 2004 and still growing, as well as a revamp of our entire bus network. Our rails are almost the nations highest used in terms of rider/mile and has helped to densify the inner city. We also have a massive underground city/tunnel system downtown like Montreal, Canada has which is why during the hot months you won’t see people usually walking around…. Its hot. Everyone’s in the tunnels lol. Shoutout to CityNerd, the most accurate and unbiased city planning channel I’ve had the fortune of subscribing to!

The local news talked about how residents are unhappy with the city regarding those large power lines being put up in montrose and midtown. Even residents felt they were poorly placed and done without consideration from locals. Theyre currently having talks about cutting down hundred year old trees in the same area to make the said street “more walkable.” Thanks for coming to Houston! I hope you enjoyed the city!

As someone who’s lived in Houston the vast majority of my life, thank you for making this video highlighting the parts of the city that isn’t talked about enough! My biggest complaint about the infamous Not Just Bikes video is that it showed Houston at its worse and next to nothing of what makes the city amazing in its own way. I had a similar view of the city until I moved out of the suburbs. Moving to Uptown and spending most of my time in the inner loop completely changed my view of my hometown and you did a wonderful job of showcasing it.

Recent transplant from Atlanta and I can honestly say being within the 610 loop, it’s surprisingly more walkable then I originally thought. There are so many issues with sprawl in our metro area, but within the immediate 610 loop, it’s very livable - almost don’t need a car. ( I wfh)

I am so happy that you mentioned just how staggeringly diverse Houston is. Diversity is by far the biggest strength of American cities as compared to say European or Asian cities that may have better urbanism. Houston may not be walkable, but it is kinda cool that you can go to a strip mall and see 15 different languages

As someone who has moved to Houston a few years ago. I feel this video really hit the nail on the head. I currently live in the Rice Military area and agree that the culture, bike and walkability is great inside the loop. However I do wish the city continues to support this movement of accessibility. It's great how you actually explored and took a closer look into the inner neighborhoods. My roommate doesn't own a car and bikes everywhere inside the loop (and slightly out). I enjoy living here mostly because of the diversity in culture, ethnicities, and food! The food here is unmatched. I've been to NYC, LA, SF, and other urban metro cities and it's not even close. Thanks for stopping by!