<p>I'm from NY - about an hour away from NYC. I've never been to Texas, or midwest for that matter. Would I like Houston?</p>
<p>I’ve never lived in Houston, but I’ve lived in Texas since I was four. The weather is usually crazy: ie it was 70 degrees on Friday, perfect weather, and today it’s snowed 3+ inches. Summers are stifling hot. The people are relatively friendly. They say “ya’ll” and some have very thick accents. Houston is an industrial town - meaning very polluted. It has a big African American population, so I can guarantee there’s probably a lot of really good Cajun restaurants and cool night clubs.</p>
<p>TJC – Houston is likely different than your perception of it. And it’s a lot different than the rest of Texas. I’m originally from the east coast, so I understand where you’re coming from. Houston is a big, multi-cultural city. Most people you meet here are not natives – they’ve relocated from somewhere else. It’s a very inclusive city. Unlike some small southern cities, it doesn’t matter who you are and what your background is, if you have a good idea and are willing to get involved, you’re included.</p>
<p>It has every kind of shop you could ever want (except Trader Joe’s), and more restaurants than you could ever imagine. (Everything from Indian, Vietnamese, Pakistani to Tex-Mex and BBQ). It’s a friendly, welcoming, casual city. People will start talking to you in line at the drug store, in an elevator, etc. And you’ll find yourself becoming friendlier and more talkative after living here a while. </p>
<p>There’s no zoning and too many billboards, but if you look beyond that, you’ll find lovely tree-lined streets dripping with moss that remind you of New Orleans, exciting open-air shopping areas lined with palm trees that remind you of Los Angeles, a downtown that will remind you of Atlanta, and lots of parks and festivals and museums. There are major sports teams and world class theater and ballet and opera and symphonies.</p>
<p>Sometimes I completely forget I’m in Texas until the rodeo comes to town or until I start taking a drive outside of town.</p>
<p>It has everything you could want in a city and a lot more. (Although I must admit it has a way to go in providing a good public transportation system.)</p>
<p>I have lived many years on Long Island and many more years in Houston.</p>
<p>You have not given us any information to go on. Do you love cold weather? Then you will have to find it somewhere besides Houston. Do you love the 2 weeks in June-July when NY is hot and humid? That’s the way Houston is from May through September.</p>
<p>Or are you an inside person where weather makes no difference to you?</p>
<p>When I lived in NY, there were fights when someone cut on line at the movies or grocery store. In Houston, they will be more polite about getting you to the back of the line.</p>
<p>People do say “y’all” which is the “you familiar plural” or a contraction of “you all”. This is the same as “youse guys” in NY.</p>
<p>And Houston is not at all like NYC. Virtually no one hangs out downtown. Folks do hang out in their communities around the city. It is more like Huntington on LI or Queens in that regard. It is a fantastic restaurant city and very inexpensive to live in.</p>
<p>And it is very easy to get cheap airfare out of Houston if you need to get somewhere else. :)</p>
<p>Presumably though you are asking because you are considering Rice. While Rice is in the center of Houston, one can become insulated by living within the hedges. One can walk to The Village for weekend groceries and restaurants. One can also live off-campus near Rice. The neighborhoods around the university are filled with families, professionals, young folks of all demographics. I don’t think one will realize they are living in the 4th largest city in the US. It’s like a huge suburban sprawl once out of the immediate downtown area.</p>
<p>i’ve liven in houston for 7 years now, before i lived in downtown austin and before that i lived in canada and europe. originally i hated houston, but recently i’ve discovered how much fun downtown houston/rice village is. i’m sure it’s not as exciting as NYC (i’ve visited a few times) but in general there’s a lot to do. If you’re into nightlife and partying, downtown is your place. If not, there’s a lot of cute coffee shops and overall very very nice people. I’ve noticed the people down south are a lot more friendly and open then the people up north. It’s something you need to experience and learn to embrace. Overall though, Rice is a wonderful school and I would be happy going there. You should be too.</p>
<p>Houston’s interesting… strong growth relative to other cities and lots of refugees from declining areas like California and the “rust belt”.</p>
<p>Don’t rent a one-way U-Haul, since they charge a premium to cover the cost of transporting the surplus trailers back to other states.</p>
<p>Houston is not nearly as polluted as it used to be. I worried about the air quality when Dd started there 7 years ago… but then she spent 5 months in Santiago, a couple of months in China, and going on two years in Istanbul. (She graduated two years ago) Air quality near Rice is way better than those cities! The Rice campus is nice and green and filled with trees, and the neighborhoods around are lovely. There is a huge, huge park across the street (other side of the light-rail system) with a zoo and golf course and playground and outdoor theater, and Rice is next to the musuem district on one side and the Medical Center on the other. We just got back from visiting w/DS at Rice and watched some of Beer Bike (actually slogged through the rain and howling wind to watch DD run in the alumni races! The huge water balloon fight went on as planned, but the bike races were postponed.) and campus this morning was lovely and fresh and sunshiny and blue skies. Both my kids say how much they love(d) their time there. P.S. Food is great in Houston! We had really good Thai near UofH, Indian buffet in Rice Village, stopped at Swirly for the tart pomegranate and mango frozed yogurt (in the village), swung by a bakery for some of the best taking pecan sticky buns and pumpkin-cheesecake muffins I’ve ever had. 
Sorry I’m so off-topic! ;)</p>
<p>Does anyone know about the jazz scene over in Houston?</p>
<p>I go to alot of them where I’m from, and don’t want to stop when I go off to college. It’s just an awesome place to chill. </p>
<p>Also, are jazz clubs in the US blocked to under-21 students?</p>
<p>The bad:
- It is very, very hot in the summer.
- Traffic is often unpleasant… Not as bad as NYC, though, I’d imagine.
- Public transport = crap. You can’t really walk anywhere, either.</p>
<p>The good:
- So many places to eat. Yum.
- Fair amount of stuff to do, both touristy and otherwise. Museums, NASA, huge shopping malls… The Galleria is the fourth-largest mall in the country, I think.
- This is a little more Rice-specific, but the campus is in a very nice part of town. Often people are worried about going to college in a big city because of the safety issues - this is a nonissue at Rice. Houston in general has its bad areas, but they’re very avoidable. </p>
<p>(:</p>
<p>youd like it. the food is WONDERFUL. im really going to miss it when i leave…</p>
<p>I’ve lived in Houston all my life and am planning to leave it for college, but here’s my take. Which is more or less supporting and adding to what everyone else has said. </p>
<p>Houston’s weather is unpredictable in a word. Although in the summer you can (98% of the time)bet it’s going to be hot and humid.</p>
<p>Texan accents are’nt that big of a problem because Houston is so urban. Although you will encounter them some and you will certainly hear lots of people saying ya’ll. I have no accent at all, but I say ya’ll. It’s just what we do. =)</p>
<p>The air isn’t great. If you have bad allergies or if you just want to breathe pure, pristine air then don’t stay in Houston for long.</p>
<p>There is always something to do there. Around Rice, you’ve got the museum district (with educational museums, the zoo is really close if you like animals =), and art museums and galleries). You also have the Villiage for shoping and restaurants really close to Rice too. </p>
<p>There are other great neighborhoods around Houston too. The Montrose area (near the University of St. Thomas) is great fro restaurants, little indie shops and people watching=). The Galleria are is good for mall and more up-scale shopping and eating. </p>
<p>Houston isn’t really a big walking town, but I’m if you’re at Rice and you don’t have a car, you should be okay.</p>
<p>The arts scenes (both preforming and visual) in Houston are great. The theatre district downtown is really cool, and can get amazing plays and musicals from Broadway and such. =) There are some good restaurants in that area too. </p>
<p>@99999 - there are really good Cajun restaurants in Houston.<br>
And it doesn’t really have to be a fully Cajun restaurant either to get Cajun food. Standard Cajun dishes (gumbo, pilafs, etoufee, etc.) are normal (and quite good) on many menus in Houston. =)</p>
<p>The sports teams aren’t bad (except for football). Astros (baseball) got into the World Series a few years back; Rockets (basketball) is usually fair; Dynamo (soccer) is really good, actually; I think we have a hockey team too (the Aeros if I’m not mistaken). f you’re a baseball player, Rice’s baseball team is pretty good (or so I’ve heard).</p>
<p>Overall, the people are very diverse, friendly, talkative, open…except if you’re driving, then they’re decidedly less so…jk, but not really. =)I think that it’d be a great place to come to for college because there is really something in Houston for everyone. Because the city is so big, the odds are that you’re bound to find somewhere you like and fit.</p>
<p>ps. being a city in texas, Houston is pretty conservative as far as political leanings go. It did go for Obama in the last presidential election and the mayor is democratic, but almost solely because it’s in Texas, you’re going to come across quite a few Republicans. Don’t know if that matters, just throwing it out there. =)</p>
<p>If you haven’t experienced the Rodeo, I feel for ya. It’s AWESOME (born and bred in CA btw).</p>
<p>That’s right, Houston’s current mayor is a Democrat and the incoming mayor is a Rice grad and a forward-thinking Democrat. And the Rice University Young Democrats are active on campus and recently put together a big health care debate where both sides were heard.</p>
<p>Okay New York. You know your summers? Find the hottest, windless, place you can think of. That’s what it would be like for half the year. Then there’s this random flooding, and months of stifling humidity. On the flip side, there’s okay shopping and some pretty great places to eat, plus a lot of social diversity. But really, you can’t predict what will happen in houston.</p>
<p>In all fairness, you do not have to stay in Houston for the summers. School is out in early May and doesn’t begin again until the last week of August. If you are in San Diego or Capetown during those times, it can help alleviate some of the brunt of the heat and humidity.</p>
<p>Uhm, yeah, june and july are the worst months, but march-may and august-november are no joke either, savvy? As a born Texan, I can happily say I’m hugging the coast for college.</p>
<p>Actually, March-May are pretty awesome…June-end of September, hot and humid as H. ;)</p>
<p>I’ve been on campus for Owl Days in April, during August to help move our son in, and during September – the air conditioning works beautifully throughout campus. Not to mention the iced tea at the Brochstein Pavilion and the smoothies. And it’s snowed each winter my son’s been there.</p>
<p>Everyone complaining about Texas weather should realize that they have it better than most of the country (especially the Midwest and the Northeast). I lived in Ohio my entire life, and the weather there is much worse. Weather in Ohio can be just as unpredictable as weather in Texas, plus it is cloudy, gloomy, and very cold from the period November- early March. It’s rainy for much of March and April back home too. When I went back for spring break, it was cloudy every single day, snowed, and just downright depressing. The summers in Ohio can get just as humid as the Houston summers; I spent a week in Houston during July and it wasn’t that much worse in terms of humidity than a typical week in July in Ohio.</p>
<p>Now, if you love cold weather and snow, then you may not like the weather here. However, if you like downright beautiful, warm, sunny days in the middle of January and February where you can wear shorts outside or weeks with 5 sunny days in a row (however there are also weeks with 5 rainy days in a row, just to forewarn you), then you will like Houston weather. This year, the period from October-November, January, and end of February-now has had the best weather that I have ever experienced. Sure it does get very hot in the summer, but you will most likely not be staying in Houston over the summer.</p>
<p>Houston is an amazing city. I went to a Black Eyed Peas concert this past week at Reliant Stadium, and there were 73,000 people there. Where else can you go to a concert that big? Plus there is the annual rodeo, major league teams, tons of museums, Rice Village, tons of good and cheap food, friendly people, beaches not too far away, and so much more. At first, I was reluctant to choose Rice because Houston seemed too big and dirty; however, I have come to discover that Houston is an amazing city with tons of opportunities… the location cannot be beat. Personally, I think Houston adds so much to the opportunities and activities that Rice offers.</p>
<p>Anyway, that’s my two cents… you should come visit Rice and see for yourself.</p>
<p>Have a student waiting to hear from Rice - hope it’s a YES. Loved Houston and Rice, as did our student.</p>