i

so much to answer for

Dear Houston:

I’m leaving you. I can’t stand your dirty politics, your dirty air, your close-minded ignorance, your hypocritical compassionate religiosity, your smug faces talking football and IRAs in SUVs while outside people are sweating and starving. I cant take your forced alienation, your frightening consumerism, your endless parade of strip malls. I’m a socialist, Houston, and I like the snow and I hate to drive. We just don’t fit, you and me.

But I never wanted to hate you. You have to trust me on that one. When I first saw you in early 1997 (when I was visiting UH), you seemed nice enough—a mass of freeways (motion sculptures in concrete, like Ballard says) and wide, multilane roads. I was from the suburbs. It was all a little confusing then, but it seemed wonderful to me, a little like those sci-fi cities from the ’30s and ’40s, all curves and shiny glass and concrete.

It must have been on a clear day, or I wouldn’t have seen so much, even on the long ride between Intercontinental (why did you have to rename it after that moron?) and campus. We took 45 down. I still remember the curve a few miles above campus, when downtown came into view. It’s an impressive sight, the first time. Hell, even now—when I have to admit, in definite terms, that I am very tired of you, that you are a terrible, dirty place, that, yes, Houston, I do hate you—even now I have to admit it’s an impressive sight (especially when I ignore that eyesore of an aquarium).

Since that trip—since I stayed here 3 years more than I meant to and at least 5 more than I wanted to (and I know none of this is your fault), since I’ve entered and exited your sprawling metropolitan area on every one of your freeways, taken them to your suburbs and past, since I’ve ridden in from San Antonio, from Austin, from Dallas (well, Houston, at least you’re not Dallas), from New Orleans and from Baltimore, since I learned to call passing the beltway and 610 coming home, I’ve seen bad things about those freeways. The way they enable that self-destructive sprawl you don’t seem to want to do anything about. The way they siphon off your tax money, pollute your air, ruin your neighborhoods, rip apart your communities.

In a lot of ways, Houston, you’re not really a city at all, just a bunch of suburbs jammed together, fighting over who has better schools. Houston, all of your schools are terrible. You need to tell Big Daddy Texas that these tests you’re using hurt a lot more than they help. I know teachers, Houston. They’re smart people, good people, more altruistic (I’ve seen their paperwork and heard the parents) than most know. Let them teach your children instead of teaching a test.

Houston, if you don’t get serious pretty soon, you’re going to end up like Detroit. Try a serious urban renewal plan: find jobs for the poor people instead of trying to draw in more oil company executives and frankly frightening biochemical researchers. Of course, for them to have decent jobs, you’d have to educate them, wouldn’t you, support them.

Houston, stop complaining about your homeless problem while you’re making it worse. Stop tearing down housing projects to build lofts only 20something Starbucks-drinking marketing executives will ever live in. Stop your police officers from harassing homeless and teenagers when they let crooks like Ken Lay and corrupt politicians like Tom Delay get away with whatever they want. Do you think other cities didn’t notice where those two came from? Do you think they don’t talk about others they suspect? They do, Houston. And it’s making you look bad.

Get some public transportation. That light rail you’ve been playing with Houston—is it some kind of practical joke? (Other cities seem to think so.) No matter how well connected the middle of your city is (and it’s not, really), that doesn’t really fix a goddamn thing until you get it out to the suburbs, where all the cars are coming from. It’s a half-hour drive out, Houston, when there’s no traffic, but a two-hour bus ride. Do you think anyone will put up with that who doesn’t have to? Public transportation will ease your freeway congestion (how much wider do you think I10 can get?), it’ll make tourists happier, and get students to those magnet schools you like to pretend make a difference. It’ll help your drunk-driving problem if there’s a safe way to get home when the bars close and people are drunk other than a $50 taxi ride.

Houston, there are almost two million people living inside your city limits, but you’re letting just a few people—less than a hundred—control you, and many of them don’t even live here. Houston, what was the idea behind electing Billi White? I didn’t like Turner much either, but he was so obviously a better candidate I wonder why you didn’t notice you were being bought.

That reminds me—when are you going to get local news media that will recognize news when they see it? The Press is the closest thing to reporting happening, and it’s mostly just making fun of everybody else. I hear you used to have a good paper, the Post. What happened? Houston, are you really going to let your emotional life be run by the Chronicle?

I’m getting sidetracked now.

Houston, you’ve got money and people and space and space and you don’t have the weight of history dragging behind you. Houston, if any city can succeed, you can. You take your light rail and your billion-dollar industries and your Midtown renewal project and your—what, six?—sports arenas and ballet and orchestra, your universities, your taquerias, your art museums, your ice-houses, your Montrose, your Vietnamese on Milam, your Tejanos, your everyone—Indians on Hillcroft and all—and you mix them up, Houston, you weave everygreatthing you have—even the dingy beauty of your underpasses, your terrible airport, your depressing zoo (it can all be beautiful if you try)—and make yourself angelic, Houston. You deserve it.

Houston, I guess I’ll always love you a little, I’ll miss the coffee plant and the D&D and the Menil and Ernie’s. I’ll miss going home at 3am 70 miles an hour with the windows down. I love you, Houston, but I hate you more. I’m leaving you, even if I’ll be crying on the way out.

Filed by shaun at August 12th, 2004 under fidelite