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One of the hottest destinations in the country for visitors and transplants alike is a city in Texas with amazing food, a vibrant arts scene, and a young and rapidly-growing population. And it’s Houston, the fourth-largest metro area in the country. Thirty years ago, it was all Urban Cowboy and oil boom, but today Houston looks like no other city in the country. More diverse than New York, younger than Portland, and better-off than San Francisco, it boasts a thriving economy, international population, and progressive attitude that attracts more people every day.
Houston is so attractive right now thanks to the people who have been drawn there because of its history of welcoming newcomers from the U.S. and abroad. While its medical and energy sectors are at the core of its economic strength, it has grown into not just a business engine but a creative and social one. A city once known for the Astrodome, Six Flags, and NASA is now home to everything from Asian strip malls to a professor of hip-hop to cutting-edge dining. Media outlets from Forbes to NPR tout its appeal for business and the arts.
Encompassing parts of 10 counties, crisscrossed with 575 miles of freeways, home to 5.6 million and rapidly growing, bigness is Houston’s defining characteristic. There’s nothing subtle about anything, and it’s not quieting down any time soon. What’s making Space City the city of the future? Its combination of demographics, attitude, and geography make it welcoming to people from all over the world who thrive once there, bringing an array of cultures together to create something new. The conditions for its future didn’t spring out of nowhere, though; the reasons Houston is positioned as a go-to destination right now have a lot to do with its past and its inherent characteristics, like its location and natural resources. Here are 10 reasons why a classic Texas city is today’s hot spot.
10. Progressivism
Right here in Texas is the first elected openly lesbian mayor of a major city, Mayor Annise Parker. Historically, Houston has had a thriving gay community, centered on the Montrose neighborhood, and has been less socially conservative than the rest of the state. The Houston area went for Obama in the 2012 election (as did Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio) and the 2010 Democratic challenger to Rick Perry was cycling evangelist/former Houston mayor Bill White. West Bank-born Farouk Shami, who founded a billion-dollar hair products company, ran against White in the primary, making him the first Arab-American to run for governor. Political candidates like these look very different from the majority white male statehouse in Austin, and are likely a glimpse of the state’s future. Houston’s ever more youthful population and leadership make for a city that’s a few steps ahead of the state government in its attitudes.
9. Music
A short list of famous musicians from Houston would include artists as diverse as Beyoncé and Solange Knowles, Kelly Rowland, Geto Boys, Paul Wall, ZZ Top, Jandek, DJ Screw, Red Krayola, DRI, and UGK. Houston’s rap scene is nationally known, but it also birthed traditional Texas singer-songwriters like Robert Earl Keen and Guy Clark and notoriously strange acts like Rusted Shut and the Pain Teens. The music that’s come out of Houston from Lightnin’ Hopkins on down has influenced music nationally. Rice University has even made a professor out of Bun B, the man who gave the world “trill.” For the last three years he has been co-teaching a course on hip-hop and religion at Rice.
8. Fun Arts
One of Houston’s most attractive qualities is its sense of humor, and nowhere is that more proudly displayed than it its embrace of folk art. The Art Car Parade, the Orange Show Monument, the Beer Can House: all operate under the umbrella of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art and are immensely popular. Austin may lay claim to weirdness, but Houston just seeps weird from its pores. The Art Guys, an occasionally controversial pair of Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing, combine performance and conceptual art in a uniquely Houston fashion.
7. Fine Arts
The arts thrive in Houston. Major endowments to the arts have provided Houston with world-class museums. The Menil Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Rothko Chapel anchor the city’s arts district. The Alley Theatre is Houston’s Tony Award-winning theater and one of the oldest continuously operating residence theaters in the country. The Project Row Houses, created by African American artists in the Third Ward, includes 40 properties that serve as everything from art installations to artist residencies. The project also redevelops low income housing, making it an unusually direct example of art improving a neighborhood.
6. Food
A city with disposable income, a youthful population, and cheap real estate is a boon to the restaurant business. Houston has always loved to eat, but like any other booming American city, great new restaurants are a special point of pride. In the last five years two chefs have been honored as Food & Wine Best New Chefs: Bryan Caswell of Reef in 2009, and Chris Shepherd of Underbelly in 2013. Bon Appétit named The Pass and Provisions a Best New Restaurant in 2013, and Oxheart made the list in 2012. It’s not just the fine dining that gourmands gravitate towards, though. Diners can enjoy authentic Vietnamese and Mexican food in Houston and enjoy plentiful Gulf seafood. The convergence of fine dining, multinational influences, and the local blend of Texas, Deep South, and Creole cuisine has made it the most talked-about food city in America everywhere from the Oxford American to The New York Times.
5. No Zoning
One of Houston’s most charming and occasionally frustrating characteristics is its lack of residential/commercial construction zoning. It is the biggest city in the country that lacks urban zoning (though there are deed restrictions in place). It’s charming in that you might have a bar on a block of houses, frustrating in that there’s little logic in some neighborhoods. But it has undeniably contributed to the integration of neighborhoods, and has helped a city full of drivers have traffic that isn’t as bad as that in some much smaller cities since the flow to residential areas is less focused. It also makes it easier to start a business since access to commercial space is more wide open.
4. Affordability
Median rent in the Houston area is $750, an affordable average made possible in part by the vast size of the area; real estate is not precious nor is growth restricted by any natural topographical boundaries. Housing prices never leapt out of reach during the housing boom. The cost of living is also some nine percent lower than the national average, meaning that Houstonians enjoy a relatively high amount of disposable income to spend.
3. Money
Houston’s youthful and diverse demographics are largely driven by its economy. It weathered the recession better than most metro areas and its unemployment rate has remained steadily below the national average. Houston’s experience with real estate and energy busts in the 1980s prepared it to handle the recession better than most; layoffs in core industries weren't as severe as in other cities, and its housing costs neither rose dramatically with the bubble nor fell far when it burst. It’s also second only to New York in number of Fortune 500 company headquarters—24 are based in Houston.
2. Youth
With an average age of 32, Houston is a young city, which makes it socially active. A young city is one that’s going out every night, keeping bars and clubs in business, meeting each other, and energizing the town. Although it’s much too big to be a college town, Rice University, the University of Houston, and Texas Southern University draw students from all corners, while thousands of medical students attend the Baylor and University of Texas medical schools located in Houston. Energy and enthusiasm flow from a young population, attracting more of the same.
1. Diversity
Houston is the most ethnically diverse city in the United States, more so than the country’s previous melting pot, New York. A 2012 Rice University study reported that there is no ethnic majority in the area, and the two largest ethnic groups, Anglos and Latinos, make up nearly equal percentages of the population. African American and Latino segregation have declined over the last decade, especially in the smaller outlying cities. It has one of the 10 largest African American populations in the country, and the Asian population is growing rapidly. International communities arrive from unexpected places: the oil and gas industry has made Houston’s Norwegian population the largest outside of Norway.