Relocating to Houston, Texas

[Anonymous]

Houston elected an openly gay mayor - first major city in the US to do so. Houston has a large and thriving gay community. Areas like Montrose that are popular with gay couples are popular overall. It is utter horses**t that Houston is homophobic - it is no more homophobic than anywhere else, and all signs point to it being a gay-friendly city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

OP- I would kill to have a Lupe's here. Best food ever!

vi
OMG, I know!! I'm going back with a friend for a weekend trip, and plan to take him to Lupe Tortilla, Sawadee Thai in Bellaire, and Joe's BBQ in Alvin. If we get time, and they're still in business, I want to hit that freakin' AMAZING Vietnamese place I remember in Sugarland on 59, I think it was Grand Palace. Their Vietnamese fajitas were the bomb!

[Anonymous]

Houston is more progressive than you might expect, being Texas. The city is very diverse racially, and I've heard that when SE Asians are immigrating to the US, Houston is a recommended location - - climate wise and culturally. So it's become a huge melting pot culturally of Hispanic and Asian influences, mixed with white and AA culture, mixed with heavy medical research/ NASA attracting very bright people.

If it weren't for the brutal HEAT 9 months out of 12, it would be a much more popular place to live, IMO. But those 3 months of Nov - Jan are pretty nice!

[Anonymous]

Op here. Thank you for all of the feed back. I should say I'm a southerner who came to DC to work for W so the political climate in Houston is of no concern.

We will need public schools through high school so we have narrowed it down to Katy (Taylor, Seven Lakes & Katy HS in Katy ISD) and Houston (Memorial & Stratford HS both in Spring Branch ISD) If anyone has any feed back on elem schools in those areas I would love to hear your feed back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lived there for 14 years and would recommend either The Woodlands (N of Houston, Hardy toll road is very helpful for downtown commute) or Ft. Bend County (Sugar Land) was good too while we lived there. It's been about 10 years since I left, so much has likely changed since then, but I hear from my friends there that The Woodlands is the place to live (as far as suburbs go). West U/ Bellaire/ Memorial are also good location inside the Loop.

I personally would stay inside the loop and I'll second Bellaire and West U as great family friendly neighborhoods with a lot of nice stores and restaurants. Memorial is nice too, but seems kind of far away from everything (even though it isn't really).

I find the Woodlands to be super snobby and really far away - a very insulated community. The people I know in the Woodlands, their lives revolve around living there. They also all have a lot of money and talk about it all the time.

I like Sugarland a lot, it's a nice area and more down to earth than The Woodlands. Lots of nice communities surrounding lakes, you can get a dock and a little paddleboat, fun! A lot of the communities there have clubhouses and pools, too. But also pretty far out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thank you for all of the feed back. I should say I'm a southerner who came to DC to work for W so the political climate in Houston is of no concern.

We will need public schools through high school so we have narrowed it down to Katy (Taylor, Seven Lakes & Katy HS in Katy ISD) and Houston (Memorial & Stratford HS both in Spring Branch ISD) If anyone has any feed back on elem schools in those areas I would love to hear your feed back.

Oh, Bellaire has great schools, make sure you check it out, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make sure you are politically aligned with your neighborhood. we almost moved there this year but a friend told me that the Tea Party float at a holiday parade was greeted with cheers and people threw things at the Democrats in the parade. I knew I'd have to find a more tolerant neighborhood.
Sadly my friend also told me that the more gay friendly neighborhoods are problematic for resale. People there are relatively homophobic so they fear gay areas and will not buy homes in gay friendly areas.
Cost of housing is so great coming from DC so it's not all bad!

This is complete BS. Houston is definitely one of the more progressive TX cities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make sure you are politically aligned with your neighborhood. we almost moved there this year but a friend told me that the Tea Party float at a holiday parade was greeted with cheers and people threw things at the Democrats in the parade. I knew I'd have to find a more tolerant neighborhood.
Sadly my friend also told me that the more gay friendly neighborhoods are problematic for resale. People there are relatively homophobic so they fear gay areas and will not buy homes in gay friendly areas.
Cost of housing is so great coming from DC so it's not all bad!

This is so silly. Plenty of us TX Republicans survive here in DC. Not exactly a hotbed of welcoming liberals. My neighbors are very nice even if we don't politically align with them and are quite surprised by the ride things they say sometimes.

OP- I would kill to have a Lupe's here. Best food ever!

+1 What an ignorant dumbass statement, and I thought LIBERALS were open-minded and welcoming. Another conservative here somehow surviving in DC. I ignore the noise I guess.

Its also very untrue that gay neighbrohoods are less desirable for resale. It;s the opposite you DUMB ASS! whooops, I think I just sounded like a ranting liberal.

[Anonymous]

Hi-we are also looking to move there. I am looking at Memorial, River Oaks and recently heard about Royal Oaks..any feedback on that area? Also, we are looking into St. Marks and Ducheness (Sacred Heart School) and Regis for our son. I called St. John's but frankly the school seemed so snobby..I don't even know if it is worth my brain power applying there--apparently you apply to get accepted to apply---seriously..that's worse than the big three we are at now..and the DCUMers of the world think my school now is snobby. Oh well. Curious if any of the neighborhoods I have mentioned have strong little league teams...my son is really into that so that would help adjusting. Any info much appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Thank you for all of the feed back. I should say I'm a southerner who came to DC to work for W so the political climate in Houston is of no concern.

We will need public schools through high school so we have narrowed it down to Katy (Taylor, Seven Lakes & Katy HS in Katy ISD) and Houston (Memorial & Stratford HS both in Spring Branch ISD) If anyone has any feed back on elem schools in those areas I would love to hear your feed back.

I'd say Seven Lakes is currently the best, with the surrounding neighborhood costs between $300-$1m plus. Taylor and Katy school neighborhood costs are less. I know Kilpatrick and Woodcreek are known as good elementary schools.

To the poster that said to align political interest with neighborhood - please. Houston is absolutely a progressive and international city.

You will save sooo much money!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi-we are also looking to move there. I am looking at Memorial, River Oaks and recently heard about Royal Oaks..any feedback on that area? Also, we are looking into St. Marks and Ducheness (Sacred Heart School) and Regis for our son. I called St. John's but frankly the school seemed so snobby..I don't even know if it is worth my brain power applying there--apparently you apply to get accepted to apply---seriously..that's worse than the big three we are at now..and the DCUMers of the world think my school now is snobby. Oh well. Curious if any of the neighborhoods I have mentioned have strong little league teams...my son is really into that so that would help adjusting. Any info much appreciated.

The problem with the Houston private schools is that there are so few of them considering the population, so admission can be really competitive. I'd suggest that you add Kinkaid and River Oaks Baptist to your list (don't let the "Baptist" deter you, most students aren't Baptist). If your kids are young, you may also want to look at the Fay School (which goes to 5th grade).

The city is also very spread out, so if you live in River Oaks and your kid goes to Regis, you will be in the car all day and likely, most of your kid's friends will live across town. If I were ever moving back to Houston, I'd start with the schools, then decide on a neighborhood.

If your kids end up at St. John's, St. Mark's or River Oaks Baptist, I'd live in River Oaks, Royden Oaks (I think you mean Royden, not Royal), Avalon or West University.
If your kids end up at Duchesne/St. Regis, I'd live in Memorial.
If your kids end up at Kinkaid, you could pretty much do any of the above neighborhoods. Kinkaid is in Memorial, but there are lots of River Oaks and West U kids that attend too.

West University has HUGE little league teams and soccer teams with beautiful fields. I don't think the other neighborhoods that you mentioned have teams, or at least not teams as active and popular as West U. I have to say, if I were moving back to Houston, I'd probably move to West U and send my kids to St. Marks, despite being an alum of one of the other schools you're looking at. I think West U is the most welcoming and family-friendly neighborhood and St. Mark's doesn't have as much of the snob factor as the other schools.

[Anonymous]

Thank you pp..I really appreciate your feedback. The snob factor really does motivate me..I think there is quite a bit of this in DC (sad to say) so one thing I would like to see to make me feel better on the move is the opportunity to be around more laid back people. I also had no idea that Memorial was so far away from West U..I am not familiar with the area so what looks "possible" on a map..might not be a good fit with the commute. We are just ten minutes away from school now.. As for St. Marks--it is a k8--do you think this is a school with good exmissions? One thing about a school that goes to 12 is not having to think about applying to hs but..it just seemed like a sweet school so I am open to it. Thanks again for info!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you pp..I really appreciate your feedback. The snob factor really does motivate me..I think there is quite a bit of this in DC (sad to say) so one thing I would like to see to make me feel better on the move is the opportunity to be around more laid back people. I also had no idea that Memorial was so far away from West U..I am not familiar with the area so what looks "possible" on a map..might not be a good fit with the commute. We are just ten minutes away from school now.. As for St. Marks--it is a k8--do you think this is a school with good exmissions? One thing about a school that goes to 12 is not having to think about applying to hs but..it just seemed like a sweet school so I am open to it. Thanks again for info!

I heard Kinkaid is very snobby, so if that's an issue...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you pp..I really appreciate your feedback. The snob factor really does motivate me..I think there is quite a bit of this in DC (sad to say) so one thing I would like to see to make me feel better on the move is the opportunity to be around more laid back people. I also had no idea that Memorial was so far away from West U..I am not familiar with the area so what looks "possible" on a map..might not be a good fit with the commute. We are just ten minutes away from school now.. As for St. Marks--it is a k8--do you think this is a school with good exmissions? One thing about a school that goes to 12 is not having to think about applying to hs but..it just seemed like a sweet school so I am open to it. Thanks again for info!

I heard Kinkaid is very snobby, so if that's an issue...

Unfortunately, you will find a lot of materialism and snobbishness in Houston. It's not like DC where people are snobs based on education and careers, in TX it is more about material wealth. You'll see a lot of middle class people living in $250k houses and driving $60k cars.

I would say that of all the schools I listed, St. Mark's is probably the least snobby and West U is the least snobby neighborhood. You'll find more newcomers there vs. River Oaks, which has a lot of multi-generation Houstonians and can be tight-knit.

[Anonymous]

Is there a website like DCUM in Houston..to connect with othe moms and also get info on living in Houston stuff? Thanks so much--maybe I should avoid River Oaks..I think it is so stressful moving and the idea of dealing with closed society..not fun! Thanks again!