How Houston’s Missing Media Gene Hobbles Its Global City Ambitions

[bookey23]

Thank you for posting this, because it made me find this old thread. I've been living in Houston for 7 years now and I've been trying to get more involved with Houston's entertainment industry as part of my job and I've come to find that it really just doesn't exist. There's a few media companies here and there and there are obviously film groups and theater societies, but I don't think I'm far off in saying that Houston does not have an entertainment industry.

 

I have no idea why Houston isn't doing the same thing as Atlanta and all of Georgia and giving huge tax breaks to come film in our city. I feel like having shows film in Houston would give it more national recognition and give people an idea of Houston besides urban sprawl, traffic, and space. It seems like the only filmmakers who were ever interested in Houston are Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson (and the latter only for Rushmore). It speaks volumes that I've heard multiple people talk about the fact that Robocop 2 was shot in Houston, despite the fact that the movie is supposed to be in Detroit. Houston needs to get out in the public eye more.

 

All of the sporting events are a good start, but they don't give viewers an actual flavor of the city outside of 5 second bumpers before and after commercial breaks. Our food scene has actually put us on the map more than anything else recently and got us an episode of Ugly Delicious and a season of Top Chef, but even that season spent the last 2 episodes in Tucson for no reason. Again, these are good starts, but we need to do more!

[hbg.50]

On 3/31/2023 at 3:25 PM, ChannelTwoNews said:

There's a profile of HoustonFirst President & CEO Michel Heckman in this week's Houston Business Journal and I thought it was in step with much of the content of this thread. A fair amount of the piece discusses the progress that has been made in improving perceptions, but also reviews the work ahead as well as what's being done.

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2023/03/31/michael-heckman-houston-get-noticed.html

 

I don’t think the article presented any new ideas…basically the city is looking for a new catch-phrase.

Personally I think the city should play up all the new park space (Discovery Green, BBP, Memorial Park, etc.) and continue to beautify the city.

As much as people complain about the weather isn’t “outdoor activities” the best selling point for Houston.  If you are a gardener then Houston is paradise.  I’ve been sitting outside on my patio for the last two hours!  What a life!

[mattyt36]

On 3/31/2023 at 3:54 PM, bookey23 said:

I have no idea why Houston isn't doing the same thing as Atlanta and all of Georgia and giving huge tax breaks to come film in our city.

I don't disagree in principle with the above, but (1) how much of the Atlanta thing is the state versus the city (the State of Texas will give us absolutely zero help); and (2) I've seen plenty of movies made in Atlanta (they're a dime a dozen), and a lot of the mass market ones don't even mention/really engage with the place, which to me is awful policy--but I guess that's the point.  Anodyne, anywhere America.

It is no mystery to me why people would not want to film a movie here for simple reason of weather, but New Orleans has its share of movies filmed there (of course New Orleans is pretty unique).

Mo I think did a fine job at capturing Houston, as did the Anthony Bourdain episode on Houston and even Top Chef.  Houston is very unique, just not particularly "sexy."  

I think we need a high-profile tourist attraction, and it needs to be downtown for convention goers to have easy access.  I think the Museum of Texas History would've been great, but that fell through.  So I think the best bets are some sort of "NASA Light" exhibit downtown with regular buses to JSC, or some sort of National Museum of Immigration that is affiliated with the Smithsonian to raise its profile.  An energy museum would also be appropriate--I'm just not sure how many people it would attract.

[bookey23]

I saw some city planner say that the first thing he would do if he was in charge of Houston is plant 1 million live oaks. We really do have some outdoor areas, but the city just doesn't focus on them enough. 

[X.R.]

13 minutes ago, bookey23 said:

I saw some city planner say that the first thing he would do if he was in charge of Houston is plant 1 million live oaks. We really do have some outdoor areas, but the city just doesn't focus on them enough. 

Its funny because you can see the city/county/local districts are slowly doing this. Emphasis on the word slow. There are young, newly planted trees in the bayou parks, and in braes bayou along some part of the trail. You see some parts of Montrose are getting additional trees, along with that reworking of Shepard drive, and a beautification project in third ward around the universities. They need way more, but it seems like the first thing the local stakeholder reach for nowadays when starting a project is "trees" and thats an improvement from where we were.

[bookey23]

On 4/2/2023 at 11:46 AM, mattyt36 said:

I think we need a high-profile tourist attraction, and it needs to be downtown for convention goers to have easy access.  I think the Museum of Texas History would've been great, but that fell through.  So I think the best bets are some sort of "NASA Light" exhibit downtown with regular buses to JSC, or some sort of National Museum of Immigration that is affiliated with the Smithsonian to raise its profile.  An energy museum would also be appropriate--I'm just not sure how many people it would attract.

I think a world class museum near downtown would be really interesting and it doesn't even have to relate to the city of Houston. New Orleans has a world class WW2 museum and Seattle has a very cool Museum of Pop Culture, both of which have become big tourist spots but neither of which actually have to do with that city. A space museum would be an obvious choice, but regardless of the topic it would just have to be a very well-done museum to get people to see it as a tourist destination

Edited April 3, 2023 by bookey23

[hbg.50]

On 4/2/2023 at 11:46 AM, mattyt36 said:

I think we need a high-profile tourist attraction, and it needs to be downtown for convention goers to have easy access.  I think the Museum of Texas History would've been great, but that fell through.  So I think the best bets are some sort of "NASA Light" exhibit downtown with regular buses to JSC, or some sort of National Museum of Immigration that is affiliated with the Smithsonian to raise its profile.  An energy museum would also be appropriate--I'm just not sure how many people it would attract.

These are great ideas!  At one point a naval history museum was proposed?  That might be good (could we capitalize on the battleship Texas?), but I love your other ideas too!

[mkultra25]

On 4/2/2023 at 10:58 AM, steve1363 said:

I don’t think the article presented any new ideas…basically the city is looking for a new catch-phrase.

[hbg.50]

3 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

Nice!!  Extra points for incorporating San Jacinto Monument!

[ChannelTwoNews]

16 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

I was impressed you could STILL find anything with that logo around as recently as the 2000s. I remember buying a cap with it when the visitor's center was at City Hall around 2003 or 2004. 

[editor]

On 4/3/2023 at 8:16 PM, steve1363 said:

Nice!!  Extra points for incorporating San Jacinto Monument!

Should be points off for including a monument that's not actually in the City of Houston.  It's in LaPorte.

As an aside, lots of cities engage in this sort of tomfoolery.

The seal of the city of Las Vegas includes:

• Skyscrapers, of a design, height, and density which do not exist within 300 miles of Las Vegas.
• Boulder Dam, which is in Boulder City, not Las Vegas.
• Red cliffs, which I presume are supposed to represent either Red Rock Canyon or Valley of fire, both of which are outside of the city.
• The Colorado River, which is a dozen miles away from Las Vegas.
• A Joshua tree, which is not native to the Las Vegas Valley.

[__nevii]

The problem with these articles (and many of the discussions that emanate from them across the various threads) is that they always devolve into hierachial presups, and other contrivances related to the religious reification of cities as if they were sentient entities. Must be why there's often the typical laudry list of unsupported circularity (begging the question, affirming the consequent, etc), fact-value gaps (is/ought-naturalistic, just-world errors, often backed by ad populum), etc.

The end product? People always making these non-cognitive, (Dunning-Krugered)confident assertions of "what Houston is" (as if some fixed, unchanging entity) as well as "what the world thinks of Houston" (which is impossible to be certain of).

That said, I will say that the vast majority of problems of this sort are solved simply by greater urbanization of the city: abolishment of minimim parking, setbacks, etc that allow the true potential of "no zoning" to be unleashed. The urban environment will take the city's already existing food, culture, arts, iconic scenes, etc and elevate them into the palpaple entities sought after by the "creative-class" types that tend to create these articles/pass these judgements of Houston.

_{On another note, it's interesting to see how "cool and hip" tech, media, associated venture capital. etc were even as recent as 2014, contrasted with the more cynical "late stage capitalism" outlooks recently regarding ALL corporations (regardless of "boring O&G" or "flashy tech/media"). It really does seem} 

Edited May 14, 2023 by __nevii

[__nevii]

On 4/2/2023 at 10:58 AM, steve1363 said:

As much as people complain about the weather isn’t “outdoor activities” the best selling point for Houston.  If you are a gardener then Houston is paradise.  I’ve been sitting outside on my patio for the last two hours!  What a life!

I agree with this, especially as it comprises part of what I meant in my above comment regarding "question-begging." Basically, a lot of the "problems" for Houston are "taken for granted/as a given" without any attempt to support the arguments. Then, the (often sound) dissent is always shouted down as "delusional," "not-well-travelled," or other such attempts at affirming-the-consequent condescention.

For instance, as you allude to, biodiversity is known to be maximized with both warmth and wetness, which the coastal South (including Houston) has in spades compared to much of the land north (colder in winter), or west (largely more arid). There is great agricultural, cultivational, horticultural, silvicultural, etc oppurtunities to be enjoyed, especially in accordance to the subtropical Deep South aesthetic (palmettos, evergreen oaks and magnolias, thick spanish moss, etc). All of that provides solid counterpoints regarding why the "consensus" (unscientific) of Houston's "inferior outdoor oppurtunities, aesthetics, etc" can't be taken for given.

 

[editor]

On 5/14/2023 at 12:56 AM, __nevii said:

silvicultural

I learned a new word today.