"lookin' real classy like the Transco Tower..." - UGK It's got the sleek glass of the 21st century over the timeless shape of the 20th. The new layered on top of the old. Like a middle eastern city that has built on top of its own ruins for thousands of years until it towers of the surrounding countryside. It's also distinctly Houston. EVERY city has a downtown skyline with (relatively) tall buildings. Only Houston has random towers popping up out of the tree canopy as far as the eye can see. Every time I hit a direct connector and look out over the city, I can't help thinking that we got the best of both worlds. From seven stories above ground, we live in a literal ville radieuse, a vast forest populated by gleaming towers of glass and soaring highways of concrete and steel. But from street level it's an entirely different view, and whether yours is the walkable, fine-grained urbanism of the 'Trose and the Tre or the boisterous autocentric commercialism of Westheimer outside the Loop, it's an exciting place to be. Houston is a city where otherwise-pedestrian thruways like Waugh and Shepherd are visually anchored by imposing office towers set mere feet from the sidewalk. Some might not like this; they might prefer to live in a city where building heights are artificially limited to 35 feet, or where banks and convenience stores are made to look like colonial farmhouses, as they are in the Philly exurb my parents call home. But that ain't Houston. This is a city where if you can dream it, you can build it, where fortunes are forged through sweat and toil and then lost in a matter of minutes. This ain't your perfectly-planned, mild-mannered garden city. This is H-town. Hustle Town. The City of Screw. 713, 281, or the 832 - it don't matter - this is where it's goin' down.
