British Petroleum Chems Goes To Chicago Not Houston

[H-Town Man]

At least the Grand Parkway will be our only forested freeway because of the lack of feeders except for the segment in between Franz Rd.(in Katy), and the Southwest Freeway. Chicago's tree-lined boulevards aren't all that great. They got some cracked up sidewalks and everything over there. At least when I visited earlier this year for a business trip.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Did you happen to go on Lakeshore Drive?

Brief history... In 1890, Chicago had 2 million people. Houston had 20,000.

But the argument that we're a young city so we haven't had time to get clean and nice doesn't work. Austin's young. San Antonio's young. Atlanta's young. Dallas is young. Phoenix is young. They're all clean and nice. What's our problem?

[CincoRanch-HoustonResident]

Your right. Houston has a problem, but I(we) can't find it. Cleaning up dirty older neighborhoods and refixing the sidewalks would be a good thing. Not everyone of those cities is all clean. There are bad areas and good areas. Take it like the Woodlands, and Third Ward; Cinco Ranch, or Alief.

[ricco67]

a great deal of it, I would imagine depends on our early history of how the cities were started.

The nation itself started along the shoreline because thats where cities generally started, and Chicago was a major port city in that section as well a major gateway to the quickly expanding west. Also note that the railroads went through chicago and St. Louis as well. That added considerably to their trade and population as well as their workforce.

The entire south kinda languished for a time considering we were mostly in trade in cotton and foodstuffs towards the middle of the 1800's. We had no industry that I could think of and Texas wasn't settled until the mid 1800's. (yes, there were various small towns and forts, but no "towns" per se)

Houston started basically like a land swindle (go fig) with few natural resources or industry to consider. Galveston was the major city with a major port. Towards the middle of the 1800's (1880's?) We started a considerable amount of commerce in cattle trade.

In fact, some of the streets in downtown were designed with Large wagons in mind.

If it wasn't for the fact that Galveston was almost wiped off the map, Houston would be along the lines of Galveston today with Galveston being a smaller version of Manhatten.

Ricco

[CincoRanch-HoustonResident]

Maybe Houston could be like it is now, and Galveston like a mini-Manhattan. What would that have been like for us. What would the population be. Right now its only about 60,000. Maybe it could have been over 200,000. Maybe even a million, you never know...

[H-Town Man]

Well, but a lot of historians don't think it was the flood that ruined Galveston. Their economy bounced back at first. What they think ruined Galveston was the fact that Houston was where railroads met the sea. Houston built a port, so it was only marginally less convenient for ships to go a little bit further to get to Houston. But imagine a dozen railroads trying to build bridges out to Galveston Island.

Chicago... any ship that sails from New Orleans to the Great Lakes, the Erie Canal, or the Hudson Bay, has to go through Chicago. The Illinois/Chicago River is the only way from the Mississippi to the Great Lakes. Thus you have an advantage. Combine this with its central location for railroads and its beautiful lake, and Chicago is the capital of the Midwest. So when the Midwest starting industrializing in the decades following the Civil War, it benefitted. And unlike all the other cities in the world which had older, pre-industrial backgrounds, Chicago was essentially built overnight, by entrepreneurs. Thus it was famous the world over for its rawness and energy. Houston has in a sense taken over this role today.

But it would be a long time before any Southern city could develop like this. The hardworking, entrepreneurial environment of the North was infinitely different from the slaveowning environment of the South. There would be great cities on one side of the Ohio River and slums on the other. Cincinnati, ten years after it was founded, had more people than any Southern city; Louisville across the river was a podunk town. When Frederick Law Olmsted made his journeys through the South in the 1850's, the only free people he met on any of his trips who he didn't find completely lazy were the Texas Germans - who didn't own slaves. This lazy attitude on the part of whites that comes from slavery lives on in our "sleepy Southern towns" and "laid-back Southerners."

[editor]

As for why Houston is dirtier than other cities, I think it just goes to laziness. Because of the harsher climate, people who live farther north have had to incorporate a greater sense of their environment into their everyday living for generations. People in warmer climes can worry less, and take things for granted.

Just a theory. Feel free to debunk.

[houstonsemipro]

Houston is not even near is dirty then other major cities. Look at Chicago, houston is a shinning diamond compare to Chicago. And my god, look at New York, houston is a sparkling gem compare to new york. How I know this , cuase i visited there before. New york, chicago, L.A. is twice as worster here in houston. So people please stop b.i.t.c.h.i.n.g!!!!

[ssullivan]

You can add San Francisco to the list of cities that are far dirtier than Houston.

But in reality, I've been to very few big cities I'd consider "clean," especially in the downtown areas. Probably the best in that department is Salt Lake City, where the downtown is nothing short of immaculate. But then, their downtown is dominated by Temple Square and is treated like the holy ground many believe it to be.

[dbigtex56]

As for why Houston is dirtier than other cities, I think it just goes to laziness.  Because of the harsher climate, people who live farther north have had to incorporate a greater sense of their environment into their everyday living for generations.  People in warmer climes can worry less, and take things for granted.

Just a theory.  Feel free to debunk.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Canadian cities certainly seem to support this theory. Toronto and Montreal are both astonishingly clean compared to US cities.

The contrast between Niagara Falls NY and Niagara Falls ONT is disheartening; how come the US has such a high 'slob' quotient?

[Talbot]

I thought Chicago was supposed to be a very clean city for its size?

[The Great Hizzy!]

There was a subjective ranking of cities in a travel magazine I was browsing through about two years ago and it had Houston and Chicago both ranked #9 out of the top 20 metros. I remember Seattle being #1. New York being #19 and Philadelphia was #17. Detroit was ranked dead last.

From my personal experience, I can vouch for the fact that San Francisco is surprisingly unkempt but it's not as dirty as Detroit, Philadelphia or New York.

Regardless, Houston could be cleaner but it's not noticeably dirtier than most major cities. At least, not in my opinion.

[editor]

I thought Chicago was supposed to be a very clean city for its size?

It is. Chicago is far cleaner than Houston. In the main districts there are garbage cans on every street corner and people actually use them, rather than throwing their trash on the ground. And there are small armies of city sanitation workers who patrol the streets with brooms and dustpans picking up even tiny pieces of garbage. Even the back alleys are remarkably clean.

The reason for this isn't to make the city look clean to visitors, it's to fight rats. The mayor has a major phobia about rats and has been on a tear for the last five years or so about eliminating garbage in the city to cut down on the rat population.

Apparently at some time in the not-too-distant past, Chicago had rats like Houston has roaches. I'm not sure which is worse. Roaches are smaller, but rats don't fly.

[Talbot]

Id rather have rats than roaches. I hate roaches.