Margaret Downing

Continuously evolving city.

Houston Press editor, May 19, 11.

Tagged with houston, cities, urbanism, place making

IT’S PAST 11 P.M., AND I’M walking with my husband in downtown Houston. We’ve just seen a play at the Alley Theatre, and the stroll to our car, which I’d left at my office, gives us time to dissect the show and enjoy the city at night.

Enjoy the city at night: I never would have thought of doing that in 1980, when I first came to Houston. Back then, downtown was not a place I’d wanted to walk after dark. That I can do it now is one sign of how Houston, America’s fourth-largest city and a place I’ve lived in and around for most of my life, continues to reinvent itself.

We’re a diverse city of 2.1 million residents, with A-list universities, top museums, and the world’s largest and arguably best medical center. We have a vibrant business community and more Fortune 500 company HQs than any other city except New York, including food giant Sysco, Waste Management, and the expected oil-and-gas titans. Annise Parker became our mayor last year, making Houston the largest U.S. city ever to be run by an openly gay person. Yet we are often misperceived. Disappointingly to some, cowboys don’t roam the streets (except during the rodeo and livestock show each March). When Giuseppe Bausilio, a title star in the national tour of Billy Elliot the Musical, came to town and I asked him what he wanted to do, the 13-year-old Swiss dancer replied, “I want to shoot a gun for the first time.” Sigh.

But another of the Billys, Daniel Russell, who hails from Australia, told me he wanted to visit NASA. For decades, that has been one of our symbols of research, teamwork, and the modern frontier spirit. That’s the Houston I know and love…

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Source: Fast Company, May 2, 2011

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