City of Houston
Intro
Houston is a sprawling metropolis in Texas, extending to Galveston Bay. It’s closely linked with the Space Center Houston, the coastal visitor center at NASA’s astronaut training and flight control complex. The city’s relatively compact Downtown includes the Theater District, home to the renowned Houston Grand Opera, and the Historic District, which pairs 19th-century architecture with trendy restaurants.
Population: 2.196 million (2013)
Cityscape
Though Houston is the largest city in the United States without formal zoning regulations, it has developed similarly to other Sun Belt cities because the city’s land use regulations and legal covenants have played a similar role. Regulations include mandatory lot size for single-family houses and requirements that parking be available to tenants and customers. Such restrictions have had mixed results. Though some have blamed the city’s low density, urban sprawl, and lack of pedestrian-friendliness on these policies, the city’s land use has also been credited with having significant affordable housing, sparing Houston the worst effects of the 2008 real estate crisis. The city issued 42,697 building permits in 2008 and was ranked first in the list of healthiest housing markets for 2009.
Voters rejected efforts to have separate residential and commercial land-use districts in 1948, 1962, and 1993. Consequently, rather than a single central business district as the center of the city’s employment, multiple districts have grown throughout the city in addition to downtown which include Uptown, Texas Medical Center, Midtown, Greenway Plaza, Memorial City, Energy Corridor, Westchase, and Greenspoint.
Culture
Located in the American South, Houston is a diverse city with a large and growing international community.[127] The metropolitan area is home to an estimated 1.1 million (21.4 percent) residents who were born outside the United States, with nearly two-thirds of the area’s foreign-born population from south of the United States–Mexico border.[128] Additionally, more than one in five foreign-born residents are from Asia.[128] The city is home to the nation’s third-largest concentration of consular offices, representing 86 countries.[129]
Many annual events celebrate the diverse cultures of Houston. The largest and longest-running is the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, held over 20 days from early to late March, and is the largest annual livestock show and rodeo in the world.[130] Another large celebration is the annual night-time Houston Pride Parade, held at the end of June.[131] Other annual events include the Houston Greek Festival,[132] Art Car Parade, the Houston Auto Show, the Houston International Festival,[133] and the Bayou City Art Festival, which is considered to be one of the top five art festivals in the United States.[134][135]
Houston received the official nickname of “Space City” in 1967 because it is the location of NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. Other nicknames often used by locals include “Bayou City”, “Clutch City”, “Magnolia City”, “New Houston” (a tribute to the cultural contributions of New Orleans natives who left their city during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina catastrophe), and “H-Town”.
