A Report Card on Houston as a City

We asked locals in Houston to rate their city on a wide range of categories related to city-dwelling, such as the airport, schools, police department, and cost of living.

For the next few weeks, we will issue report cards for a number of cities across the United States. Some of these cities were intentionally selected because they received funding as part of the U.S. government’s federal initiative for smart cities, and we felt it would be interesting to compare their grades to cities that did not receive the funding. For the rest of the cities on our list, they are major U.S. hubs and often a destination for new college grads or job transplants. We hope our report cards will be helpful to them as they make these life-changing decisions.

Last week, we issued a report card for Chicago, IL. Today, we’re issuing a report card for Houston, TX. Over 100+ locals responded to our survey on a range of different topics. Here is how locals in Houston rated their city:

Wyzerr Report Card for Houston, 2019

Overall, Houston received a 2.5 grade point average (GPA) out of a possible 4.0 GPA in our system, which is passing and average. Houston locals listed the following as the top 5 areas they would improve in the city to make it better:

1. Traffic — especially during peak driving hours. Locals reported that some areas were unreasonably slow compared to others. Driver safety around kid zones are another recurring theme. Suggestions for better bus stop locations came up as well.
2. More higher paying jobs and better job opportunities all around (think entry level jobs and growth positions)
3. More entertainment and things to do. There were a lot of complaints from students and respondents between the age of 21–35 that there are not many entertainment options to choose from. Some suggestions include neighborhood theaters and an amusement park.
4. The education system —schools need better training for kids with special needs and mental health care services.
5. Better community — this includes requests for mandatory recycling, solutions for the crime rate, better police interactions, mandatory upkeep on certain buildings, and creating more sidewalks.

Next week, we’ll take a look at the city of Dallas. For more information on our smart cities studies, please visit https://wyzerr.com/. As with any of our public studies, the complete data set is available upon request.