History UsefulNotes / Houston

* Creator/MelonaHardin

* Wrestling/TheUndertaker - although in {{Kayfabe}} he claims to be from "Death Valley"

* Wrestling/BookerT

Houston also has a very active sports scene with pro teams in almost every major American league (except hockey). Houston is home to the Houston Texans of the UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague, the Houston Astros of [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} Major League Baseball]], the Houston Rockets of the UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation, and the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer. The Texans are the youngest team in the NFL, having been founded in 2002; for many decades, the city was home to the Houston Oilers, but the team left town for Tennessee in the late '90s (kind of a sore topic for native sports fans, especially since the Oilers' new incarnation, the Titans, plays in the Texans' division, so bring this up at your own risk). The Houston area also has no fewer than ''five'' major college (i.e., NCAA Division I) athletic programs, four of which are located within the Houston city limits. The most prominent are the two whose football teams play in the top level of college football, the Football Bowl Subdivision—the University of Houston Cougars and the Rice University Owls. Three more play in the Football Championship Subdivision, namely the Huskies of Houston Baptist University, the Panthers of Prairie View A&M University (the only one not in Houston proper), and the Tigers of Texas Southern University. Overall, major successes of Houston-based sports teams have been few and far between. While both the Rockets and the Dynamo won two championships each and the (now defunct) Houston Comets of the WNBA were that league's first dynasty, winning the league's first four championships, the Texans have never made it to the conference championship game, let alone the Super Bowl. The Astros have made the World Series thrice--first in 2005 (which saw them swept by the Chicago White Sox in four games), again in 2017 against the LA Dodgers (which saw them win in game 7), and a third time in 2019; the later revelation of an elaborate sign-stealing cheating system placed a bit of a shadow over those victories, though Houston fans are quick to point out similar scandals from other successful teams. The Rice baseball team at least has made the playoffs for over two consecutive decades, but it only won a championship in 2003. This has led some to characterize the city's teams as [[ButtMonkey hapless]], although it's not for the lack of trying. Houston has had a very impressive list of players play for its teams, like Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Tracy [=McGrady=], Yao Ming, and James Harden for the Rockets; Nolan Ryan, Craig Biggio (whose entire career was spent here), and Jeff Bagwell for the Astros; Andre Johnson, J.J. Watt, and Deshaun Watson for the Texans; Ken Stabler, Bruce Matthews, Earl Campbell, and Warren Moon for the Oilers; Brian Ching and Brad Davis for the Dynamo; Cynthia Cooper, Dawn Staley, Sheryl Swoopes, and Tina Thompson for the Comets; Carli Lloyd for the Dash (see below); and Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler were the biggest-name members of the Phi Slama Jama Cougars era.

Houston also has a very active sports scene with pro teams in almost every major American league (except hockey). Houston is home to the Houston Texans of the UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague, the Houston Astros of [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} Major League Baseball]], the Houston Rockets of the UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation, and the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer. The Texans are the youngest team in the NFL, having been founded in 2002; for many decades, the city was home to the Houston Oilers, but the team left town for Tennessee in the late '90s (kind of a sore topic for native sports fans, especially since the Oilers' new incarnation, the Titans, plays in the Texans' division, so bring this up at your own risk). The Houston area also has no fewer than ''five'' major college (i.e., NCAA Division I) athletic programs, four of which are located within the Houston city limits. The most prominent are the two whose football teams play in the top level of college football, the Football Bowl Subdivision—the University of Houston Cougars and the Rice University Owls. Three more play in the Football Championship Subdivision, namely the Huskies of Houston Baptist University, the Panthers of Prairie View A&M University (the only one not in Houston proper), and the Tigers of Texas Southern University. Overall, major successes of Houston-based sports teams have been few and far between. While both the Rockets and the Dynamo won two championships each and the (now defunct) Houston Comets of the WNBA were that league's first dynasty, winning the league's first four championships, the Texans have never made it to the conference championship game, let alone the Super Bowl. The Astros have made the World Series thrice--first in 2005 (which saw them swept by the Chicago White Sox in four games), again in 2017 against the LA Dodgers (which saw them win in game 7), and a third time in 2019; the later revelation of an elaborate sign-stealing cheating system placed a bit of a shadow over those victories, though Houston fans are quick to point out similar scandals from other successful teams. The Rice baseball team at least has made the playoffs for over two consecutive decades, but it only won a championship in 2003. This has led some to characterize the city's teams as [[ButtMonkey hapless]], although it's not for the lack of trying. Houston has had a very impressive list of players play for its teams, like Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Tracy [=McGrady=], Yao Ming, and James Harden for the Rockets; Nolan Ryan, Craig Biggio (whose entire career was spent here), and Jeff Bagwell for the Astros; Andre Johnson, J.J. Watt, and Deshaun Watson for the Texans; Ken Stabler, Bruce Matthews, Earl Campbell, and Warren Moon for the Oilers; Brian Ching and Brad Davis for the Dynamo; and Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler were the biggest-name members of the Phi Slama Jama Cougars era.

Houston also has a very active sports scene with pro teams in almost every major American league (except hockey). Houston is home to the Houston Texans of the UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague, the Houston Astros of [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} Major League Baseball]], the Houston Rockets of the UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation, and the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer. The Texans are the youngest team in the NFL, having been founded in 2002; for many decades, the city was home to the Houston Oilers, but the team left town for Tennessee in the late '90s (kind of a sore topic for native sports fans, especially since the Oilers' new incarnation, the Titans, plays in the Texans' division, so bring this up at your own risk). Houston also has two major college athletic programs: the University of Houston Cougars and the Rice University Owls. Overall, major successes of Houston-based sports teams have been few and far between. While both the Rockets and the Dynamo won two championships each and the (now defunct) Houston Comets of the WNBA were that league's first dynasty, the Texans have never made it to the conference championship game, let alone the Super Bowl. The Astros have made the World Series thrice--first in 2005 (which saw them swept by the Chicago White Sox in four games), again in 2017 against the LA Dodgers (which saw them win in game 7), and a third time in 2019; the later revelation of an elaborate sign-stealing cheating system placed a bit of a shadow over those victories, though Houston fans are quick to point out similar scandals from other successful teams. The Rice baseball team at least has made the playoffs for over two consecutive decades, but it only won a championship in 2003. This has led some to characterize the city's teams as [[ButtMonkey hapless]], although it's not for the lack of trying. Houston has had a very impressive list of players play for its teams, like Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Tracy [=McGrady=], Yao Ming, and James Harden for the Rockets; Nolan Ryan, Craig Biggio (whose entire career was spent here), and Jeff Bagwell for the Astros; Andre Johnson, J.J. Watt, and Deshaun Watson for the Texans; Ken Stabler, Bruce Matthews, Earl Campbell, and Warren Moon for the Oilers; Brian Ching and Brad Davis for the Dynamo; and Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler were the biggest-name members of the Phi Slama Jama Cougars era.

Houston also has a proud history with its stadiums. The Astros' Minute Maid Park and the Texans' NRG Stadium both have retractable roofs (which tend to remain closed due to Houston's notorious summer humidity), but any talk about Houston sports has to include the Astrodome. Billed as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" and opened in 1965, it was the first domed stadium in the world and gave rise to the use of artificial turf in baseball and football (hence the still-common nickname "Astroturf"). Nowadays, the Dome sits vacant next to the larger NRG Stadium and any discussion about its future will yield a heated debate. Rounding out the sports venues are the Rockets' Toyota Center, the Dynamo's BBVA Stadium, the University of Houston's TDECU Stadium, and historic Rice Stadium.

Media-wise, there's little set in Houston, and in fact, of the top five largest cities in the United States, [[DemotedToExtra it is probably the least publicized]], with cities less than half its size (UsefulNotes/{{Miami}}, UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco, New Orleans, etc.) getting more screen time; this is likely due to the city being overshadowed by the bigger Dallas-Fort Worth metro and the weirder Austin as go-to representations of the state of Texas. It does have the nation's oldest public television station, [=KUHT=].

* Sports and Convention District - If there's a major event downtown, chances are it's happening here. Anchored by the George R. Brown Convention Center and the adjacent Discovery Green, this area is also home to Houston's pro baseball, basketball, and soccer teams; Minute Maid Park, the Toyota Center, and BBVA Stadium respectively. Watch out for rampant construction as hotels and condos are popping up around these venues like crazy!

* East Downtown Houston ([=EaDo=]) - Separating East End from Downtown, this area is the neighborhood just south of the Eastex Freeway (I-69) when passing the Central Business District (CBD). Old Chinatown, one of the two in the city, is located here. Also located here is the other (good) football team, the Houston Dynamo, and their stadium, BBVA Stadium. Also of note is a very large, old sign reading simply "WALD" which often shows up in Instagrams of Houston as an item of mystery [[note]]It was built in the '50s by Mr. Wald and did and does sell office furniture, if you must know[[/note]]. The area has had its ups and downs. On the one hand, it is home to many industrial warehouses, some abandoned, some still in use, and was for a long time pretty much Houston's version of Skid Row, having a huge homeless population (most of them have since moved on to Midtown). On the other hand, the area is becoming a center for revitalization, gentrification, and revival. For example, a large artists community is springing up here and growing all the time.

* Lake Jackson - Second largest city in the county and almost 45 mins. from Houston. Despite this, unlike most of the surrounding area, it resembles some of Houston's nicest suburbs. Nolan Ryan Expressway ends here. Hometown of Music/{{Selena}}, the Tejano music superstar murdered as she was starting to break into the mainstream.

** The Screwed Up Click: [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters Large enough to fill several articles]], but listed here collectively for the sake of convenience.

* Northside Village - Residential area east of The Heights and directly north of Downtown. One of Houston's many majority-Hispanic communities, it's something of a mixed-bag; the western side is moderately middle-class and looks like an extension of the Heights, but the farther east you go, the more run-down it gets. As of 2022, the main drag up Elysian looks a bit like the Heights after a ZombieApocalypse, and there don't appear to be any attempts at gentrification anytime soon[[note]]This might be starting to change, though; the Elysian Viaduct has been under construction since 2017, and changes are finally starting to come[[/note]]. Most of Northside's eastern third or so is occupied by a massive Industrial Park, contributing to the decidedly blue-collar feel of the neighborhood. Additionally, the Saint Arnold Brewing Company has a brewery here due north of Downtown.

* Loretta Devine

* Shelly Duvall
* Creator/ShannonElizabeth

Culture-wise, the city does have resident companies in each of the performing arts, and has some interesting takes on art: it's pretty much the art car capital of America. The city has a notable music scene, at least amongst rap and hip hop fans. ''Tejano'' music also [[StealthPun rocketed]] to international fame here. Also, the city is fairly well known for its rodeo, the largest such event in the world. Those who know the city's history, though, find this amusing: Houston was never a cow town--it traded in cotton before Spindletop. After Spindletop, oil was its stock in trade and has pretty much remained so ever since, despite efforts to branch out into other sectors such as banking (the banks got bought out), aerospace (there's not as much money here as you'd think), and medicine (which has seen some moderate success).

* Kashmere Gardens - [[{{Mondegreen}} No, not]] [[Music/LedZeppelin THAT Kashmir]]. An often-overlooked residential area north of the Fifth Ward, noticeably nicer, but no less poor. Like the adjacent Northside Village, its eastern edge is heavily industrialized, most notably the MASSIVE Rail-Corridor on Liberty. However, the northern and western sides are quite possibly the most rural areas in all of Central Houston; driving up Lockwood or Homestead, one could get the feeling that one had been teleported to Liberty County, until one hits 610.

* Northside Village - Residential area east of The Heights and directly north of Downtown. One of Houston's many majority-Hispanic communities, it's something of a mixed-bag; the western side is moderately middle-class and looks like an extension of the Heights, but the farther east you go, the more run-down it gets. As of 2021, the main drag up Elysian looks a bit like the Heights after a ZombieApocalypse, and there don't appear to be any attempts at gentrification anytime soon[[note]]This might be starting to change, though; the Elysian Viaduct has been under construction since 2017, and changes are finally starting to come[[/note]]. Most of Northside's eastern third or so is occupied by a massive Industrial Park, contributing to the decidedly blue-collar feel of the neighborhood. Additionally, the Saint Arnold Brewing Company has a brewery here due north of Downtown.

Houston also has a very active sports scene with pro teams in almost every major American league (except hockey). Houston is home to the Houston Texans of the UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague, the Houston Astros of [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} Major League Baseball]], the Houston Rockets of the UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation, and the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer. The Texans are the youngest team in the NFL, having been founded in 2002; for many decades, the city was home to the Houston Oilers, but the team left town for Tennessee in the late '90s (kind of a sore topic for native sports fans, especially since the Oilers' new incarnation, the Titans, plays in the Texans' division, so bring this up at your own risk). Houston also has two major college athletic programs: the University of Houston Cougars and the Rice University Owls. Overall, major successes of Houston-based sports teams have been few and far between. While both the Rockets and the Dynamo won two championships each and the (now defunct) Houston Comets of the WNBA were that league's first dynasty, the Texans have never made it to the conference championship game, let alone the Super Bowl. The Astros have made the World Series thrice--first in 2005 (which saw them swept by the Chicago White Sox in four games), again in 2017 against the LA Dodgers (which saw them win in game 7), and a third time in 2019; they soon became scapegoated for stealing signs, which is commonplace in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles, much to the dismay of those respective franchises. The Rice baseball team at least has made the playoffs for over two consecutive decades, but it only won a championship in 2003. This has led some to characterize the city's teams as [[ButtMonkey hapless]], although it's not for the lack of trying. Houston has had a very impressive list of players play for its teams, like Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Tracy [=McGrady=], Yao Ming, and James Harden for the Rockets; Nolan Ryan, Craig Biggio (whose entire career was spent here), and Jeff Bagwell for the Astros; Andre Johnson, J.J. Watt, and Deshaun Watson for the Texans; Ken Stabler, Bruce Matthews, Earl Campbell, and Warren Moon for the Oilers; Brian Ching and Brad Davis for the Dynamo; and Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler were the biggest-name members of the Phi Slama Jama Cougars era.

Houston also has a very active sports scene with pro teams in almost every major American league (except hockey). Houston is home to the Houston Texans of the UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague, the Houston Astros of [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} Major League Baseball]], the Houston Rockets of the UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation, and the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer. The Texans are the youngest team in the NFL, having been founded in 2002; for many decades, the city was home to the Houston Oilers, but the team left town for Tennessee in the late '90s (kind of a sore topic for native sports fans, especially since the Oilers' new incarnation, the Titans, plays in the Texans' division, so bring this up at your own risk). Houston also has two major college athletic programs: the University of Houston Cougars and the Rice University Owls. Overall, major successes of Houston-based sports teams have been few and far between. While both the Rockets and the Dynamo won two championships each and the (now defunct) Houston Comets of the WNBA were that league's first dynasty, the Texans have never made it to the conference championship game, let alone the Super Bowl. The Astros have made the World Series thrice--first in 2005 (which saw them swept by the Chicago White Sox in four games), again in 2017 against the LA Dodgers (which saw them win in game 7), and a third time in 2019; they soon became embroiled in a cheating scandal that put a big asterisk on their last two appearances in the eyes of many baseball fans. The Rice baseball team at least has made the playoffs for over two consecutive decades, but it only won a championship in 2003. This has led some to characterize the city's teams as [[ButtMonkey hapless]], although it's not for the lack of trying. Houston has had a very impressive list of players play for its teams, like Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Tracy [=McGrady=], Yao Ming, and James Harden for the Rockets; Nolan Ryan, Craig Biggio (whose entire career was spent here), and Jeff Bagwell for the Astros; Andre Johnson, J.J. Watt, and Deshaun Watson for the Texans; Ken Stabler, Bruce Matthews, Earl Campbell, and Warren Moon for the Oilers; Brian Ching and Brad Davis for the Dynamo; and Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler were the biggest-name members of the Phi Slama Jama Cougars era.

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The city provides examples of:

* TheAllegedCar: METRO Light Rail, due to the number of traffic accidents it caused because of unclear signals, poor planning, and unavailability outside of the hospital and museum districts. The incident which made it this trope involved an ambulance responding to a truck being hit by the Light Rail, and while transporting the injured driver to the nearest hospital being hit by a Light Rail train itself.
** The [[ScheduleSlip continual delays]] on construction caused by budget problems keep it from reaching its potential.
*** It has since received major expansions, with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/METRORail a new line built Dec 2013, followed by two more lines opened May 2015]]
* BadassBaritone: Thanks to the popularity of chopped and screwed, every Houston rapper that isn't one at normal speed inevitably gets remixed into one.
* BigFatFuture: More like Big Fat Present: the city was once considered America's fattest city. [[BigEater There's a reason for this]].
* BigFancyHouse: Lots of them, and they're still occupied.
* BlatantLies: Pretty much everything Houston's founders, brothers John and Augustus Allen, claimed in their original sales pitch to both settlers and the government of the Republic of Texas was demonstrably false.
* BoomTown: Became this after oil and NASA.
** [[RunningGag And air conditioning!]]
* TheChurch: And boy howdy, ''what'' a church. Lakewood Church is one of the most well-known and easily-recognizable churches in the entire city. As though its previous stadium-seating campus (complete with in-house televising of its Sunday sermons on local channel 14!) wasn't large enough, the church procured an '''actual stadium''' — the former home of the [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation NBA]] team Houston Rockets and transformed it into their new house of worship.
* CompanyTown: Nearby Sugar Land was once one of these, entirely owned and operated by the Imperial Sugar Company.
** So was less-nearby Lake Jackson, founded by The Dow Chemical Company to house workers at the nearby chemical plant during World War II. Notable for the main intersection in the center of town being the junction of This Way and That Way.
* CoolSpaceship: There was once a Saturn V rocket in full view of drivers on I-45 by NASA. It's since had a shelter built around it, as exposure damaged it.
** The Space Center Houston amusement park is built around this trope.
* CutAndPasteSuburb: Sugar Land, The Woodlands, Kingwood, Katy, the newer parts of Pearland, Sienna Plantation, Friendswood, Cypress, Klein, the list goes on and on.
* DangerousWorkplace: Particularly in Pasadena and Texas City, known for their refineries and curious odors.
** The British Petroleum plant was notorious for having NoOSHACompliance. Different parts of it exploded three times over the course of two years because paying the employee's death benefits was less expensive then giving the plant the overhaul and maintenance it needed. The State of Texas fined them until they complied because they were putting the community at large in danger.
** Texas City was the site of the biggest industrial accident in US history, when a Liberty Ship loaded with ammonium nitrate [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Disaster exploded in 1947]] with the force of a small atomic bomb, killing almost 600 people.
* DrivesLikeCrazy: It is joked that the Sam Houston Toll Road, a controlled access highway that loops around the city about five miles out from the city's proper loop, Interstate 610, is Houstonians' participatory version of NASCAR. Posted speed limits are about 65 mph, but you will be run off the road if you're doing less than 80.
* EverythingIsBigInTexas: Best example, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Medical_Center The Texas Medical Center]], the largest medical center in the world. Contains ''54'' medicine-related institutions, including 21 hospitals, eight specialty institutions, eight academic and research institutions, three medical schools, seven nursing schools, three public health organizations, 2 pharmacy schools and a dental school. Judged as a skyline alone, it's '''''bigger than Downtown Dallas.'''''
** Seriously, [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e2/Aerial_view_of_Texas_Medical_Center.jpg look at that picture]], and remember that that's ''only'' medical institutions. [[UpToEleven And that it represents less than a third of Houston's overall skyline]].
* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The Woodlands is full of trees. It's so full of trees, in fact, that signs tend to be obscured and you just have to ''know'' where you're going, rather than looking for man-made landmarks.
* FanNickname:
** "Space City", "Bayou City", "H-town", "the Big Heart" (post-Hurricane Katrina), "Screwston" (after the "Chopped and Screwed" style of rap music created by slowing down tempo). Sports-wise, "Choke City" or "Clutch City" depending on whether the team in question (usually the Rockets) blew it or nailed it.
** Some areas have picked up nicknames as well, like Greenspoint "Gunspoint", The Woodlands "The Hoodlands", Pasadena "Stinkadena" (see DangerousWorkplace), the list goes on.
* FandomRivalry: [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball Pick]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Basketball}} a]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} sport]], '''[[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball ANY]] sport''' with Dallas. Hell, just about ANYTHING with Dallas in general.
** Tennessee Titans. The name [[UngratefulBastard Bud Adams]] will garner nothing but absolute contempt here.
** The I-10 Shootout: Rockets vs. the San Antonio Spurs. Together with the Dallas Mavericks, the three teams form "the Texas Triangle", a three-game road trip that is known to be the most brutal in sports.
** The Bayou Bucket: [[BigManOnCampus University]] of [[GeniusBruiser Houston]] Cougars vs. [[IvyLeagueForEveryone Rice]] [[BadassBookworm University]] Owls
** The Labor Day Classic: Texas Southern University Tigers vs. Prarie View A&M Panthers. Not to mention the Battle of the Bands between TSU's Ocean of Soul and PV's Marching Storm.
** Non-sports example: Houston's local US Federal Reserve district is headquartered in Dallas. Just imagine the shitstorm when they built a branch for the "Federal Reserve Bank of ''Dallas''" just outside of downtown. (For the record, they quickly changed the name to something less evocative of Dallas.)
** Another non-sports example: the North Freeway, which carries Interstate 45 (that eventually reaches Dallas), had several names floated for it, including the Dallas Freeway. People didn't take that well.
* FlyoverCountry: Declared such when New York [[http://www.khou.com/news/local/Houstons-space-shuttle-snub-may-stem-from-one-mans-decision--128438338.html got a retired space shuttle]] instead of Houston, despite being home to UsefulNotes/{{NASA}}. Why? ''Houston gets no tourists.''
** Petitions from locals eventually brought Houston the plane that carried the Space Shuttles back to Cape Canaveral after landing.
* FriendlyFandoms: With UsefulNotes/NewOrleans. Houston has many citizens from New Orleans (more so post-Katrina) who brought their with culture (and food) with them. Likewise, [[ItsAlwaysMardiGrasInNewOrleans New Orleans is synonymous with parties]]. There are some overlap with sports team fandoms with some New Orleanians supporting the Astros and Rockets (prior to getting an NBA team) and some Houstonians supporting the Saints during the interim from the O***s' departure to the Texans debut. Also Saints and Texans fans generally get along with games between the two merely awkward at the worst (helps that they're in different conferences so they only play each other once every four years).
* FriendlyLocalChinatown: There are two.
* {{Gayborhood}}: Montrose, parts of Westbury and Near Westheimer. Also, there's a TokenLesbian mayor, who seems to kind of look and work like a lesbian UsefulNotes/HillaryClinton.
* HospitalParadiso: Played straight to varying degrees with the Texas Medical Center.
* InNameOnly: Both Sugar Land and Katy are [[CutAndPasteSuburb Cut And Paste Suburbs]], but each have history alluded to by their names. Sugar Land was the Imperial Sugar company town (and it still maintains presence there, check the sugar labels at home), and Katy was named after the MKT railroad that went through town. The railroad in question was truncated in the late 1990s so there's only a spur there that doesn't get much traffic as it used to.
* IvyLeagueForEveryone: Averted with Rice University, considered to be part of the South's version of the Ivy League.
* MegaCorp:
** Until quite recently, at least, Haliburton was headquartered in the city - and still has a massive facility hidden behind a treeline alongside the Beltway, just south of Bush International Airport. There's even a series of plaques outside Minute Maid Park (where the Astros baseball team plays) featuring the history of KBR and Haliburton, complete with a heavily-defaced image of Dick Cheney.
** Was also home to Enron, who used to have the Astros park named after them, but when their infamous accounting and swindling surfaced, the Astros dropped their name for Minute Maid.
* UsefulNotes/{{NASA}}: "Houston, we have a problem."
* NonindicativeName: "West Mount Houston" is the name of a road. There's nothing even resembling a hill in Houston, much less a mountain. The city doesn't have wards, but don't tell that to residents of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Wards (which do have their basis in the old boundaries of the city's wards). Cut 'n' Shoot is the name of a small town (yeah, really). Missouri City is nowhere near Missouri, and its residents didn't come from there, either. The same can be said for Iowa Colony (nowhere near Iowa) and Cleveland (granted, further north, but still nowhere near Ohio). There are no pears in Pearland (except for those at the Kroger's). There's no sugar in Sugar Land anymore, either (though as mentioned before, the city was a company town, and that company did refine sugar there until 2003). South Park is nothing like ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' and is nowhere near Colorado (though it is to the south of [=MacGregor=] Park and does predate the television series). Clear Lake is neither clear nor a lake. And none of this is anywhere near Houston County, Texas. Neighborhood names are frequently idiosyncratic at best.
** Though West University Place is indeed a place immediately to the west of Rice University. The Woodlands is also ''full of trees'' (such that it's difficult to spot signs or businesses, and those unfamiliar with the area are likely to get lost).
*** Whoever named the Panther Creek streets in The Woodlands is a terrible joker. There are four cardinal streets, logically named North Panther Creek, East Panther Creek, South Panther Creek, and West Panther Creek. On a map, it's easy to see they form a more-or-less box shape with their names aligned to the sides of the box. ''On street level'', however, it becomes positively absurd when it's possible to turn left onto North Panther Creek but right onto West Panther Creek, rather than the expected South (theses streets also curve a good deal, so you may or may not be headed remotely in the direction their names would suggest). Oh, and then there's another street in The Woodlands that's just plain old Panther Creek, and it is '''nowhere''' near the other four streets. There are also no panthers anywhere in The Woodlands, though you might find one at the downtown zoo a good hour's drive away.
** ToiletHumor: The town of Clute is jokingly said to be named for the sound of a worker's turd hitting the water after he decided that defecating off the side of the bridge they were building was faster and easier ([[{{Squick}} and possibly cleaner]]) than actually finding a portapotty. The town was actually just named after yet another founding guy, but that doesn't get any reaction from the tourists.
* NewOldWest: Invoked in city, tourist, and election campaigns and UpToEleven for Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, one of the world's biggest events. ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. Plus concerts.
* NoodleIncident: Cultural. Major hurricanes will be referenced by name without any other background.
** Specific examples include:
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Allison "Allison"]] - Tropical Storm Allison (note the lack of the word 'Hurricane' here) dumped around 40 inches of rain throughout the Houston region, causing over $5 BILLION of damage! The Texas Medical Center alone lost nearly $2 billion in lost/damaged equipment and samples. Allison was the first Atlantic storm name ever to be retired without ever being a hurricane (as of this edit, there's only been one other).
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike "Ike"]] - The hurricane that left ''millions'' without power and empty store shelves for weeks, caused millions of dollars in damage, ''almost wiped out'' the Bolivar Peninsula and had Galveston Island see destruction unseen since [[KillEmAll 1900]]. In other words, the one that '''SHUT DOWN THE ENTIRE. FREAKING. TOWN.'''
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina "Katrina"]] - Everyone knows this one, but we should note (again) that although the hurricane avoided Houston completely and was not expected to hit the city, it ''did'' leave a substantial rain of Louisianans in Houston, many of whom never left.
*** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Rita "Rita"]] - Hurricane Rita (which was set for landfall mere months after the disaster of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans) threw the city into panic and an attempted mass exodus ensued - ''attempted'' being the key word. The roads leading out of town were so congested that many cars ran out of gas simply waiting on the freeways to get out of town. The kicker? Rita veered north and missed Houston nearly completely. This incident was a large reason why so many people failed/declined to evacuate later when the above-mentioned Ike hit, reasoning that the outcome would have just been the same.
*** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Texas%E2%80%93Oklahoma_flood_and_tornado_outbreak "Memorial Day floods"]] - The storm that turned Meyerland and West U into a lake.
*** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-April_2016_United_States_storm_complex "Tax Day floods"]] - Four days of rain starting on the noted federal deadline that produced floods which some consider to be the worst since Allison. In the north, it was actually '''''worse''''' than Allison. [[http://spacecityweather.com/houstons-flooding-review/ 240 billion gallons of water]], the equivalent of three day's worth of all the water flowing through Niagara Falls. And most of it fell on Tax Day itself...[[UpToEleven In about twelve hours.]]
*** And, you guessed it, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Harvey "Harvey"]] - The one that somehow managed to top them all. Hurricane Harvey was the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in over a decade and despite not getting a direct hit, it wreaked havoc on the entire Houston metro area. In ONE NIGHT, it matched the devastation that Allison brought to the city... [[OhCrap and it was only getting started]]. When it was all said and done, virtually every part of Houston flooded out as the entire area received about 30-40 inches of rain with a few isolated spots topping '''50''' inches over the four day event. An estimated 39 TRILLION gallons of water fell in the area. Harvey was responsible for untold billions of dollars in damages and sadly also recorded several fatalities. Officials have dubbed Harvey the worst rain event in the history of the United States.
* OutsideContextProblem: As seen above, Houston has quite a bit of experience with flooding, but in February of 2021, temperatures plunged well below freezing—and stayed there—for several days. The power grid across the entire state, unaccustomed as it is to such weather, was strained nearly to the breaking point, forcing rolling blackouts that lasted nearly a week for some. The lack of electricity for heating caused the natural gas infrastructure to be strained as well, as families relied on gas fireplaces or generators to heat at least part of their homes. Expanding ice caused pipes to burst everywhere. The lucky ones only had to boil their water, while the more unfortunate had no water at all, only to suffer water damage as the ice thawed. Bear in mind that this did not just affect Houston, but (almost) all of the State of Texas[[note]]The sole exceptions are those parts of the state in the extreme east and west, which are not under [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Reliability_Council_of_Texas ERCOT]], the organization that operates Texas' special electrical grid. The fact that those places did NOT as a rule lose power during the freeze [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement is a topic better explored on another site]][[/note]]. And all of this occurred during the [[UsefulNotes/Covid19 Coronavirus pandemic]]. Quite the TraumaCongaLine indeed.
* SignificantReferenceDate: June 27th is the official unofficial holiday of Houston hip-hop, in honor of DJ Screw's signature ''June 27'' mixtape. Contrary to popular belief, this was ''not'' Screw's birthday--in fact, Screw put the tape together to celebrate Screwed Up Click member D-Mo's birthday.
* SixthRanger: Houston feels like this sometimes, compared to the other large cities in the United States, especially considering the fact that it is younger than most of them.
* SkyscraperCity: Houston has one of the most biggest skylines in North America (only New York, Toronto, Chicago, Mexico City, and Panama City are larger or comparable), but because of its lack of zoning laws, the skyline is much more spread out than in many of those places, thus its not nearly as apparent at first. To whit, that picture up there is only a very small portion of Houston's skyline (Downtown) and that's not even a third of the skyscrapers!
* ThemeNaming: Subverted. Houston's entire freeway system is built on a hub and spoke design, and is probably one of the most perfect examples of this in the world. But their naming system is... off.
** For the Hubs:
*** There's the central hub, which is just four different freeways put together and has no official name. This is probably because nobody but a road geek thinks of it as a hub, rather than just an artifact of how the freeways bypass downtown instead of meeting in the center of it. It's not useful for much of anything on its own.
*** Interstate 610 Loop aka "Six-Ten", the "Inner Loop" or simply "The Loop", the only interstate loop.
*** Beltway 8, which is both the Sam Houston Parkway (frontage roads) and Sam Houston Tollway (tolled expressway).
*** And then there is... Grand Parkway. Another example of non-indicative names as it is neither Grand, nor a Parkway, and while still incomplete, is planned to be a loop.
** For the Spokes:
*** Most of the Freeways emanating from Houston are named after directions: North Freeway (I-45 north of downtown), Northwest Freeway (US 290), Southwest Freeway (I-69 south of downtown), South Freeway (TX 288), and East Freeway (now Baytown East Freeway, I-10 east of downtown).
*** However, there is no West Freeway, Northeast Freeway, or Southeast Freeway. Instead we have the Katy Freeway (I-10 west of downtown), Eastex Freeway (69 north of downtown), and Gulf Freeway (I-45 south of downtown), respectively. The reason for the Eastex and Gulf having their names is that they were the first to be built, and were both named via contest. Katy was originally the West Freeway but now it is simply named after Katy, Texas. There was also a Northeast Freeway at one time; it was the little traveled Crosby Freeway. The little community of Crosby successfully sued to get the freeway renamed after them.
*** And there are the plenty of other Freeways in Houston that include: the ones named after cities they pass through (Crosby Freeway, La Porte Expressway, Tomball Parkway), the Toll Roads (Hardy Toll Road, Westpark Tollway, Fort Bend Parkway; the first two are named for roads they run alongside), [[AndZoidberg and]] [[IncrediblyLamePun the Spurs]] (Spur 527, Spur 5, and Spur 330)
** Played straight (originally averted) with the Memorial Villages. Originally, all but one had "Village" in the name, but the last holdout, Spring Valley Village, added "Village" to its name in 2007.
* WeatherDissonance: High in the 80's (sometimes even reaching the 90s or 100s) during fall and mild and temperate in the winter. And those mosquitoes? They'll start showing in ''April''.
* WhenItRainsItPours: Rain tends to get pretty heavy sometimes, and can lead to the bayous flooding. Some incidents where this went UpToEleven were with Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 and the 2015 Memorial Day and 2016 "Tax Day" rains and floods. Yet those storms paled in comparison to the havoc brought on by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
* WretchedHive: A few examples.
** Sharpstown. Once a business and residential district of affluence, after a combination of reduced policing and slow city response to its growing problems, it saw a downgrade when neighboring Gulfton collapsed in the 1980s. Even worse, it became so crime and poverty ridden after the fallout of Hurricane Katrina that even the rump suburb of Alief (which has its own problems but also is an international immigrant neighborhood with a lot of Asian and Latino residents) looks down on it.
** There is a neighborhood known as Lakewood somewhere in the Houston area; it is, quite literally, a wretched hive of scum and villainy. It's basically [[Manga/BlackLagoon Roanapur]] but somehow smack dab in the middle of Houston.
** The Fifth Ward was also essentially [[Manga/BlackLagoon Roanapur]] in Houston during the 80s and 90s, although there has recently been a sharp decrease. While crime is nowhere where it once was, it maintains a reputation as one of the hardest places to do police work in the Houston area and many major chains will not establish shops there.
** Acres Homes, Independence Heights (not the good Heights), and Aldine. They all look like various versions of the third world. Acres Homes had no sewage systems until the ''1970s''.
** Northside Village (But only the eastern side; the western side is actually quite nice). Sections of it make the Fifth Ward look like River Oaks.
** As mentioned, the unincorporated area of Bacliff has the inexplicable ability to repeatedly fail at forming a local governing body. As a result, there's little in the way of government assistance or police presence, so crime and poverty are rampant. There's also a lot of sex offenders in the area for some reason.
** Hiram Clarke. It might sound like some sort of charming New England town going by name alone. It isn't. The place is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Houston area due to the drugs flowing through the area and the large numbers of shootings, many of them drive-by in nature and sometimes purely random--the phrase "[[MoreDakka heard nearly 30 shots]]" is not unheard of in crime reports in the area.
** Gulfton got it pretty bad after the '80s, due to a combination of absurdly bad urban planning, illegal immigration, and a high population density in its numerous apartments. Though most of the illegal immigrants are just trying to get by, unfortunately a lot of problems show up as well since drug mules, dealers, and people trying to steal or scrape together enough money for their next fix make the neighborhood into a tense, dangerous slum.
** South Park is another version of the Hive, being really a sister neighborhood of Hiram Clarke. This was the home of several notorious rappers, and the area has had a negative effect on the neighborhoods north of Hobby Airport.
** Forum Park is the last thing you will see on I-69 south before hitting the south Beltway, and the second-to-last thing you will see before leaving the Houston city limits. Same problems as above, but Forum Park is the Hooker Hub of Houston as well, just for good measure.

* ''Film/ForeverEvil2013''

* ''Film/ForeverEvil''

* OutsideContextProblem: As seen above, Houston has quite a bit of experience with flooding, but in February of 2021, temperatures plunged well below freezing—and stayed there—for several days. The power grid across the entire state, unaccustomed as it is to such weather, was strained nearly to the breaking point, forcing rolling blackouts that lasted nearly a week for some. The lack of electricity for heating caused the natural gas infrastructure to be strained as well, as families relied on gas fireplaces or generators to heat at least part of their homes. Expanding ice caused pipes to burst everywhere. The lucky ones only had to boil their water, while the more unfortunate had no water at all, only to suffer water damage as the ice thawed. Bear in mind that this did not just affect Houston, but (almost) all of the State of Texas[[note]]The sole exceptions are those parts of the state in the extreme east and west, which are not under [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Reliability_Council_of_Texas ERCOT]], the organization that operates Texas' special electrical grid. The fact that those places did NOT as a rule lose power during the freeze [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgement is a subject for another site]][[/note]]. And all of this occurred during the [[UsefulNotes/Covid19 Coronavirus pandemic]]. Quite the TraumaCongaLine indeed.

* OutsideContextProblem: As seen above, Houston has quite a bit of experience with flooding, but in February of 2021, temperatures plunged well below freezing—and stayed there—for several days. The power grid across the entire state, unaccustomed as it is to such weather, was strained nearly to the breaking point, forcing rolling blackouts that lasted nearly a week for some. The lack of electricity for heating caused the natural gas infrastructure to be strained as well, as families relied on gas fireplaces or generators to heat at least part of their homes. Expanding ice caused pipes to burst everywhere. The lucky ones only had to boil their water, while the more unfortunate had no water at all, only to suffer water damage as the ice thawed. And all of this occurred during the [[UsefulNotes/Covid19 Coronavirus pandemic]]. Quite the TraumaCongaLine indeed.

* OutsideContextProblem: As seen above, Houston has quite a bit of experience with flooding, but in February of 2021, temperatures plunged well below freezing—and stayed there—for several days. The power grid across the entire state, unaccustomed as it is to such weather, was strained nearly to the breaking point, forcing rolling blackouts that lasted nearly a week for some. The lack of electricity for heating caused the natural gas infrastructure to be strained as well, as families relied on gas fireplaces or generators to heat at least part of their homes. Expanding ice caused pipes to burst everywhere. The lucky ones only had to boil their water, while the more unfortunate had no water at all, only to suffer water damage as the ice thawed. And all of this occurred during the Coronavirus pandemic. Quite the TraumaCongaLine indeed.

* Kashmere Gardens. An often-overlooked residential area north of the Fifth Ward, noticeably nicer, but no less poor. Like the adjacent Northside Village, its eastern edge is heavily industrialized, most notably the MASSIVE Rail-Corridor on Liberty. However, the northern and western sides are quite possibly the most rural areas in all of Central Houston; driving up Lockwood or Homestead, one could get the feeling that one had been teleported to Liberty County, until one hits 610.

* Kashmere Gardens - [[{{Mondegreen}} No, not]] [[Music/LedZeppelin THAT Kashmir]]. An often-overlooked residential area north of the Fifth Ward, noticeably nicer, but no less poor. Like the adjacent Northside Village, its eastern edge is heavily industrialized, most notably the MASSIVE Rail-Corridor on Liberty. However, the northern and western sides are quite possibly the most rural areas in all of Central Houston; driving up Lockwood or Homestead, one could get the feeling that one had been teleported to Liberty County, until one hits 610.

-->-- '''J.J. Watt'''

For much of its history, Houston was quite small and unimportant. In fact, nearby Galveston was more important and larger for a long time. After Galveston was torn apart by a hurricane, the focus shifted to the more inland city of Houston, especially after the coming of oil. Despite the discovery of oil, Houston remained a smaller, lesser-known city up until after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII when one of the greatest revolutions in demographic shifts brought about by technology happened: the "Air-Conditioning Revolution." This is not a joke. The coming of air conditioning made the once inhospitable Western and Southern climates of the United States more welcoming, and a massive population shift took place, as people moved from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt. Houston subsequently exploded like a weed, and it, along with other Sun Belt cities like UsefulNotes/LosAngeles and San Jose rose to prominence as some of the largest cities in the country. Houston spread in all directions, eventually surrounding some cities that incorporated to avoid annexation. These cities became enclaves, cities surrounded by the entirety of the city of Houston (this is common for other major cities in Texas as well). Despite being independent, these enclaves are really nothing more than self-important neighborhoods, and could largely be considered apart of Houston, except they aren't on paper. This has lead to controversy, as many of these enclaves, in both Houston and elsewhere, are some of the whitest, richest cities in not just Texas but the entire '''country.''' Discussing the merits of their existence leads to [[FlameWar unpleasantness]]. The City of Houston has been so kind as to document its unbelievably rapid growth for us [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=445Z1Dc5-Rw&feature=player_embedded here]].

Houston is the fourth-largest city proper in the United States and the largest in the [[EverythingIsBigInTexas famously large state of Texas]] (though the [[UsefulNotes/DFWMetroplex Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex]] is the larger metropolitan area overall). It is also the largest city in the American South. And while Texas is culturally distinct compared to the rest of the region, Houston is perhaps the most "traditionally" Southern city in the state. Once upon a time, it was even the capital of the Republic of Texas, but that didn't last long. It has many nicknames, amongst them "the Bayou City", as the bayous are a major feature of the city, and it was founded at what was [[BlatantLies allegedly the head of navigation of Buffalo Bayou]], "Space City" (this one actually appeared on police cars once, due to the fact that NASA's [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson Johnson]] Space Center is located in the city near Clear Lake), and "Magnolia City" (almost exclusively in pre-UsefulNotes/WorldWarI documents). It's also famous for its oil tycoons and unforgiving climate. The city is named after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houston Sam Houston]], one of the leaders of the Texas Revolution and the Republic of Texas' first president. He was Tennessee's governor before he moved to Texas just before the fighting broke out. Houston (the place) was also briefly Texas' capital before it was moved to Austin.

->“Houston is kind of a melting pot. There are so many different cultures and ethnicities represented out there, even on my team. It’s really cool: you’ll see so many different things.”
-->--J.J. Watt

->“Houston is undoubtedly my showcase city. I saved all my best buildings for Houston.”
-->--Phillip Johnson