COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN THEY MOVE THE NEIGHBORHOOD TO SELL THE HOME 
“I think the branding is more about attracting people to an open house. Future buyers scanning online listings are going skip right past something that says Fifth Ward, but might give a second glance at something labeled EaDo (bars! restaurants! sports!). Then, if you get them to look at the place, that’s when you hard sell. And homebuyers and renters for the most part don’t really care about neighborhood designations. I certainly think it’s disrespectful to the histories of these neighborhood and like most gentrification issues there’s undertones of racism and classism. But I’ve met a lot of people who live in GOOF, Shady Acres, Timbergrove, etc., and if you ask where they live, they just say ‘The Heights‘ —either for shorthand or because they don’t even know their neighborhood’s name.” [Pitts, commenting on Renaming Acres Homes; Bringing Back Curbside Glass Recycling] Illustration: Lulu
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I live in Shepherd Forest, but I either tell people “Oak Forest” or “north of The Heights” since hardly anyone knows where Shepherd Forest is.
I lived in Timbergrove and always said we lived “near the heights.” But I’d agree I’m probably a rare case. Growing up I was always annoyed with Woodlands or Kingwood folks saying they were from Houston.
I lived in Timbergrove years ago and always said Timbergrove! If people asked where it was I would just say west of The Heights. If people still looked confused I would say West of TC Jester roughly between 11th and 18th. Then people knew the general location. Some neighborhoods are simply not well known citywide. I believe people just use a well known neighborhood as a reference point.
If the chron thinks this is River Oaks then I guess I live in River Oaks as well. By this definition, I think anything between 59, 610, Washington, and Waugh might as well be River Oaks.
i just give people my lat/long coordinates, and if they don’t know where that is then i tell those mofos to go to hell.
I live in the farthest west neighborhood of Montrose called Vermont Commons. It’s very close to River Oaks and HAR.com calls it the “River Oaks Shopping Center Area” but I call it Montrose.
One of the worst offenders in my opinion is Shady Acres. It’s not the Heights, it’s not Timbergrove, it’s not the GOOF, it’s SHADY ACRES.
@chefDB…you might be annoyed by people in Kingwood saying they live in Houston….but they do live within the city limits and pay taxes to the city of Houston so that would make them………………go ahead and say it
The dumbest is “near north side” separating it from the actual northside which no one understands unless you lived there. So you have to tell people acres homes which it is not at all or say behind the fiesta or behind gallery furniture on 45n. What other point of reference is there across the freeway from Dago’s?
Basically I’m waiting for gentrification to name my hood something that gentrifiers can easily recal. #bitter #77076porvida