COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ANNUAL BATTLE OF THE NEIGHBORHOODS “I love the Swampies, but this category is played out. It is the same thing every year. Everyone knows that the best neighborhoods in town are places like Montrose, Heights, GOOF, and Rice/West U, but won’t admit it because these neighborhoods are just too expensive for the average resident to be able to afford. Then comes the parade of ‘no really, my neighborhood is nice’ nominees by people who have put their bet on the up and coming areas, but are not willing to admit that their neighborhood is just not there yet. Eastwood/Eado always chime in, even though much of the area is still pretty run down and industrial despite some very strong redevelopment activity. The tail coat neighborhoods like Westbury, Brooke Smith, and the few sprigs of Spring Branch where lot value hasn’t hit $400k trumpet how they are a great deal with all the benefits of their big brother neighborhoods without conceding things like lousy 50s housing stock, proximity to ever expanding highways and huge clusters of old garden style apartment complexes teaming with humanity just down the street. And the winner is always the odd little neighborhood in the city with the most followers on its HOA facebook page who flood the results . . .” [Old School, commenting on Nominations Are Now Open for the 2013 Neighborhood of the Year]
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Something seems very wrong with all the categories this year, in my opinion. Notice how few responses some of them received?
GOOF? Help please
GOOF = Garden Oaks/Oak Forest
I’m sorry but I think any OF peeps throwing that criticism out is a little hypocritical. As far as Oak Forest being a “best” neighborhood, in what respect? It’s housing stock is a combination of crappy old houses with no garages and driveways that dead end into bay window conversions, and mundane, cookie-cutter West U-wannabee new constructions. (For people who can’t afford West U because OF just isn’t THERE yet). Much of Oak Forest, which extends not only west of the bayou, but south of 290, is a sea of bad lawns dotted with cars parked on them, a total absence of decent retail or restaurants, and a good jaunt to the city center. The parts hugging Garden Oaks are doing well riding on those coat tails but an Oak Forest address is hardly exclusive, and not always particularly well located or convenient.
Critic, most of Oak Forest sits somewhere between the two extremes you describe. Plus, this isn’t the thread nominating best neighborhood, and not a single comment here is promoting it as such. I haven’t checked the thread nominating the neighborhoods since yesterday, but no one had nominated Oak Forest at that time. While I absolutely agree that there is a serious lack of restaurant/retail and that it is not always well-located or convenient it isn’t as horrible as you paint it. Maybe you meant this to be posted elsewhere (disclaimer: I am an Oak Forest resident and I would not nominate it for best neighborhood).
yawn
I suppose that it depends on how you might define “best”. To me, “best” is a function of affordability because what I would not have to spend on housing there could have been spent on [fill in the blank]. So there are many “best” neighborhoods, it’s just that we have to talk about them as being within different price segments.
And surely, it is worthwhile to have that discussion. If I’m going to buy a house that costs no more than $120,000, I have many options for neighborhoods in Houston. Some of those options are VASTLY superior to the others.
That said, yeah the election is rigged.
The value of “the odd little neighborhood in the city with the most followers on its HOA facebook page who flood the results” is that those same followers are people who bake and distribute cookies to the neighborhood police and firestations on holidays or drop everything on a busy weekday to look for a lost dog or any of those other things that good neighbors do.
So, I don’t think “Best Neighborhood” is defined by price per square foot, its defined by my neighbors.