The inspiration for this website was my move from the “suburbs” of Houston to downtown Houston. I say suburbs in quotes because it was the Houston Heights, technically Shady Acres, so not exactly the suburbs. A moving difference of 7 miles, but a world of difference in lifestyle.
Future essays will include the thought processing going into the move, the actual move process, selecting a new place to live and how those initial objectives for moving have play out. As the website evolves, I will include the happenings in and around downtown, the hidden gems and the lessons learned in my first three years of urban living. My goal is to be helpful to others you may be visiting or considering their journey to urban living.
None of this and future content is a criticism of one lifestyle location or another, just my perspective having lived in two distinct areas. As in all things, there are pluses and minuses as well as identifying the right fit for your stage in life.
I occasionally get strange looks when I tell people I live downtown. They say, “Oh, you live in the Heights”. I say no, I live amongst the office buildings. They say, “Oh, downtown, downtown”. I have had that conversation more than once. So yes, this is “downtown, downtown”.
After living in Shady Acres for 13 years, my wife and I decided to sell the house and move to a loft downtown.
A little history about Shady Acres. I bought my home in Shady Acres in 2003 and “shady” would be a good way to describe it. We had a security gate on our driveway, and we needed it. I bought the house after returning to the US following a two-year assignment in the Netherlands.
Flashforward to today, and Shady Acres is far from shady. Back to the security gate. Towards the later years, it no longer worked and it didn’t matter. We left it open all the time. We occasionally ride our bikes back through the old neighborhood to see a parade of baby strollers and joggers. The beautifully renovated Wright-Bembry park is flourishing. Day schools for children have been built. Great to see.
How did I end up in Shady Acres? I initially wanted to buy a home in central Heights, but it was out of our price range. I worked my way west from the central Heights until the price was right.
You may be asking, why would someone leave the extremely popular Heights areas for downtown.
There are a few reasons.
We wanted a walkable lifestyle.
Although there are more and more places in the area to walk to, restaurants, cafes, parks, there are limited options.
I turned down countless tickets to events such as Astros games, Rockets games, Texan games, art festivals, the Rodeo (list goes on forever) because we did not want to deal with traffic, parking and overall logistics. Now I walk to Astros games.
I thought that was just me, but my suburb friends do the same now for my invitations and I understand why. I get it. I did the same.
Early in our time downtown, we were standing in front of Christ Church cathedral after attending the Sunday service. We saw lots of people dressed in their Astros gear headed down to Minute Maid for the Sunday afternoon game. The weather was beautiful that day. We made the decision at that moment to attend the game and joined the crowd on their walk over. This is why I moved downtown.
Living downtown takes walkable lifestyle to a different level. Deciding at 6:00 that you want to walk over to the Toyota Center for a 7:00 game and you go. Waking up on a Saturday morning and walking to one of several cafes for the morning coffee. A morning walk along the bayou. Movie nights at Market Square. Countless events at Discovery Green.
I don’t think I have turned down free tickets to anything in the past three years.
We wanted a sense of community.
Sounds strange, but we did not feel a sense of community in the neighborhood. Most people go home after a long day at work and go inside their house and turn on the tv. I spent countless hours on our front porch (yes, we had a traditional front porch) and rarely saw foot traffic.
I did have nice and caring neighbors, but there really was no broader sense of community.
Neighborhood night out was no different than any other night and not in a good way. I am guessing that has probably changed by now in a good way.
We wanted some space.
Sounds odd to move downtown to get space, but we did and it worked.
I am a fan of high density living. High density living brings restaurants, cafés, parks and grocery stores. All the amenities you want require some level of density in population.
However, high density living only works when people walk, ride bikes or use public transportation. High density living does not work in the one person per car model. It also does not work when people do not park their cars in the garages but on the street.
We wanted less stuff and less to maintain.
We loved the house in Shady Acres. Especially on nice days when we would open up the French doors to the back porch and pergola. When the kids were young, they could play in the yard and had their own rooms.
At some point, kids grow up and care less about yards and rooms and move off to college. Most of the time is spent in the family room. The cleaning and maintenance of a two story 3-2.5 house became more than we wanted, and we no longer needed the space. The joy of maintaining a yard and garden subsided. We did enjoy the yard for many years. But it was time.
When you have room to store stuff, you buy stuff to fill it up. When you have 1300 square feet, you tend to not buy stuff because there is no place to put it.
Imagine losing your attic, garage and over half your closet space overnight.
It’s a continual journey and we continue to learn our way around. We do ride our bikes back to our old neighborhood from time to time and appreciate the time we had there while enjoying our life in downtown Houston.
