Despite amazing conventions, Houston misses out. Heather Alexander, Chron.com
Houston has missed out on a chance to be named best convention city in the U.S. in the results of USA Today's public vote.
The award for the reader's choice of best convention city in the nation considered convention facilities, recent modernization programs as well as what the city offers to visitors.
Both Dallas and San Antonio made the cut, but Houston missed out despite high quality convention centers and a fast growing infrastructure to support guests.
Beaten by Dallas and San Antonio, oh the horror. As you can imagine this has those in Houston of a World Classiness bent wailing and gnashing their teeth. How Dare They! Seems to be a refrain followed closely by Something! Must be done.
I've no doubt this means there will be Blue Ribbon panels created to do Something! with a focus being on creating "amenities" that will convince the nice folks at USA Today that Houston is indeed as world classy as say.....Phoenix.
Certainly these august bodies will determine that Houston could aspire to the heights of Philadelphia and Indianapolis if only taxpayers would shell out a few measly Millions to build more downtown hotels, possibly a nice entertainment district downtown. We're assuming this would be markedly different then the downtown entertainment district that popped up briefly during the Super Bowl and then faded away as most of the bars and entertainment centers became financially insolvent. This time Houston, we're going to get it right. THIS time, we have a few more miles of light rail and another world-classy hotel on the horizon. THIS time we're a dining mecca dammit!
As is typically the case with these stories the rhetoric (specifically that found in the comments of this story) does not match reality.
Houston is hot! humid! and boring! Of course, this is not entirely relevant in the grand scheme of things. After all, Las Vegas is hot, Orlando is hot and humid and Atlanta is just as hot, humid and boring as Houston. The Peach city has a lesser public transportation system as well.
What Houston does lack, in spades, are diversions, things to do when people aren't shoe-horned in a room, eating dry chicken and laughing uncomfortably at the jokes of a keynote speaker best known for either writing a book nobody can remember or being an expert at something no-one understands.
In Las Vegas, you can (most likely) be relieved of your children's college fund at the casinos or (if you're not thinking clearly) risk contracting an unreachable itch from one of the town's many escorts. In Orlando you can bring the family and spend their college fund on a mouse and his friends or Indiana Jones. In Seattle, you can get hit in the head by a flying salmon or see some really, really beautiful nature.
In Houston? Let's face it. NASA isn't the draw it once was and while there are hundreds of things to do, most of them involve hanging out at a bar or waiting in line for an hour or so to eat above-average food accompanied with below-average service. Many of the things we say are "great fun" in Houston hold little attraction for the conventioneer. And no, the downtown Aquarium is not a draw to visitors, just stop it. Neither is Montrose for that matter or Washington Ave. Provided people could park on Washington (unlikely) in the end it's just a bunch of bars and designer jeans, making it indistinguishable from other bar districts.
Then we get to infrastructure, Houston's Achilles heel. Our roads are a mess, our traffic makes several areas impassible due in part to poor light sequencing, constant road-works and a public transit system that is seemingly planned by someone with no concept of the need for people to get their butts in the seats on-time. Trust me, it doesn't look good to your boss if you show up 30 minutes late to the opening break-out session, even IF you have in your back pocket the excuse that the Light Rail had stopped because it ran over a family of seven. Even if you decide to pass on Metro's daily crap game you still have the problem of renting a car, driving on streets that are so pitted they can homogenize milk, and arrive harried, tired and a little frustrated after being cut-off 75 times as you wait either to merge or make a right turn.
All of this comes back to a leadership vacuum. Houston currently has a Mayor who has promised to "Try to do better" when it comes to pothole repair, but that's not saying much really. "Better" in this case could simply mean we're going to shoot for roads equal to Singapore, and not Rwanda. "Better" is a very low bar. Also in question are the priorities of leadership, as illustrated in this post by Kevin Whited from BlogHouston. It's not that Houston doesn't have the money to fix the roads, it's that $2.6MM on a "downtown inspirational center" is deemed more of a priority than residents (and visitors) tires. In today's silly political climate this could be spun as job-friendly policy, since the numerous tire repair shops/dealers in Houston cannot be unhappy with our moon-scape of a road-system.
Aside from all of the above, the cruel reality is that Houston, no matter how many Danger Trains, half-empty taxpayer-subsidized hotels, FoodBorg-ey restaurants or hip, new True Religion-filled bars they decide to build is ever going to finish better than 6th or 7th in any convention poll. The entertainment deck is stacked against them. Hell, even Oklahoma City and Tulsa have gambling facilities. St. Louis has Busch Gardens, Las Vegas their casinos and Orlando the Mouse.
At this point I'd place Houston slightly above Salt Lake City and that's only because the latter doesn't have alcohol. A necessity if you have to sit in a room and discuss techniques for creating an inclusive, eco-friendly office environment all day.
