Houston-less-ness #2

(Why Houston feels place-less)

The city’s major roads make giant loops around it. This is awkward and, even before I knew why, contributed to how lost I felt driving around for the first couple of days. When you drive around in a giant circle, you are always chaging directions, but it FEELS like you are going straight. It’s really hard to develop a sense of place like this. If you think about it, roads are normally used as landmarks. “I live on (your street here)” generally gives some kind of geographic bearing to a conversation. But in Houston, saying “Oh there is a great restaurant right off of 610” simply means that the restaurant is in North, South, West, or East Houston. Good luck.