Last weekend, I made a quick trip to Houston, whose public image is strongly connected
to Enron, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, and other oil giants. It’s so easy to overlook the Astros, the cities new light rail transportation, one of the most concentrated theatre districts in the country (second only to New York City), an impressive 300 miles of networked bike trails, a growing downtown, and much more. In my short visit, I managed to meet up with an old friend at his new loft downtown (a studio which used to be two hotel rooms in the Historic Rice hotel – renovated in the 90’s), checkout the incredible night life downtown, and head to Montrose Blvd (comparable to Spanishtown here). On Sunday, I took a few hours and biked downtown and jogged at the incredible Hermann Memorial Park with hundreds of other Houstonians.It is hard to leave a great city without thinking… I wish we had or I wish things were more like this back home. In fact, nearly a hundr
ed and fifty community leaders make an annual best practices pilgrimage to do just that – the Baton Rouge Area Chamber’s annual Canvas trip heads to Portland this year and my bags are already packed!! I realized something on this trip to Houston, though. As I rode my mountain bike aside hundreds of bikers in Houston all wearing helmets, crazy spandex, and riding bikes that cost much more than my great bike from Dirt Road Bikes, I realized that in that moment, what Houston had to offer couldn’t satisfy me. Familiar faces, seeing families playing together at the park or sitting on their porch, and the sense of being home. Instead, there was no pretense to my presence, I was window shopping… an outsider looking inside.Oddly, my visit taught me much more than I expected. The lessons went beyond BR’s potential and into personal perception. First, window shopping is what it is – marketing. How often do you venture into a store and realize that there was a major discrepancy between perception and the reality – the environment wasn’t right, the clothes didn’t fit, or the people inside sucked! From now on, I want to go “inside” the city, veer away from the guided tour, and meet the real people who live and work and play there. Second, I realized that I’ve fallen into a vicious trap life often sets for us. How often do we think if we could be more like someone else, we’d be happier? If we had a nicer house or if we looked as good as someone else, we’d be happier? As we mature, some of us are lucky enough to realize that we as individuals must be responsible for creating our own happiness and not allow others to control such an incredable feeling.
Just like people, cities too have their own personality… strengths… and weaknesses. Unlike people, the source of those traits is not connected to individuality, but to the collective will of large group and their manifestation of that will. Baton Rouge is no where close to having the 300 miles of bike trails that Houston has… but could we be using some of the same Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act funds they used to network and improve our current trails or invest in expanding the levee path to New Orleans as previously suggested? Spanishtown might never being booming in the same ways as Montrose Blvd – but Montrose Blvd is never going to have a Spanishtown Parade and we’ll let them keep the prostitution, too. We might not ever have a Herman Memorial Park, but we’ll have an incredible city park, next to our LSU Lakes, next to the incredible Louisiana State University. Now, can we clean up the lake, add a dog park, and add some landscaping? – absolutely! We just have to make a collective push to do so. My question to you is... how do we get a critical mass behind issues and what are the “right” issues for our community to change?
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