The biggest news is
that an apartment management company approved my lease application.
The next step is to sign some paperwork, pay the deposit, and get the
keys. The scheduling of those steps is tricky. Their office has
business hours, and I work during those business hours. We’ll get
there eventually.
I have completed two
days of work at the new job. Everything is going well. Not sure yet
when I’ll have time to return to Houston to move my furniture,
but...we’ll get there eventually.
Checked the PO Box.
Got some junk mail. Nothing personal yet.
Ate dinner at Saigon
Noodle on Odana Road. It’s recommended. While the Chicken Soup was
very good, the hot tea was excellent. The sense of fullness from the
soup and the tea really took off after about five minutes had passed
after eating. The sense of fullness reached its peak about fifteen
minutes later at the Aldi. Bought some frozen dinners and lunches for
the week ahead. The credit card bills look huge.
When it comes to
thinking about Madison, there’s many comparisons that appear
attractive to make, but also do not feel fair to make as of right
now. While comparing Madison to Houston seems obvious and inevitable,
it’s also unfair. The size difference alone drives many other
noticeable patterns and trends.
If size was the
primary controlling factor, then the only towns I could personally
compare Madison to are Huntsville, Alabama, and Beaumont, Texas.
While these three towns are not exactly the same size, there are in
the same rough order magnitude (city-only non-metro populations
between 100,000 and 600,000). Houston might be better compared to
Chicago, but I’ve not yet been to Chicago.
So, how does Madison
compare to Huntsville and Beaumont? For starters, it’s a northern
city, while Huntsville and Beaumont are southern. There’s no
ambiguity there. Madison and Huntsville have economies largely driven
by government, education, or the military. Beaumont’s economy is
largely oil and gas, though there’s a university in Beaumont as
well.
Really, though,
comparing Beaumont and Huntsville to each other is more interesting
than either to Madison. While both Beaumont and Huntsville are
southern, they represent different aspects of the South. Beaumont is
Deep South, or Gulf Coast South, or Cajun, or something like that.
Huntsville is the Tennessee Valley, or southern Appalachia, or the
foot hills of Appalachia, or something like that. Beaumont gets
hurricanes. Huntsville gets blizzards and tornadoes. Beaumont is like
a mini-Houston, with few-if-any of Houston’s good features.
Huntsville does not appear to be a mini-version of anything else
near by. Birmingham and Chattanooga seem sufficiently different from
Huntsville, and sufficiently similar in size.
Given a choice, I
would rather live in Huntsville than Beaumont. Huntsville has the
more beautiful countryside and cleaner air. But, if Beaumont has got
you down, you can always drive to Houston, which is an
hour-and-a-half away-ish. The nearest cities to Huntsville are about
two hours away. Even then, the really big city that is nearest to
Huntsville is Atlanta, which is about 6-or-so hours away, via
mountain roads. Beaumont connects to Houston via I-10, which really
has only one significant curve, near Winnie.
So, what about
Madison? Even though I enjoy the short commutes, the light traffic,
the very-good-to-excellent dining options, and the urban and suburban
areas, nothing really stands out that says, “Ah! This is Madison!”
For people who live
in or know much about Houston, imagine a city consisting only of the
Clear Lake neighborhoods of Houston, plus Webster and League City.
Surround it by several dozen miles of countryside. It’s just Clear
Lake-Webster-League City. Interstate 45 largely bypasses it, yet both
Webster and League City technically straddle I-45. The town hall and
city government in League City is bigger, if it had to represent
Clear Lake and Webster. The University of Houston – Clear Lake
campus might be larger, as there is no longer a much larger U of H main campus
25 miles up the freeway. The hospitals might be larger, and more
numerous, as there is no Texas Medical Center 28ish miles up the
freeway. Johnson Space Center remains in place, at its current size.
Ellington Field becomes a full-fledged airport, but still smaller
than Hobby Airport,12 miles up the road currently. You get the idea.
What town in Texas
is actually like this, today? Brian-College Station? A bit small. Its
metro population is the same as Madison’s city population. Among
Texas cities that aren’t part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex,
the ones closest in size to Madison are Laredo and Lubbock. I don’t
recall ever visiting Laredo, and I’ve only ever driven through
Lubbock. Reading through Wikipedia, Laredo appears known for being
almost entirely Hispanic, and having its economy largely based on
trade with Mexico. Lubbock is a “hub city,” being a center of
trade and services in an otherwise empty part of the country. Just
like all the other western cities: Amarillo, Denver…
So, there you have
it. Madison eludes comparison because there is nothing currently in
Texas like it enough to draw a comparison.
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