We are a society that loves lists of things, all manner of things... the 100 best American films, the 20 hottest female poets, the NFL's 15 most prolific deadbeat dads, et cetera, et cetera and so forth. My hometown of Houston is a persistent presence on these sort of lists... lists such as best U.S. cities for cost of living, home buyers, job market and the like. Alas, one list on which Houston makes an annual appearance is "America's Fattest Cities". The Bayou City has topped the list as the country's most corpulent community on four separate occasions (2001, 2002, 2003 and 2005)... but we seem to be cleaning up our dietary act as we slipped to 5th in 2006, 6th in 2007 and all the way down to 10th in 2008. Hey, we're making progress... but we're still some fat bastards. Rotund though we may be, we are also quite the towering town... well, at least our buildings are. According to Forbes.com, Houston is the world's eighth tallest city, ranking third amongst U.S. cities, trailing only NYC and Chicago. New York tops the list, with Hong Kong second and Dubai third. The thing I find most interesting about this is that Houston is also one of the most sprawling cities. One thing many of the cities on the "tallest" list have in common is a serious lack of real estate, thus the need for verticality. Houston, however, covers a huge area at 634 square miles... a plot which within New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis and Miami would all fit.
So... you fit, puny metropoleis... put that in your skinny little pipes and smoke it! You hear me, Seattle?!?
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