I visited some 15 people, including public officials, transportation planners, university researchers, and community activists. All had been and are involved in the evolving policies that seek to protect and improve the quality of life in their regions. It was during a conversation with a member of city council in Seattle that I began to realize that this was the thread that tied the people in these regions together. He was telling me how much people cared about their area and the widespread feeling they have that Seattle and its environs are worth protecting. We know we have a special duty to be careful not to destroy our air, water, and scenic beauty.
People love living here, and they live here on purpose.
I don't hear that from many people around Houston, this idea that Houston is a place where people live intentionally. Many others are attracted entirely by the possibility of a new job, and give little thought to the reality of the place. People think of Houston as having terrible weather, but for eight months of the year, we have remarkable and generally wonderful weather. We're famous for having no terrain, no natural setting of interest. Yet we have the second largest bay system in the United States, with hundreds of miles of shoreline, and we have vast forests on the northern edge of the city, huge prairies to the west, and the entire region is criss-crossed by waterways that most of us pay no attention to.