(08-13-2019 04:29 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(08-13-2019 02:38 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(08-13-2019 01:03 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(08-13-2019 12:27 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Houston is more east than west. Houston is a little more than 800 miles from Jacksonville on the Atlantic Ocean, but 1300 miles from San Diego on the Pacific Ocean. Houston is closer to every AAC school, and closer to Montreal for that matter, than it is to Gonzaga.

But culturally, Houston is much more west than east. E.g., Houston is closer on the map to Memphis than it is to El Paso, but culturally, both are 10-gallon-hat, cattle, and oil wells "Texas". Memphis is culturally a thousand miles from that.

Houston, Tulsa, and SMU are culturally dissimilar by a large margin from the other AAC schools. They are all culturally Cowboy/Western schools. There is a Gulf Coast/Bayou affinity between Houston and New Orleans, but that's about it.

lol. Once you hit a certain size, cities start becoming pretty culturally similar. They may have different regional indentifiers, but Houston has more in common with cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando, and LA than it does with Salt Lake City or Tulsa.

LOL ... that's nouveaux-riche Houston talking, the Houston of billionaire oil men whose grand pappies drove cattle on horseback up to Kansas City and crave the respect of coastal elites.

But make no mistake, I grew up in the northeast corridor, and nobody up in DC or Philly or NYC or Boston thinks of Houston as a cultural peer. From those vantage points, Houston and Dallas are cattle and oil, JR Ewing and Remember the Alamo (yes, we know that was in San Antonio, but it might as well have been Houston). And no, your 7 million strong metro area and GHW Bush Intercontinental Airport do not change that.

That's your cultural identity nationwide, and that's how other schools view you. Houston, Tulsa, and SMU have zero cultural fit with the rest of the AAC. None.

It's not seen as a cultural match due to Houston's age (and how recently it emerged as a major city) and the distance it is from the Atlantic corridor. On the ground and when it comes to certain amenities (in general, not overall or obvious ones like government or skyscrapers on every block) Houston fits right in with the long time East Coast powers and Chicago.