In my (seemingly-) never ending quest for employment, my search has gotten some attention from some folks in Baytown. So of course I've come here looking for some relocation information: What can you tell me about Baytown? Where to live? What to do? Middle/High schools? Riding, or other recreation? Tell me what a prospective resident needs to know, please! Thank you, JJJ,J ...S.
I graduated from R.E. Lee HS in it's glory days (long ago), Baytown was a great place at the time, great schools. However these days not so much. Probably not a bad place to work but the school system is overloaded and many parts of town rather iffy places to live. Just to the east of Baytown the Barbers Hill area and schools are still good and should be for some time to come. My sister lives in Plantation area east of Baytown, my brother-in-law in Anahuac a little farther east, both still good places to live. Good fishing in the area. I've never been impressed with off-road riding on the Gulf Coast, just too swampy and muddy all the time, and north into east Texas lot of sand which can be fun sometimes. Lot of good backwoods highways to explore but mostly flat and nothing twisty for a long ways. Of course you can always take an overnight to the Texas hill country west of Austin (250+ miles) for great paved twisties and dual sport riding. Supercross comes to Houston every year. MotoGP in Austin. .
Howdy Uncle Bill, this is Justin. To the OP, I was born there. I lived in Baytown until 5th grade and then moved out of town to Anahuac. I lived in that area again after I got out of the service. I last lived there from 2003 to 2009, but now live around San Antonio. Here are some of the pros and cons The pros Employment: plenty of work in that area what with the petro-chemical industry. Very close to a major metropolitan area with plenty to do in the city if that's your thing. Fishing- salt and fresh water beaches nearby Good duck and goose hunting if that's your thing. Lots of alligators too, for hunting or whatever. A place with lots of diversity. You can find just about any kind of food or place of worship within a 30 mile radius easily. Great medical center nearby in Houston. Great area for higher education. University of Houston has three campuses close to Baytown, there's Texas A&M Galveston, Lamar University in Beaumont, University of Texas Medical Branch in Houston, Texas Southern University. Baytown has a good community college with Lee College. Now for the cons Mosquitos Rednecks Humidity Rampant pollution (Baytown and Pasadena literally stink). Too much rain and mud or too dry and dusty. Rarely is it just right. I hope you like to mow 2+ times per week. Major metropolitan area with all the bad that brings too. Crystal Meth Lots of gangstas and wannabes Rust Horrible roads for riding: flat as piss in a pan. Remember taxicab geometry? You might get shot at the Wal-Mart in Baytown. It happens too often. Avoid if you can. Not bicycle friendly. Snakes Spiders Lots of large trucks. Semis working the oil industry and also the huge lifted pick-ups everywhere, which people drive at insane speeds as if it's a NASCAR truck race. I hope you ride a Harley. If you don't, most people there will wonder what's wrong with you. Hurricanes, though just rarely. If you don't mind my suggestion, if you need the job in Baytown, you can go ahead and take it, but you'd be best to live somewhere else. As ShawneeBill said, the Barbers Hill area to the east of Baytown is pretty good. It probably has the best schools in that area. It seems that most of the upper middle class from the Exxon and Chevron plants live there rather than Baytown. If you move east of the Trinity River, you start to get into red-neck area. That can be okay if it doesn't bother you. You could live in the Woodlands or Conroe, both nice places, but you'd have a long commute. Don't move to the west side of Houston if you're going to work on the east side. Getting through Houston can be difficult. Getting around it isn't so bad. Also, if you're going to work in Baytown, you could live in Kemah or the Clear Lake area. That's the area where lots of NASA folks lived. With the big draw down of NASA, the price of living in that area is falling. But, with the drop in property values, we know what typically follows.
Thanks guys, this is good info. I may be putting the cart before the horse here, but if I am sent to Baytown, I'd rather have a load of information at my disposal than be caught off guard. I appreciate the local 4-1-1. -JJJ, J ...S
Justin laid it out pretty good. However, he did classify a couple of things wrong. Rednecks and Alligators Rednecks are a 'Pro', alligators a 'con'. .
You know, either one can be classified as either good or bad. I guess when I classified rednecks I meant the really bigoted types. Not just country folk. The loudmouth, racist, aggressive types who shoot at land surveyors, utility workers, 8 year old kids who just got out of the car to take a leak in public property. When I worked as a land surveyor, I was threatened a few times around Daisetta and Kenefick. Seems the squatters on federal property along the river bottom had a problem with "gub-ment" types. Also, there was a family shot up by a squatter near Dayton when they stopped to let their 8 year old son out of the truck to pee. The squatter had just got out of jail for shooting at a county worker who was out grating the dirt road. The father, daughter, and a family friend survived the attack, but the little boy died. Anyway, that's the type of redneck I meant when I put rednecks in the cons category. Gators are only bad on the rare times they get out on the road, when you find one stuck in your doggy door or swimming pool, or when you go into their territory. Anyway, I have to put aligators as a pro. My hometown, Anahuac, has the Texas Gatorfest! The only reason it's even on the map!
Atlanta's hot, but Houston's hotter. Especially when you're sitting in traffic on two wheels in a state where filtering and lane splitting aren't explicitly legal. The best piece of advice I can give before picking a place to live anywhere around Houston is to check the traffic. Things get pretty insane on the West side - the East is better, but it has some pinch points as well. I use Google Traffic Maps and hit the Typical Traffic radio button and then use the slider to check out what traffic is like in different parts of Houston during the morning and afternoon on weekdays. While you can definitely choose to live in Baytown or parts West, you might want to consider East or NE Houston. The area just East of downtown is having a bit of a revival but things can still be found on the cheap. There's some older neighborhoods in NE Houston worth checking out, too. With a lot of jobs coming here, apartment rents have been a little high (for Houston), but that's supposed to be changing soon due to all the new construction. You can get an idea of what's available using the Houston Association of Realtor's site. http://www.har.com/ You can search by Zip Code, but using their own map codes are a lot faster: HAR Maps Maybe check out stuff in the far West of Area 2? I've always been a fan of living central and then commuting out, opposite the flow of rush hour traffic. Of course, if you hate the city, the HAR site will help you find stuff in the sticks, too. Cheers & let me know if you need any specific intel on anything inside Beltway 8!
I live in Houston. There are plenty of great areas to live in, near, around Baytown. I can't tell you about specific schools and areas asociated with them. If you are the salt water type, you died and went to heaven. It's close to many salt water venues. The area is flat. Our gulf waters are brownish. Humidity in Houston and Baytown can be oppressive. Baytown is probably the cheapest area to live in compared to other areas on the water. The way housing is going up in the Houston Metro area.. cheap is a relative term. Les
The most attractive thing about Baytown is IH 10. It will let you escape to find another town worth living in. Baytown; please don't do this to you and your family. Seriously.
Buy and live in Deer Park and drive to Baytown to work. Twenty minute drive. If you do, you'll thank me some day.