Central Texas city 163 miles west of Houston, population 345,890, heavily infested by students, aging hippies, legislators, dellionaires, and a remarkable variety of camp-followers. Though it prides itself on being "cool," Austin is nothing if not the essence of "cute," from the moderately scaled variations in elevation ("hills") to the various quaint effusions of "culture" centered primarily around The University. Austin is where Texans--who, remember, are either baffled or threatened by Houston--go to get away from Texas. It is also where Houstonians go to get away from Houston.

On Galveston:

An island and a city 47 miles south of Houston, population 61,902. Texas has two islands--Padre Island is where you go to sun. Galveston Island is where you go to sin. Which means most visitors don't realize Galveston has one of the great surviving collections of Victorian architecture in North America. Galveston is the only real "walker's" city in Texas.

And last there's his definition of Houston, in which he expresses an idea I also once assayed with far less coherence and elegance in an Austin-Houston pissing match with Austin Chronicle founder and publisher Louis Black:

Southeast Texas city, metro population 5,000,000, for whose inhabitants this list was compiled. One of only two large U.S. cities named for famous Americans, the other being of course Washington, D.C.... Many factors have set Houston apart from Texas -- humid climate, a huge seaport (what do cowboys care about the ocean?), and too much non-bluebonnet art, a large and politically active gay community, the state's only "smart kids" school (Rice U.). The clincher of course is the Johnson Space Center. From the Alamo to astronauts is one big leap, and it's one that the rest of Texas still hasn't really made.