Woodland Heights, Houston

Although originally designed as an independent streetcar suburb, it was eventually incorporated into the city of Houston and is now one of the closest residential neighborhoods to downtown (aside from the much smaller Sixth Ward).

Nestled as it is in the crook of two major Interstate highways, it is often overlooked or is assumed to be part of the much larger and somewhat older Houston Heights neighborhood to its west.

[1] Both the upscale Houston Heights and Eastwood neighborhoods suffered a slow decline following World War II, followed by a gradual recovery at the end of the 20th century.

Although the Woodland Heights continues to undergo a gradual gentrification process, it still retains a great deal of quirky charm.

The neighborhood has at least one resident beekeeper, and in many places it still has no proper gutters, but instead relies on open drainage ditches (with choruses of frogs most summer evenings).

The walking paths, baseball fields, and public swimming pool along White Oak Bayou, which runs along the neighborhood's southern border, provide views of the Downtown Houston skyline.

The neighborhood was one of the earliest in the United States to be linked together via a community email list, and its active civic association sponsors an annual "Lights in the Heights" celebration each December, in which 14 blocks of two parallel streets are lit by luminaria and closed to motor vehicles.