Are you a Clear Lake resident? Are you sure?
On websites like Ultimate Clear Lake, you can count on certain topics to generate lots of reader comments: favorite restaurants, SUVs, dumb criminals and pit bulls.
But the reader discussion of a recent news item on the Brio toxic-waste site just outside Beltway 8 unexpectedly took off, then veered off in a surprising direction: What exactly are the boundaries of Clear Lake?
Wrote a reader who identified himself as Dangerous Dante:
"The area currently known as "Clear Lake" refers to the area once known as "Clear Lake City" which does NOT include this site . . . Does the Chronicle have any reporters that are actually from the Houston area or are all of them from New York City or some other leftist/communist/God-hating/gay loving/illegal alien loving/America hating places?"
At Ultimate Clear Lake, we generally consider anything within the boundaries of the Clear Creek Independent School District as part of the Clear Lake area. So we're talking part of Houston to the north and League City to the south, Friendswood to the west and Galveston Bay to the east.
Generally speaking.
But what about the handful of Pasadena, Pearland and San Leon residents who attend CCISD schools?
You know, Armand Bayou Nature Center and the Endeavor condo tower on the shores of Clear Lake are actually in Pasadena. But they're still part of the Clear Lake area, right?
What about Ellington Airport? Is that too far north?
Here's the thing: Clear Lake hasn't had nice, neat boundaries since Houston flexed its annexation powers way back when. Clear Lake City proper still exists, but only as a master-planned community.
Someone who says he lives in Clear Lake might have his garbage picked up by the city of Houston, get his hair cut in Webster, go to church in Nassau Bay and send his kid to school in Friendswood.
In fact, when this website launched last year, the plan wasn't to include Friendswood, but then we heard from Friendswood residents who considered themselves Clear Lake residents. But the west side of Friendswood still seems more closely linked to Pearland than to Clear Lake.
Down south, meanwhile, League City has grown so much in recent years that maybe its residents don't really identify so much with Clear Lake anymore.
What do you think? Do you consider yourself part of the Clear Lake community? Where does it end?
