Living in Energy Corridor, Houston

Terry Hershey Park traces Buffalo Bayou for roughly six miles along the northern edge of the Energy Corridor, its paved trail popular with runners and cyclists linking a string of pocket parks and picnic areas between Highway 6 and Beltway 8. George Bush Park sprawls across more than seventy-eight hundred acres to the southwest, adding mountain-bike trails, a dog park, and open fields large enough to absorb a weekend's worth of visitors without feeling crowded. Office campuses for several major energy companies line Eldridge Parkway, giving the district its name and its skyline of mid-rise corporate buildings set behind landscaped lawns. Apartment communities and single-family subdivisions fill in around those campuses, offering rents that run more affordable than much of the rest of west Houston.

Eldridge Parkway's signals back up as the office towers empty out each evening, a predictable slowdown that residential streets off the parkway mostly avoid.

Terry Hershey's bayou trail and George Bush Park's open fields give the Energy Corridor a genuine outdoor counterweight to its office towers, useful for a lunchtime walk or a stretch of trail time once the workday winds down.