Houston Strategies

Misc: LA rail, creative approach to crime, Texas #2 for biz, gentrification & Texas pride humor

Time again to clear out the miscellaneous small-items queue.

• Tom Kirkendall on lessons from LA rail for Houston. LA has been a bit of a failure, but to be fair to Houston, LA's trying to build a commuter rail hybrid like Dallas which I think is a bad model that Houston is wisely trying to avoid.
• Oakland's creative approach to crime: identify the known troublemakers, and bring them before a judge to let them know they're being watched. Could work with the crime spike in Houston, especially the transplanted gangs from New Orleans...
  
• Texas gets ranked #2 by Forbes for business, and Houston gets ranked the #3 city.
  

Forbes’ Best States for Business

"Last week’s E-News covered Entrepreneur Magazine’s list of best places for business. It’s Forbes’ turn this week, as its latest issue contains its first ever listing of the best states for business. Virginia was a clear winner in the Forbes rankings, which include thirty measures in six main categories: business costs, economic climate, growth prospects, labor, quality of life, and regulatory environment. Virginia took the crown because it performed well in all of these categories. It scored in the top ten in every category---no other state hit in the top ten in more than three categories. Other top performers (in rank order) included Texas, North Carolina, Utah and Colorado. In terms of future growth prospects, Colorado, Texas and Florida ranked at the top."

• Finally, we'll wrap up with a couple pieces of good humor tonight: Bud Light commercial - Mr. Way-Too-Proud-of-Texas Guy (audio), and The Onion on gentrification: "Sometimes I Feel Like I'm The Only One Trying To Gentrify This Neighborhood." The second one in particular is laugh-out-loud funny if you're familiar with the culture clash of urban gentrification (Austin in particular, IMHO).
  

posted by Tory Gattis @ 8:57 PM