Houston needs a new 'museum', plus CO-UA foresight, rankings, budgets, parking, and more
I'm speaking at a symposium in Sacramento this week, so just time to pass along the rapidly growing list of smaller items:- Daniel Gross at Slate on "Lone Star: Why Texas is doing so much better economically than the rest of the nation." Hat tip to Hugh.
- How Shale Gas Is Going to Rock the World - WSJ.com, by Amy Myers Jaffe of Rice's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Bodes well for the economic security of Houston's #1 industry for at least another couple of decades. The geopolitical ramifications are pretty gratifying (i.e. disempower the petro-dictators). She doesn't mention Pickens Plan for converting the nation's commercial heavy truck fleet to natural gas from diesel, but they ought to be giving it some strong consideration.
- The New York Times spends 36 hours in Houston...
- And the Chronicle's Lisa Gray has her own ideas on what to do with a free day in Houston in the inaugural issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek. I'm not sure I would list the same things, but it's still good PR in the national press. My favorite quote, regarding sculptor David Adickes' giant presidential heads:
"Reunited, the heady crew embodies Houston itself: oversized, earnest, subject to wild financial swings, and peculiar as all get-out."
(HAIF discussion)
- If Metro will just put the data out publicly (esp. the real-time data), geeks will create cool apps based on it: Julia Vitullo-Martin: How Geeks and their Transit Apps Get Us Around Town - WSJ.com
- Score another one for Texas' light touch on regulation and leadership in wind energy:
"The first offshore production wind turbine in the U.S. will likely be erected this summer off the coast of Galveston, Texas, and operational by fall...
...
Texas has unique coastal sovereignty. Because of a stipulation made when the Texas republic joined the United States in 1845, its boundary extends 10.3 miles from the coast.
…
Federal land for all other coastal states begins 3 miles offshore, which means Cape Wind Associates had to seek the approval of the Minerals Management Service. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced last Wednesday that the government would grant a permit to build the 420-megawatt project, which since 2001 had been debated in dozens of public meetings and faced vehement opposition from residents, historic associations and politicians."
Hat tip to Jessie and HAIF.
- Forbes ranked Houston the 3rd-best big city for jobs, with other Texas cities also doing very well - although in this case, "well" means losing fewer jobs than others. Nobody seems to be gaining, except maybe DC.
- Forbes also ranked the Houston Technology Center one to the top 10 tech incubators "changing the world". They've been doing great work over there for a while and it's good to finally see some recognition.
- How bad the budget situation is getting at TXDoT. Hat tip to Jessie.
- Speaking of tough budgets, here's The Economist on Houston's grim budget situation (and Mayor Parker's answer). If Mayor Parker does nothing more than get public employee retiree benefits on a long-term sustainable track, she will have made her mark as one of Houston's most accomplished mayors. Not as sexy as sports stadiums, but a whole lot more critical. Hat tip to Ted.
- More from The Economist on 'elite city' Portland vs. 'aspirational cities' like Houston, Phoenix, and Atlanta. Hat tip to Jessie.
- Greenspoint has been named one of the top 5 locations in the country for logistics by Expansion Solutions Magazine. Hat tip to Jessie.
- Why One Top-10 List's Leader Is Another's Also-Ran - WSJ.com (esp. "most livable city" ones).
"While rankings are ubiquitous, so are their flaws. Some suffer from bad or misinterpreted data, or lack of transparency, or arbitrary weightings. Rankings also purport to draw distinctions between top-ranked entities when, statistically speaking, there is very little light between them."
- Andrew over at NeoHouston makes a great argument for letting the free market figure out optimal parking arrangements rather than government min or max regulations.
First: Attention all budding, hands-on, non-tech entrepreneurs out there (or if you know anyone like that, forward this along): you could make a boatload of money here in Houston if you built a (for-profit) museum like The City Museum in St. Louis - recently profiled in the Wall Street Journal (A Quirky Museum Exposes Kids to Thrills, Spills and Trial Lawyers - WSJ.com). Kids absolutely love it, and if it can succeed in St. Louis, it can do at least 2-3x the business here. 700,000 annual visitors at $12 each - do the math. Don't miss the photos and video.
Second: while I am sad at the loss of Continental's HQ in the merger with United (although I am hopeful the reality will be a dual-HQ over time, or at least a lot of jobs just below the executive level kept here), I also need to brag a bit on the foresight of your local blogger with this Chronicle op-ed from December 2002:
(click them to see larger images; for some reason it doesn't show up in the Chronicle's online archives)
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Labels: aviation, economy, energy, entrepreneurship, headquarters, identity, Metro, politics, quality of place, rankings
posted by Tory Gattis @ 6:43 PM
6 Comments:
When you see all the positives, it just makes the cries from people saying Houston needs to do "this or that" like other cities even more pointless. They need to get over themselves. WE ARE WORLD CLASS and WORLD LEADING. And we are doing it our way.
P.S. The 10+ mile extension of state jurisdiction in the Gulf of Mexico is just another sweet thing to add to how cool Texas.
Are we certain that Texas has unique coastal sovereignty due to the 1845 agreement? My understanding was that the 1845 agreement went out the window when Texas seceded, and that our relationship to the Union is now governed by the 1875 (1876? 1877?) agreement to rejoin the union. Supposedly this is also the reason why Texas can no longer invoke the option to split into five states. So I am not certain about my point, but I'm not willing to accept this statement about coastal sovereignty at face value, either.
If you want to see what happens to cities that think they're number one and never have to listen to anyone else, go to New York and Los Angeles.
Less snarkily: your article about Continental is really interesting. Good call on Continental-United, and on Continental's branding itself as a full-service alternative (at least for a few years - it's planning to start charging for meals later this year).
On the other hand, if I were a Houston civic leader, I would care very little about the loss of corporate headquarters. Houston isn't a small company town; it's a big city with lots of employers. I'd care more about preserving the city's status as a major airline hub, with direct flights to multiple non-US destinations.
Yes, the hub is more important by far. Houston will be able to claim the largest hub of the largest airline in the world.
Great foresight on the United-Continental merger. It's good news for me, having moved to LA / Santa Barbara and still having all these Continental mile. Last trip to Houston was a mix of United and Continental flights thru LAX, one of the key airports that will be watched. "HOow's the merger going?", I asked several employees (both airlines). "They haven't done anything yet," is what I got.
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