Clean Energy Entrepreneurship in Houston, Densification, Welcoming Refugees and more
Many of this week’s items I tweeted while I was out of town for much of the summer, and just now getting a chance to bring them to the blog:
- Business Insider: I’m a tech executive who moved from Silicon Valley to Houston. I know firsthand why the tech industry is packing up and hightailing it to Texas.
“If folks looking in still don’t see Houston and Texas as the next technology mecca, they soon will.”
- Texas Monthly: Fracking Has a Bad Rep, but Its Tech Is Powering a Clean Energy Shift – Texas start-ups are harnessing know-how born of the shale boom in pursuit of a greener future.
“Every day I meet another oil and gas guy who is now a climate entrepreneur. I think there is going to be an explosion of clean energy activity out of the O&G sector, and we’ll be stunned in the next 5-7 years by how many of these problems they handle.”
“The disruptive innovation investor said individuals and companies flocking to more affordable areas of the country should keep inflation at bay.”
- NYT: A Day in Houston: 3 Meals, 3 Cultures, One City – The 52 Places Traveler follows his stomach through the city of Houston, finding a staggering diversity along the way.
- IAH Houston Intergalactic is the 6th-largest airport in the world by land area
- Kinder: Texas cities are as sprawling as ever. But they’re also more dense. Shows how Houston’s lack of zoning allows it to densify better than other Texas metros.
“Austin isn’t the densest metropolitan area in Texas. That honor belongs to the nine-county Houston region, which increased from 1,560 residents per square mile in 2010 to 1,858 in 2020, an increase of about 19%.”
“H-Town exudes Southern hospitality: The pace of life is more relaxed than many major cities, and they’re welcoming, polite, and eager to share the delights of their city with visitors…make Houstonians less cliquey and more hospitable towards newcomers.”
- A great essay that may reinspire you about America: The American Dream as the Vision Statement for the United States
- Pretty well-done video by Vox tackles exclusionary zoning: How the US made affordable homes illegal
- This makes me proud. Houston’s doors are always open to those seeking a fresh start and new opportunity: “Volunteers from Houston Welcomes Refugees showed up with boxes of items to furnish the family’s new home.” NYT: From Kabul Airport to a Houston Walmart
- The Failure of Dallas TOD
“In short, TOD is simply a scam. Like Portland’s light-rail mafia, which guided subsidies to favored developers who would build TODs, Dallas light rail and TODs are merely a way of transferring money from taxpayers to developers.”
- “There are more than 3,600 ADUs in Houston (according to HCAD data) of which the median size is 530 square feet (max allowed=900sqft). ADUs offer more housing options while maintaining the existing community character.”
- 2020 Census: City of Houston #2 for absolute population gain behind NYC, and also #2 for percentage gain behind Phoenix.
- Texas ranks as the best state to start a business
- Houston scores ‘stunner’ spot in Time Magazine’s Best Places in the World list
This piece previously appeared on Houston Strategies.
Tory Gattis is a Founding Senior Fellow with the Urban Reform Institute (formerly Center for Opportunity Urbanism) and co-authored the original study with noted urbanist Joel Kotkin and others, creating a city philosophy around upward social mobility for all citizens as an alternative to the popular smart growth, new urbanism, and creative class movements. He is also an editor of the Houston Strategies blog.
Photo credit: aerial photo of multiple energy extraction sites in west Texas, by Dennis Dimick via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
