Forbes Magazine: Houston Tops Our List Of America's Coolest Cities: Houston is known for many things: Oil, NASA, urban sprawl and business-friendly policies. But the Texas city deserves to be known for something else: coolness.
The Bayou City may not be the first place you associate with being hip or trendy. But Houston has something many other major cities don’t: jobs. With the local economy humming through the recession, Houston enjoyed 2.6% job growth last year and nearly 50,000 Americans flocked there in response — particularly young professionals. In fact, the median age of a Houston resident is a youthful 33. Read more>>>

 

Double-decker Airbus A380 flies first Houston flight.

Today marked Day One of Lufthansa's nonstop, daily Houston-Frankfurt service on the Airbus A380 - the world's largest passenger aircraft
The double-decker, 526-seat jet landed at Bush Intercontinental Airport shortly before 2 p.m. from its inaugural flight from Germany. It is Texas' first A380 service. Read More>>>

A walk on the historical side: See what Houston looked like 100 years ago.

In this week's CultureMap Moment, Joel Luks explores a walking tour of The Heights, one of Houston's oldest neighborhoods. "This is a largely intact turn-of-the-century neighborhood," Jim Parsons, chairman of walking tours for Preservation Houston, tells Luks in the video below. "When you walk around the Heights you really do get a sense of what Houston would have looked like 100 years ago."

The architecture tour, organized by Preservation Houston, takes place at 5:30 p.m. Sunday. For more details, click here.

 Houston leading southern city for population growth. 

Houston remains as the leading southern city for population growth, a metric dominated by Texas cities, a new report shows. The city of Houston added 45,716 residents between April 2010 and July 2011, according to the Business Journals’ On Numbers analysis of new U.S. Census Bureau population estimates for 6,125 cities, towns and villages across the South.

San Antonio, Austin and Dallas took the next three spots, with increases of 32,152, 30,221 and 25,413 residents, respectively.

Read more>>>

 

Houston's average pay increase beats nation's, survey shows.

Houston Texas

Forbes Magazine names Houston Texas the coolest city to live in the USA. Texas’ other major metros also made the list: Dallas ranked fourth; San Antonio, 11th; Fort Worth, 13th; and Austin, 19th. The No. 2 spot was taken by Washington, D.C., followed by Los Angeles.

Houston Texas

Where is Houston? If you watch the national news on the major channels for some reason when the weather segment comes on you won’t find Houston, Texas on their weather maps. They list other great Texas cities such as Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, El Paso, but not Houston. Having lived in Houston since 1972 when the population was 1 million, and seeing it grow to over 6 million, one would think the national media would show a little respect. I mean advertising dollars wise. Personally when the weather comes on, and Houston is not shown on the weather maps, I vote by changing the channel. Which station is the worst? Fox News. Just saying. We like Fox around here, but why? And by the way, if you live in Houston, or are a fan, contact them and … DEMAND IT! Here are some facts worth considering.

• Houston is the fourth largest city in the USA, by population with over 6 million residents. And the largest city in Texas. But not on the weather maps. Hmmm.

• Houston has the best economy in the USA. In 2011 Houston area employers created 87,900 new jobs. An increase of 3.4 percent. Unemployment is down to 7%. Expected job growth for 2012 is 91,000 new jobs

• Houston is the home of the Texas Medical Center. The world's largest concentration of healthcare and research institutions. And NASA's Johnson Space Center, where the Mission Control Center is located. The first word spoken from the moon was "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

• ·Houston's economy has a broad industrial base in energy, manufacturing, aeronautics, and transportation. It is also leading in health care sectors and building oilfield equipment; only New York City is home to more Fortune 500 headquarters.

• ·Houston and the three other major Texas markets registered the nation’s strongest employment gains in private sector jobs during the past five years, from 2005 to 2010. According to figures by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Houston came in No. 1, with 129,800 private sector jobs created between June 2005 and June 2010. Dallas was second, gaining 71,300 private sector jobs. Austin ranked third, with 56,100 new private sector jobs, and San Antonio was 4th, with a gain of 32,600 private sector jobs. By comparison, Los Angeles posted the nation’s sharpest decline since 2005, losing 376,400 private sector positions. Other big drops were reported in Detroit (down 328,800 in five years), Chicago (down 253,000) and Miami-Fort Lauderdale (down 165,800).

• ·Houston is large. Almost 700 square miles. Yes we have urban sprawl, but surprise, our traffics is rated #6 six out of the largest US cities. Not perfect, but not bad considering that the following major cities fit within Houston’s Geographical boundaries: Boston, Washington D.C., St. Louis, Miami, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Denver, Baltimore, and San Francisco. OK, so I am bragging, but what would you expect from a Texan?

• ·When our neighbor New Orleans was about to get hit with Hurricane Katrina, the then Mayor of Houston Bill White, and Governor Rick Perry brought 250,000 residents to Houston, trained the ones that needed skills, and got them jobs. The ones that did not want to work were sent back to New Orleans. Thank you very much Houston!

So we will keep you posted on developments, good and bad, about Houston on this blog: