Exxon Mobil Corp. will relocate its corporate headquarters to the Houston area from suburban Dallas and combine its chemical and refining divisions in a major shake-up aimed at reducing costs.
Have you ever been somewhere that was simply enjoyable? Good food, memorable attractions, a culture different from your own, and people who generally seemed happy to be living there?
Houston remains the energy capital of the country, but a new Moody Analytics report indicates the Bayou City has diversified its industry portfolio enough to no longer rely solely on oil and gas.
Houston tech ecosystem ranks as No. 5 in the world for emerging startup hubs
In a new report from Startup Genome and the Global Entrepreneurship Network, Houston ranks fifth among the world’s top 100 emerging ecosystems for startups. Last year, the groups’ report put Houston at No. 19 in the same category.
The region contains all the ingredients for a clean hydrogen market — clean power access, electricity-guzzling industries, and the existing network of production and pipelines — on a scale large enough to make Houston “the epicenter of a global clean hydrogen hub” that extends across Texas and the U.S. Gulf Coast, the Center for Houston’s Future laid out in a report released May 23.
As the "energy capital of the world," Houston's overall employment is significantly impacted by the energy industry. New research is shedding light on how Houston's economy could be impacted if the city doesn't lean into an energy transition to become the energy capital of the future.
A new study from the fDi Intelligence division of the Financial Times places Houston at No. 7 among the top major cities of the future for 2021-22 across North, South, and Central America. Among major cities in the Americas, Houston appears at No. 3 for business friendliness and No. 4 for connectivity.
Report: Houston ranks in the top 10 life sciences markets in the U.S.
In assessing Houston’s strength in life sciences, CommercialCafe says that “the resilient Texas powerhouse was lifted by the wave of emerging life sciences clusters across the U.S.” Two major projects are helping Houston maintain that powerhouse status. The Texas Medical Center (TMC) last year unveiled TMC3, a 37-acre, roughly 6 million-square-foot life sciences campus, and Houston-based Hines recently topped out the 270,000-square-foot first phase of the 53-acre Levit Green life sciences district next to TMC.
Texas is already home to the company’s largest employee and customer bases. With the acquisition of Direct Energy, which closed in January, NRG Energy decided it was time to simplify the company’s headquarters status. The company currently has more than 3,000 employees in the greater Houston region.
Houston is using their assets and sharing that expertise to attract more development. The secondary intent is to become less of a high-traffic metro and more walkable by connecting this development to downtown.
You want live music? How about the world-class Houston Grand Opera, the symphony at Jones Hall, and Opera in the Heights? And if you’d prefer something more familiar to Austin sensibilities—a schlubby guy doing Oasis covers on his acoustic guitar, for example—may I suggest Hopdoddy Burger Bar in Rice Village? Moreover, Houston can claim genres of music almost totally lacking in Austin—think DJ Screw, or Paul Wall and the Southern rap spawned by Swisha House. Also, Beyoncé.
fDi’s Global Cities of the Future 2021/22 — overall winners
Houston came in at No. 19 on 2021/22 fDi list, which ranks major global cities based on foreign direct investment. That’s up from No. 24 when the ranking was published in 2018/19. Houston was only one of two U.S. cities among the top 20 on the latest list, with New York ranking seventh.
The 22-acre Space Flight and Assembly Headquarters will be used to train private astronauts and for the production of the Axiom Station, which has been billed as
the world’s first free-flying, internationally available, private space station. The space station will be used for research manufacturing and commerce in low-earth
orbit.
Houston's economic base, demographics, and attitudes are changing. While oil and money were the prizes Houstonians eyed, they now value things like parks, walkability, and livability.
Chevron isn’t requiring employees to move to Texas, but its offer to cover employees’ relocation is another sign that Houston is a primary center of operations for the oil major.
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