See 'An economic Godzilla' - the Texas Triangle of big cities, including San Antonio-Austin, is a force to be reckoned with by Greg Jefferson of The San Antonio-Express News. Excerpts:
"“The Texas Triangle: An Emerging Power in the Global Economy,” a new book co-authored by former HUD Secretary and San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros"
"Cisneros wrote the 335-page book with former Express-News business columnist David Hendricks, J.H. Cullum Clark of the Bush Institute-Southern Methodist University Economic Growth Initiative and William Fulton of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research."
The point they drive at is that the state’s largest cities and their metro areas, taken together, are a very big deal among the nation’s eight pre-eminent mega-regions. Those include Northern and Southern California, the Pacific Northwest and South Florida.
The authors demonstrate that the Triangle is an economic Godzilla, with strong business ties between its big cities and a nation-leading export trade.
And it has important advantages over the other mega-regions: relatively cheap housing, low taxes, light-touch regulations, lower costs of doing business and a decent highway system. The result: huge population growth. Outsiders are pouring into Texas from across the country, most notably California, and almost all of them are landing in the 35 counties that make up the Texas Triangle, as geographically defined by Cisneros and company.
The educational attainment of its people is one of the Triangle’s weak spots. But these newcomers are better educated than the average Texan, so they’re boosting our stats."
"The Dallas area alone is home to 20 of the country’s Fortune 500 companies.
With a gross domestic product of $1.3 trillion, the Texas Triangle is the fifth largest of the world’s 19 leading mega-regions, according to the authors’ analysis.
The Northeast Corridor (which includes the New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., metro areas) tops the list with a GDP of $3.7 trillion. The Urban Midwest (anchored by Chicago, Detroit and Pittsburgh) is No. 3 with $1.9 trillion, and Southern California is fourth with $1.5 trillion."
" the rural parts of Texas are losing people to the Triangle.
That falls in line with the argument Jane Jacobs made in her 1969 book, “The Economy of Cities.” To that blessed urbanist, cities were hotbeds of intellectual cross-pollination, brimming with creative energy and innovation, and they welcomed transients. Cities matter most in a country’s economic life."
inasmuch we are in the Information Age, does it really matter what city one is in so long as they have an internet connection? I think this is something that will be recognized more in the near future. the pandemic sped the process up, but once people realize that the information movers are just as if not more productive, then we could possibly see the city idea being nullified.
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