Many people think of Texas as a bit of a backwater where innovative trends are a decade behind the coasts. Some of that may be the misperception that Houston’s success in energy, medical, and now high-tech business makes us somehow out-of-date or unwilling to accept innovations in sustainability, corporate culture and city design. To the contrary, Houston’s hard-nosed business types are some of the first to notice trends that need attention, even if our solutions may not mimic the ideas from the more liberal coasts. In Houston, we simply know that doing anything that is unsustainable is always bad business survival.
Our smart, highly educated engineers, bio technicians, programmers and business people have created a world recognized Medical Center, Portable computers (Compaq), and Moon landings and are instrumental in keeping gas in your tank and your lights on. These same people understand that innovation grows in a community of other smart, educated innovators. They understand that in spite of low housing costs, such people will not stay and will not come if we allow lack of zoning and poor infrastructure to produce spreading urban blight. Successful people want to live in an attractive built environment with arts, fine food and similar amenities. They also don’t want to spend half their life stuck in a traffic jam on overcrowded freeways due to lack of adequate public transit systems.
Houston is growing active, innovative organizations that bring together business, government, researchers, technologists and the community to provide better options. You might want to check some of them out if you'd like to help build a better home town:
- Houston Tomorrow – helping the Houston region become home to the healthiest, happiest, most prosperous people in the Us
- Transition Houston – creating a local soft landing for peak oil and rapid climate change
- CNU Houston – architects, planners and builders working on radical improvements to our built environment
- Agile Project Leadership Network –developers and IT leaders working on better ways to build and maintain software
- Houston Technology Center - the largest technology business incubator and accelerator in Texas, advancing the commercialization of emerging technology companies
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