A word on Houston's internationalism

Houston is well-known as a multicultural, international city. A recent report by the Center for an Urban Future shows what that means for our economy. According to this report, Houston ranks third among the nation's cities in Hispanic-owned businesses and is the home of 16 of the largest 500 Hispanic-owned firms in the country. Additionally, the report ranked Houston sixth in Asian-owned businesses. Houston has the nation's largest Nigerian community and third-largest Vietnamese community.

The report, titled A World of Opportunity, documents that immigrant entrepreneurs have become an increasingly powerful economic presence in many American cities. The report's conclusion is that immigrant entrepreneurs have the potential to provide an even bigger boost to these cities in the years ahead. The future is bright for minority business-owners and for Houston's economy.

The Center for an Urban Future is "a New York City-based think tank that fuses journalistic reporting techniques with traditional policy analysis to produce in-depth reports and workable policy solutions on the critical issues facing our cities."

Photo by Flickr user Charles Copper Chavez.