The Kid Rides Again

Slate takes notice of what millions of Houstonians already know: Houston, We Have No Problems (a longer version of the article can be found here, in Newsweek).

Similar to the recent Kiplinger's article that named Houston as the nation's best city in which to "Live, Work and Play," the Slate article touts Houston's booming and diversified economy (we're only 50% dependent upon oil and gas, you know), the Texas Medical Center, the Port of Houston, a low rate of unemployment, and a strong residential housing market as reasons for Houston's flourishing growth over the past few years.

Of course, no article on Houston is complete without mention of our restaurants, our tech boom or our overall collection of rocket scientist-types:

Urban cowboy? Think suburban geek. Houston has 70,000 engineers and architects (a concentration 60 percent higher than is typical for the United States). The oil boom and weak dollar are boosting demand for their services, and engineering and construction firms like KBR and Fluor are applying their expertise to power plants and sewage facilities around the world.

In Midtown New York eateries, suddenly strapped investment bankers are limiting themselves to prix fixe lunches. But at noon last week, the 130 seats at The Grove, an expense-account jewel box that overlooks Discovery Green—a downtown parking lot made into a 13-acre park—were filled with jovial diners. As we tucked into our skirt steaks (so big they should have been dress steaks) and a side of French fries smothered in shredded short ribs and cheese, UBS executive Stephen Trauber ticked off a series of recent deals his team worked on that would make his New York counterparts weep: a $3.5 billion oil-field-services acquisition, a giant initial public offering of a Brazilian oil company, several stock offerings.

Chalk another one up for The Grove, which seems to be grabbing everyone's attention these days (including an anti-smoking ordinance-ignoring Sean Penn).

Does this mean we're approaching world-class status yet?

Photo courtesy of flickr user j-a-x.