Hometown Glory

The hottest city in America? A national magazine falls in love with Houston'ssteamy economics

I've heard the iconic Forbes building on New York's Fifth Avenue was just sold. Based on the magazine's listicle love for Texas, I can't help but wonder if the company is planning a move south.

The July 16 issue of Forbes includes a feature about Houston's booming economic powerhouse. (It includes a partial title of "Houston Gets Hot" that could only be funny to a writer sitting in an air-conditioned office in Manhattan. Seriously, Kurt Badenhausen, it is very hot here right now. Don't push us.)

Badenhausen's piece is in some ways a compilation of all the Forbes economic lists that Houston has topped in recent months, pointing out our dozen resident billionaires, as well as the benefits of having the world's largest medical center, one of the country's busiest ports and the technological prestige of a NASA headquarters.

Though there are multiple examples of energy companies bringing headquarters and jobs to Houston, Badenhausen also points out that the city's economy is more diverse than ever.

Oil and gas drive the Houston economy and are responsible for 50% of the jobs related to the export of goods and services outside the area. But that’s gone way down over the past 30 years. Energy represented 87% in the early 1980s. That diversification helped Houston emerge from the recent recession faster than any other large U.S. city. Houston’s employment dropped 16 straight months from its peak in August 2008. Yet the carnage was much worse in other major metros like Riverside, Calif. (48 straight down months), Phoenix (38), Los Angeles (36) and Minneapolis (36). Houston and Washington, D.C. are the only major metros to have recovered all the jobs they lost in the recession."

Despite Houston's economy growing at an impressive 8.5 percent this year (on top of 8.6 percent growth in 2011), Forbes has the city at No. 20 in its annual ranking of The Best Places for Business and Careers. That's well below other Texas cities like Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth and San Antonio, despite having a higher projected annual growth rate than any of the cities in the top five spots.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”