Despite month after month of strong jobs reports and an economy seen as robust by most analysts, many families in Houston are struggling to make ends meet and afford basic household necessities.
When Pamela Ramirez relocated to Houston in 2014 to pursue her career in public service with Harris County, she purchased her first car and began looking for a place to rent. While on HAR.com searching for rental property, she found a listing for a single-family home with a mortgage payment in her rental range. Ramirez took a deep breath and decided to explore.
Results from the recently released Sunnyside Strong survey reveal promising potential for revitalizing the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of Sunnyside and South Park in south-central Houston; though there’s still work to be done.
With guidance, funding, and technical support from TX/RX Labs, the Houston office of Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and BeehiveFund/TMAC Gulf Coast, the Kinder Institute team set out to raise awareness around small urban manufacturing in Houston, culminating in this report.
Small businesses are only as successful as the policy, investment and regulatory environment they operate in. For small enterprises especially, flexibility and nimbleness are critical to growth. To thrive, clear pathways must exist for firms, regardless of size, to effectively scale, expand operations and further contributions to the economy, through new jobs, tax revenue streams and technological innovation.
Former Mayor and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros shares strategies for inclusive growth, improving urban and social infrastructure and planning for affordable housing.
Automation and artificial intelligence technologies will displace men and women fairly equally over the next decade, but women may find more difficulty in that transition.
Distinguished urban planner Alexander Garvin identifies shared elements of great downtowns, offers lessons from successful and failed projects, and charts a path forward to support downtowns into the twenty-first century.