More relevant city in the future: Houston or San Francisco (better, America)
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Both of these cities have traditionally been associated closely with one industry: Houston with oil and gas/ San Francisco with technology. Which one of these cities is going to be more relevant in the future? Criteria include economic prospects (which one will be more relevant economically), culturally, politically, world stature, diversity, and anything else relevant to the future. I argue that Houston will win out in the end because of the expansion of the Port of Houston, the move away from oil and gas toward other endeavors, and the better economic prospects based on the fact that Texas is generally better off than California
Speaking just from a tourism/leisure standpoint, Houston will probably never touch the appeal of San Francisco. IMO, San Francisco blows Houston out of the water in this area as it's not even close.
I think San Francisco will always seem more important but I think Houston will pull away economically. But who knows.
I honestly don't even think San Francisco is the most economically important city in the area...San Jose will be. It will be interesting to see if in the future, people refer to the Bay Area as San Jose's area, and not San Francisco's
Both of these cities have traditionally been associated closely with one industry: Houston with oil and gas/ San Francisco with technology. Which one of these cities is going to be more relevant in the future? Criteria include economic prospects (which one will be more relevant economically), culturally, politically, world stature, diversity, and anything else relevant to the future. I argue that Houston will win out in the end because of the expansion of the Port of Houston, the move away from oil and gas toward other endeavors, and the better economic prospects based on the fact that Texas is generally better off than California
It's the Bay Area as a whole that's more associated with technology, specifically San Jose/Silicon Valley. I think of more traditional white collar industries when I specifically think of San Francisco, like finance.
It's the Bay Area as a whole that's more associated with technology, specifically San Jose/Silicon Valley. I think of more traditional white collar industries when I specifically think of San Francisco, like finance.
But most of those white collar industries are connected in some way, shape or form, to Silicon Valley and technology (think Venture Capital). They aren't complete separate or in isolation, like finance is in New York. This is unlike Houston where the TMC has nothing to do with oil and gas, nor does NASA have very much to do with oil and gas. San Francisco and the Bay Area are only becoming more dependent on technology, while Houston is becoming less dependent on oil and gas.
I agree that SF will most likely seem more important no matter what, but Houston is on the verge of being up there with SF economically.
How is San Francisco, a city of 800,000 and a metro area of 4.3 million people, more important than Houston, a city of 2.2 million and a metro of 6 million? I don't get it? San Francisco doesn't figure into our day to day lives like Houston does.
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