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Well, just like HPE and NRG’s recent relocations to Houston, AECOM already established most of its Dallas presence before moving its corporate board there. You can’t compare Dallas with Austin or Houston because all 3 of these cities operate very different. Austin’s is extremely different in how their growth is distributed despite most recent F500 companies going to Dallas and Houston. Houston has also gained 5 Fortune 500 companies like in the last 3 years but 2 have been relocation and the others were via growth. I would argue the growth companies are adding even more employment atleast in Houston’s case. Crown Castle more than quadrupled it’s footprint right around the time the F500 status was achieved. And then how many engineers do you think are required to work the new A&M biotech towers in the medical center going up? This is why I don’t like these turning into who’s doing what better etc this is great news for Dallas and these comparisons are annoying. Congratulate Dallas for their achievements.
Well yes, DFW does deserve congratulations, their achievements are almost beyond phenomenal.
The purpose of my comparisons is to ask what Houston should be doing differently to attract more out-of-area investment that brings good jobs, in a manner similar to what DFW has been achieiving. Not to ignore what investments have been made there either, or what growth companies are already there. Houston probably won't ever be like DFW in that regard, but you have to think it could be doing better than what it has been. As I said, with such an excess of quality office space, a great workforce, and excellent suburbs, Houston is easily ready to accommodate those relocations or investments. What lessons can be learned from DFW?
As a Dallas native and graduate of LH, I'm curious how many transplants realize what schools like Woodrow have to offer.
I work with a bunch of Chicago-area natives that have moved here in the last 30 years. None of them ever considered moving south 635 once they started having children. Seems like things are changing though I do worry about DISD's "tale of two districts" setup.
I tend to agree with this.
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Originally Posted by EDS_
No problem.
Part 1. I got this bit from the CEO of my wife's company A. who lives in Lakewood B. is very wired into things related to that part of town. Somewhere around 2015 people from the chamber, relo types, city officials and an advance team from Jacobs met with DISD about what could be done about Woodrow Wilson High School in order to make it a more viable option for Jacobs employees to both send their kids to WW and obviously live within its attendance zone. Part of all this is the area is very close to DTD. FWIIW WW already had a decent reputation for running a bit of a school within a school such that high achievers had a chance and the school annually graduated a fair number of kids with impressive achievements under their belts. However, nearly never any NMSFs.
I have a hard time believing anyone from the company even knows about Woodrow let alone met with DISD to pressure them to improve so they could move here. That sounds strange and unlikely. The school is improving because of strong neighborhood support, and a much better feeder pattern. Jacob’s deserves none of the credit for that taking place. In the end, they didn’t locate their headquarters anywhere near Woodrow. Instead, they located their headquarters in the WT White attendance zone. That school way underperforms considering all the nice neighborhoods zoned to it. Maybe if they’re so concerned with DISD they can fix WT White.
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Originally Posted by tcualum
There's the variety of two very different cities with everything in between. For the visual arts, for example, we have a wide variety of places including Nasher Sculpture Center, Kimbell Art Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Fort Worth Modern Art, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the Crow Collection of Asian Art. On a smaller scale, you have the Arlington Museum of Art, which has hosted some impressive traveling exhibits, and Northpark Center. Sure Northpark is a mall, but they have a more impressive art collection than many art museums.
Houston has great museums too. I’m not sure that would be a big factor in between the 2. Housing is cheaper and I think they offer a little more variety in restaurants. I had a job interview in Houston at the beginning of the month. I only did the interview because there were positions open in multiple cities. My biggest issue with Houston would be the location of the airports. Both of them are so far from the neighborhoods I’d actually consider living in and I’d have to go there frequently. Driving across Houston in that traffic is a deal breaker.
Well yes, DFW does deserve congratulations, their achievements are almost beyond phenomenal.
The purpose of my comparisons is to ask what Houston should be doing differently to attract more out-of-area investment that brings good jobs, in a manner similar to what DFW has been achieiving. Not to ignore what investments have been made there either, or what growth companies are already there. Houston probably won't ever be like DFW in that regard, but you have to think it could be doing better than what it has been. As I said, with such an excess of quality office space, a great workforce, and excellent suburbs, Houston is easily ready to accommodate those relocations or investments. What lessons can be learned from DFW?
I think that's a good discussion to have. My opinion is that A. DFW does a MUCH better job of marketing/maximizing its strengths, B. Houston, fairly or not, is considered more of a disaster/climate risk (than most places, not just DFW) and C. DFW also does a better job of coordinating across different jurisdictions to get things done - particularly getting funding to get regional improvements done.
With respect to the first point, we can see the difference just here on C/D on how the negatives for each region are described. Usually the worst that DFW gets are "bland", "boring", "flat", "too spread-out", etc. Houston's negatives are usually "ugly", "chaotic", "poorly planned", "ghetto", etc. That in and of itself is a problem not because of whether any of those adjectives are true or not, but because of the perception by many people that they are.
Now, corporate planners are not necessarily making decisions based on perception - they certainly do a lot of research, both on the ground and otherwise, to determine where they want to move. But at the end of the day, they have to convince their leadership and more importantly, their employees, that the place they propose to move to will be a net positive for folks that would be asked to relocate. Those perceptions that are out there about DFW and Houston, fair or not, matter.
The second point is pretty self-explanatory. I do think there are certain businesses that would not consider relocating here due to that alone. Each major flood event hurts us there. Again, its more of a perception thing (most Houstonians have never flooded), but it matters. I do think though if many of these flood control projects come into fruition and they help the city avoid some of the larger flood events we've had in recent years, this issue won't be as big of a deal to many companies. It will take time.
As far as the third point, this is something I really think DFW does well and that is getting everyone together to bring home the bacon, particularly when we're talking about transportation and other civic improvement projects that can drive economic growth. The history of this as it goes for transportation goes back a long way and its just part of the fabric of the region. Houston is understandably more Houston-centric and sometimes the coordination with other jurisdictions in the region just isn't there. The whole I-45 debacle we're having now wouldn't happen in DFW because all of those jurisdictions would have fought this out with TxDOT well before project got to the ready-for-construction phase. See what's happening in Austin now with the I-35 project - I have zero doubt that by the time it's approved for construction all of the relevant stakeholders will be on board because they are all engaging early and identifying problems and potential solutions at this stage. We need to do a better job of securing funding for competitive projects on both the state (realizing with the recent GLO/George P. Bush funding scandal that there are headwinds there) and Federal level, particularly infrastructure and transportation improvements we need.
Politicians, the GHP, and other business groups have to reassess how they're marketing the city and the region as a whole. All of the positives (and a WHOLE lot more) that you mentioned of Houston are true and there's been a poor job done in telling that story it seems. The vision for what Houston can, will, and should be is lacking from regional leadership, imho.
Well yes, DFW does deserve congratulations, their achievements are almost beyond phenomenal.
The purpose of my comparisons is to ask what Houston should be doing differently to attract more out-of-area investment that brings good jobs, in a manner similar to what DFW has been achieiving. Not to ignore what investments have been made there either, or what growth companies are already there. Houston probably won't ever be like DFW in that regard, but you have to think it could be doing better than what it has been. As I said, with such an excess of quality office space, a great workforce, and excellent suburbs, Houston is easily ready to accommodate those relocations or investments. What lessons can be learned from DFW?
I would say it should be doing nothing different than what it’s currently doing. Yes, you should always look for ways to improve but the reason things seem lopsided to you is because you’re looking at this solely from a relocation perspective. This is a small percentage of GDP even though their effects stem further from them. In post pandemic relocations, Houston and Dallas are tied at 2 a piece. Dallas with CBRE and Aecom and Houston with HPE and NRG. NRG is part of an electric utility boom currently going on in Houston which is also part of what got Entergy to double its footprint. Maintaining Crown Castle before they became F500 was an essential move as well. Before quadrupling it’s footprint, Crown Castle seeked incentives from the city to grow. CC’s emergence is not only a W for the job it has created but their effects have reflected in other areas as well. Because they own the vast majority of the National 5G fibers, AI companies like Nuro set up in Houston for its . And then of course the continued growth of the Texas Medical Center is also fueled by the GHP with their partnerships with UT and A&M. Also as it relates to this thread, one of Houston’s growth F500s is also an engineering/A&D company with KBR.
Now, sure will Houston attract more F500s than the two it got last year? We have no guarantee but we weren’t even expecting the ones that did so it’s clear some changes have been made.
Summed up, each city should do what works for it. Austin isn’t a traditional F500 hotspot like Dallas but that hasn’t stopped it’s growth. Nashville, Atlanta etc. While there’s things from Dallas’ leaders that Houston can learn from, it is NOT a formula that Houston should replicate. Houston’s success from TMC-higher education deals, energy venture capital, communications partnerships etc have accounted for their growth which is why Dallas is neither running away with it in GDP nor F500 companies. Houston actually surpassed Dallas last year in F500s and Aecom currently ties them back up.
I have a hard time believing anyone from the company even knows about Woodrow let alone met with DISD to pressure them to improve so they could move here. Sounds strange and unlikely. The school is improving because of strong neighborhood support, and a much better feeder pattern. Jacob’s deserves none of the credit for that taking place. In the end, they didn’t locate their headquarters anywhere near Woodrow, so I don’t believe any of that. I think the headquarters would be in the WT White would be the attendance zone. That school way underperforms considering all the nice neighborhoods zoned to it..
You are confused as usual. Jacobs Engineering moved downtown a few years ago and Jacobs was the company interested in WW.
AECOM is the company moving its HQ to Noel Road near WT White.
For bonus points WT White underperforms in part because so many people in the nice neighborhoods nearby send their kids to Jesuit, Hockaday, Ursuline, St. Marks, ESD, Greenhill and Parish. WTW is more or less surrounded by those schools.
ETA - FWIIW it's 4.4 miles from WWHS to Jacobs HQ.
You are confused as usual. Jacobs Engineering moved downtown a few years ago and Jacobs was the company interested in WW.
AECOM is the company moving its HQ to Noel Road near WT White.
For bonus points WT White underperforms in part because so many people in the nice neighborhoods nearby send their kids to Jesuit, Hockaday, Ursuline, St. Marks, ESD, Greenhill and Parish. WTW is more or less surrounded by those schools.
I should have started a new paragraph and used AECOM instead of “they”. However, my point still stands.
A lot of those schools pre-date WT White so there have to be other factors.
I agree about W. T. White. I also want to add that another reason WTW underperforms is because TC Marsh Middle School underperforms even more than WTW. So, the kids who go to the feeder elementary schools go to another middle school (private, TAG, or move) because of TC Marsh. If DISD would clean up TC Marsh, I wouldn't be surprised more kids would stick around. I went to TC Marsh and WTW. I saw more drugs and fights at Marsh than White. I watched a girl snort cheese in my 8th grade science class. I even witnessed a girl getting sexually assaulted at Marsh. The worst I saw at WTW was the occasional fight during passing period from the "regular" kids. I'm not sure why Marsh is so bad. Maybe the worst of the bad kids get weeded out before they get to high school.
As for AECOM, I am not surprised they are moving their headquarters here. As someone who works in the same industry, it will be interesting to see if anything changes. Dev Rastogi - the woman quoted in the article is a highly commended transportation engineer. She moved to AECOM from LAN about 2 years ago I believe. I wouldn't be surprised if she was one of the people that helped make this decision.
Part 1. I got this bit from the CEO of my wife's company A. who lives in Lakewood B. is very wired into things related to that part of town. Somewhere around 2015 people from the chamber, relo types, city officials and an advance team from Jacobs met with DISD about what could be done about Woodrow Wilson High School in order to make it a more viable option for Jacobs employees to both send their kids to WW and obviously live within its attendance zone. Part of all this is the area is very close to DTD. FWIIW WW already had a decent reputation for running a bit of a school within a school such that high achievers had a chance and the school annually graduated a fair number of kids with impressive achievements under their belts. However, nearly never any NMSFs etc.
Part 2. Coinciding nicely with Part 1 which is mostly hearsay.........around the same time WW/DISD began shifting some teachers around, devoting more attention to AP, SAT, ACT, STAAR etc. and in fact over the years most of those metrics have improved, some significantly.
Part 3. There's a chicken and egg factor. How much of this is Jacobs related kids making things better/for that matter how many Jacobs related kids are enrolled at WW? How much is due to DISD's efforts to improve WW's feeder schools? How much is due to whatever tinkering DISD employed in '15, '16, '17 etc. specific to WW? That said a DISD school improving its SAT average by over 40 points and while upping its participation rate nicely over a three year run is fairly impressive.
Maybe someone here more familiar with WW can chime in?
ETA - excuse the typos I left my glasses at my office.
Good Post.
I wanted to add on.
DISD (or any inner city school district) is never going to have test scores and metrics that are at the same level as an affluent suburban district.
What the DISD (and for that matter I think Houston already does a decent job of this) is make sure there are some areas located in the City ISD where an upper middle class to affluent resident can send his kids to a decent school where the kids want to go to college.
There are a lot of people in Dallas who do not want to live in a suburb and do a hour commute everyday just so that their kid can to the huge suburban high school. Especially if they are a big shot that works Downtown.
This was something that Mayor Rawlings set in motion about 6-7 years ago. The DISD needed some decent attendance zones in the inner city for Dallas proper to be able to attract huge companies.
WT White and Hillcrest in North Dallas, and Woodrow Wilson in Lakewood/East Dallas are all schools that are just as good as their suburban counterparts. DISD TAG is one of the top magnet schools in the entire state.
Those are the 4 DISD High schools that upper middle class residents of the DISD will send their kids.
These schools will have a broader demographic and more lower income kids than their Collin County counterparts.....but all that means is that its easier for the students to hit the top 10% mark.
Its also a hell of lot easier to make cheerleader at Woodrow Wilson than Southlake or Plano.
I've known kids that went to Woodrow that went to USC, Rice, Yale...in addition to the Texas regulars like Baylor, TCU, SMU, Texas, A&M....etc
I would say it should be doing nothing different than what it’s currently doing. Yes, you should always look for ways to improve but the reason things seem lopsided to you is because you’re looking at this solely from a relocation perspective. This is a small percentage of GDP even though their effects stem further from them. In post pandemic relocations, Houston and Dallas are tied at 2 a piece. Dallas with CBRE and Aecom and Houston with HPE and NRG. NRG is part of an electric utility boom currently going on in Houston which is also part of what got Entergy to double its footprint. Maintaining Crown Castle before they became F500 was an essential move as well. Before quadrupling it’s footprint, Crown Castle seeked incentives from the city to grow. CC’s emergence is not only a W for the job it has created but their effects have reflected in other areas as well. Because they own the vast majority of the National 5G fibers, AI companies like Nuro set up in Houston for its . And then of course the continued growth of the Texas Medical Center is also fueled by the GHP with their partnerships with UT and A&M. Also as it relates to this thread, one of Houston’s growth F500s is also an engineering/A&D company with KBR.
Now, sure will Houston attract more F500s than the two it got last year? We have no guarantee but we weren’t even expecting the ones that did so it’s clear some changes have been made.
Summed up, each city should do what works for it. Austin isn’t a traditional F500 hotspot like Dallas but that hasn’t stopped it’s growth. Nashville, Atlanta etc. While there’s things from Dallas’ leaders that Houston can learn from, it is NOT a formula that Houston should replicate. Houston’s success from TMC-higher education deals, energy venture capital, communications partnerships etc have accounted for their growth which is why Dallas is neither running away with it in GDP nor F500 companies. Houston actually surpassed Dallas last year in F500s and Aecom currently ties them back up.
I'm not concerned with F500 lists (sorry, I know that was kind of the point of the thread). I am interested in large-scale investments or relocations that have major secondary impacts in the local economy, principally because of large numbers of good-paying jobs, massive local procurement, and/or tremendous exports outside the region. It's great that Houston is growing some of its own future movers and shakers. But why shouldn't Houston also compete for the Schwab, JP Morgan Chase (which already had a significant presence here, why didn't they put their investment here instead of Plano?), State Farm, Toyota, etc. etc. type of investments? I'm not saying we're going to equal DFW in that regard at all. But the DFW share of those between the two metros (and not to mention the investments made by tech companies and others in Austin) seems way more lopsided than it should be. We can and should do more. So, I disagree with you.
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