Houston ranks as the seventh most-competitive city in the US — and ties for No. 23 worldwide — a new report shows.
The Economist Intelligence Unit report, "Hot spots: Benchmarking global city competitiveness," was commissioned by Citigroup Inc., (NYSE: C) and evaluated 120 of the world’s major cities on eight categories of competitiveness and 31 individual indicators.
Among those eight categories, Houston’s best score was in institutional effectiveness, where it tied for No. 10. Similarly, it tied for No. 11 in human capital.
"The most significant advantage that developed country cities hold is their ability to develop and attract the world’s top talent," the report stated. "European and American cities dominate the human capital category of the index. This stems primarily from the quality of their educational systems and the entrepreneurial mindset of their citizens."
Houston also ranked No. 18 for economic strength, which takes into account the city's predicted GDP average expansion of 4.4 percent over 2010-2016. That is one of the best forecasts for American and European cities, as most will not grow more than 3 percent. However, many Asian cities will grow an average of 8 percent or more over that period.
The report found the fastest overall growth comes from a "middle tier" of mid-sized cities — including Houston — with populations of 2 million to 5 million. Collectively, that group is expected to grow by 8.7 percent annually.
"Economic dynamism is definitely rising elsewhere, especially in Asian cities, but U.S. and European cities have legacy advantages that give them a strong competitive edge," Leo Abruzzese, the EIU's global forecasting director, said in a statement accompanying the report. "In particular, these developed cities are better at attracting top talent from across the world."
Source: Houston Business Journal
What a great way to start your day--this is great news for Houston--being humble is great for the city it allows us to keep our secrets with out to many people moving here. In the inner-loop it is very competitive


