Austin, Tex.
Irvine, Calif.
Princeton, N.J.
Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area
Silicon Valley area
Best Neighborhoods: The Reinvented District
Much of Houston's revival, like that of many reinvented districts, has been stoked by immigration. Just 10 miles southwest of downtown Houston, on Bellaire Boulevard among strip-mall stores advertising in Chinese and Vietnamese, is the headquarters of MetroBank, a small but growing financial institution that has funded much of Houston's thriving immigrant-based economy. Its founder, Taiwan-born former salesman and motel owner Don Wang, was among the hundreds of thousands of newcomers who poured into Houston during the boom times of the 1970s.
When the Houston economy tanked, domestic migration to the city went into reverse, with a net loss of more than 140,000 residents from 1985 to 1990. But Wang's clients, mostly immigrants, kept coming. By 2000, Houston's minorities--Latino, Asian, and African American--will constitute more than two-thirds of the city's population.
Amid the hard times and demographic shifts, Wang and his clients saw an enormous opportunity to pick up real estate, buy homes, and start businesses in fields such as food processing, distribution, and electronics assembly. "It was cheap to start a business here and easy to find good labor," Wang observes. "It still is. We consider Houston the best place in the country to do business, even if no one on the outside knows it."
Typical Reinvented Districts
Houston, downtown
Indianapolis, downtown
Miami's airport area
San Francisco, SoMa section
Southgate, in L.A.
Troy, Mich.
Best Neighborhoods: The Networked Neighborhood
There are networked neighborhoods of many kinds, but the most highly evolved are still in and around Los Angeles--where they've been spawned by the fleetingly collaborative, project-by-project habits of the film industry. One such community is Culver City's Hayden Tract neighborhood, where Nick Rothenberg based his 27-person Web-site development company, W3-design.
The Hayden Tract's location--next to Sony Studios and near the burgeoning film and video production centers of Venice and Santa Monica, as well as Hollywood--has made it easy for companies there to maintain relationships with the entertainment industry. Among W3's clients are the 69th Annual Academy Awards, Paramount Pictures, and Bandai Digital Entertainment, as well as AST Computers, Infiniti, and Kaiser Permanente.
The Tract's location also has helped spawn successful multimedia companies, including Website Magazine, Digital Planet, Lightspeed Media, and Cyberstudios. Big companies, too--for example, Kodak's Digital Imaging division--have moved in to be close to the action. Much of the appeal, Rothenberg says, is based on proximity to companies in the area--a particularly rare asset in a sprawling region like greater Los Angeles.
"It's the kind of place where I can call another CEO and say, 'Let's meet at the coffee shop down the street," Rothenberg says. "The only problem is, you have to be cool about it because your competitors might be listening."
Typical Networked Neighborhoods
Cambridge, Mass.
Culver City, Calif.
Glendale-Burbank, Calif., area
Lower Manhattan
Troy, Mich.
Joel Kotkin is a senior fellow with the Pepperdine Institute for Public Policy, a fellow in urban studies at the Pacific Research Institute, and a contributing writer at Inc . Research assistance for this story was provided by Michael Lynch.
Resources
Are you thinking about relocating? These books will help pave the way. AnnaLee Saxenian's Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 (Harvard University Press, 800-448-2242, 1994, $24.95) assesses the forces that power two of the most economically dynamic regions on earth. Looking for action? Joel Garreau's Edge City: Life on the New Frontier (Anchor, 800-323-9872, 1992, $14.95) shows that the fringes of large cities nourish new business growth. And finally, consider with a jaundiced eye the materials that economic-development offices prepare to attract people just like you. For more information on areas mentioned in Joel Kotkin's article, consult the following sources:
While costs should not rule your choice of location, nobody can ignore dollars and cents. Regional Financial Associates (610-696-8700), in West Chester, Pa., compares typical business costs around the United States.
COMPUTER RESCUE SQUAD, Carol Conway, 4426 SE 16th Pl., Suite 3, Cape Coral, FL 33904; 941-542-8450 58
HAHT SOFTWARE, Richard Holcomb, 4200 Six Forks Rd., Raleigh, NC 27609; 919-786-5100 58
METROBANK, Don Wang, 9600 Bellaire Blvd., Suite 252, Houston, TX 77036; 713-776-3876 58
SAS INSTITUTE, Les Hamashima, Sas Campus Dr., Cary, NC 27513; 919-677-8000, ext. 5447 58
SEARAIL INTERNATIONAL, Charlie Wilson, 723 Main St., Suite 610, Houston, TX 77002; 713-863-0011 58
W3-DESIGN, Nick Rothenberg, 8522 National Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232; 310-815-1177; info-la@w3-design.com 58
