H-Town jumped 43 spots into No. 97 this year. Photo via Getty Images

Things are looking a little brighter for Houston as the city was recently named among the top 100 best places to live in U.S. News and World Report's "Best Places to Live" list for 2024-2025.

Previously, H-Town had shockingly plummeted toward the bottom of the list as No. 140 in the 2023-2024 rankings. But the latest report has placed Houston at No. 97, suggesting substantial improvements over the last year.

U.S. News annually measures 150 top American cities for their livability and ranks them based on four major indexes: quality of life, value, desirability, and job market.

New for the 2024-2025 report, U.S. News updated its methodology to analyze city-based data rather than metropolitan area data. Secondly, the report's annual survey decided to place greater weight on a city's "value and job market" while "weights for desirability and quality of life took a slight dip" on the grading scale.

"Rising concerns about career prospects, housing affordability and increased cost of goods and services are reflected in this year’s rankings," said U.S. News loans expert and reporter Erika Giovanetti in a press release. "While quality of life remains the top priority for many Americans, a city’s value and job market are becoming increasingly important for those looking for a place to live."

There's many factors that draw folks to Houston, among them our city's diversity, the highly esteemed schools, top universities, and much more. Houston is also a great place for retirees looking to settle down without compromising on the big city lifestyle. The city truly has something for everyone.

The good news continues: Houston additionally moved up two spots to take No. 8 on the report's Best Place to Live in Texas list for 2024. The Bayou City ranked No. 10 last year.

Elsewhere in Texas
The recent focus on city-based data was likely a major factor that fueled Houston's improvement in the statewide and national rankings, but it also favorably shifted nine other Texas cities.

Austin – which previously ranked No. 40 in last year's rankings – became the only city to represent the Lone Star State among the top 10 best places to live in 2024. The Texas Capital jumped up 31 spots to claim No. 9 nationally, due to its "high desirability and job market scores," the report said.

Three cities in the Rio Grande Valley also ranked higher than Houston, suggesting that South Texas may be a better place to live than East Texas. The border towns of McAllen (No. 48) and Brownsville (No. 87) climbed into the overall top 100 this year after formerly ranking No. 137 and No. 134 last year. Meanwhile, Corpus Christi moved up from No. 132 last year to No. 77 in 2024.

Naples, Florida won the gold medal as the No. 1 best place to live in the U.S. in 2024. Rounding out the top five are Boise, Idaho (No. 2); Colorado Springs, Colorado (No. 3); Greenville, South Carolina (No. 4); and Charlotte, North Carolina (No. 5).

Here's how other Texas cities faired in 2024's Best Places to Live report:

  • No. 62 – El Paso (up from No. 128 last year)
  • No. 89 – San Antonio (up from No. 103 last year)
  • No. 95 – Dallas (up from No. 113 last year)
  • No. 99 – Beaumont (up from No. 131 last year)
  • No. 107 – Killeen (up from No. 122 last year)
The full report and its methodology can be found on realestate.usnews.com.

------

This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Houston House at SXSW 2024 featured conversations about startup scaling, tips from CEOs, and more. Photo via Allie Danziger/LinkedIn

Overheard: Innovators sound off on future of work, converging industries at Houston House at SXSW 2024

Eavesdropping in Austin

Houston innovators talked big topics at SXSW 2024 — from the startup scaling and converging industries to the future of work.

Houston House, which was put on by the Greater Houston Partnership on March 11, hosted four panels full of experts from Houston. If you missed the day-long activation, here are some highlights from the experts who each commented on the future of the Bayou City when it comes to startups, technology, innovation, and the next generation's workforce.

"When we think about Houston, we think about access to at-scale infrastructure, amenities, and workforce and talent pools."

— Remington Tonar, co-founder and chief growth officer at Cart.com, says about why the company chose to return its headquarters back to Houston last year. One of these amenities, Tonar explained, is Houston's global airports.

"If New York and Austin had a baby, it would be Houston, because you have friendly people with a big-city culture."

— Mitra Miller, vice president and board member of Houston Angel Network, says, adding that Houston has a cost efficiency to it, which should be at the forefront of founders' minds when considering where to locate.

"We are not only attracting global talents, we are also attracting global wealth and foreign investments because we are the rising city of the future. We are the global launch pad where you can scale internationally very quickly."

— Sunny Zhang, founder of TrueLeap, says adding how there's a redistribution of global workforce happening when you consider ongoing global affairs.

"We overwhelmingly as a company, and my co-founder would agree, knew we had to go the Houston path. And we started funneling a lot more resources here."

— Carolyn Rodz, co-founder and CEO of Hello Alice, says, explaining that the pandemic helped equalize the talent across the country, and this has been to the benefit of cities like Houston.

"Houston is here with arms open, welcoming people and actively recruiting."

— Sean Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Amperon, says, emphasizing how Texas has made moves to being business friendly. Amperon was founded in New York, before moving to Houston a couple years ago.

"There is a revolution starting to happen in Houston right now."

— Trevor Best, co-founder and CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics, says, first commenting on the momentum from Rice University, where his company's technology originates from. But, as he adds, when you compare the ecosystem when the startup was founded in 2019 to where it's at now, "there is so much more happening."

"Houston has a critical mass in terms of aerospace."

— Stephanie Munez Murphy of Aegus Aerospace says, saying specifically that NASA's Johnson Space Center holds some responsibility for that. "JSC is the home of opening up space commercialization."

"There's diversity in industries people are coming from, but also in terms of experience and expertise that (Houstonians) have."

— Robyn Cardwell of Omniscience says, adding that Houston's diversity goes further than just where people originate from. "Houston has all these pieces put together ... for growing and scaling organizations," she adds.

"I've worked with thousands of students in Houston who are actively looking to better themselves and grow their career post college or post high school and go into the workforce."

— Allie Danziger of Ascent Funding says, adding that Gen Z, which is already entering the workforce, is entrepreneurial and ready to change the world. "Seeing the energy of Houstonians is just thrilling," she adds.

"We're working together in the Houston community. ... There are so many opportunities to collaborate but we need conveners." 

— Stacy Putman of INEOS says, adding that within industry there has been a lack of discussion and collaboration because of competition. But, as she's observing, that's changing thanks to conveners at colleges or at the Greater Houston Partnership.

"The opportunity for Houston is that everybody has to step up to be in some way, shape, or form helping us with this."

— Raj Salhotra of Momentum Education says about supporting the future workforce of Houston, including low-income household students.

Houston has been deemed the fourth best city for women in technology, according to a SmartAsset report. Christina Morillo/Pexels

Houston named 4th best metro for women in tech by a new study

Who run the world?

If you're a woman in the technology industry here in Houston, you're in the right place. Houston was recognized as the 4th best city in the United States for women in technology jobs, according to a report from SmartAsset.

The study took into consideration four key factors; gender pay gap, income after housing, and percentage of tech jobs filled by women were all double weighted, while four-year employment growth was factored in. Using data from the U.S. Census, SmartAsset only looked at cities with populations of 200,000 residents or more that had reliable data, which left the study with 58 cities across the country.

Houston's tech pay is what stood out for the city. The average female tech worker in the Bayou City has $60,600 left from her salary after paying for a home, and Houston ranks eighth overall in this metric. With a ratio of 99 percent, Houston's wage gap when it comes to tech jobs ranked the city No. 3 for smallest wage gap. However, at 26 percent, Houston has a somewhat low percentage of women in tech positions.

No other Texas cities appeared on the list, though it's unclear if they were among the 58 cities evaluated as a part of the study. Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia ranked ahead of Houston. California's major tech players — such as San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland — all ranked in the middle of the pack or worse.

The studied compared the cities against the national average. The full list of the top 15 cities, seen below, all ranked higher than the national average, based on the study's index.

This isn't the first time this year that Texas has been recognized as a good place for women in business. In January, a study found that the Lone Star State was No. 1 for female entrepreneurs. However, when it comes to STEM jobs, another report found Houston to be less desirable of a metro. But, as the SmartAsset study found, affordability is important, and Houston was deemed one of the most affordable cities to live in this year.

Via SmartAsset

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

3 Houston tech companies recognized for creating top inventions of the year

best of the rest

Innovations from three Houston companies have been crowned among the top inventions of the year.

Time magazine’s "200 Best Inventions of 2024" identified top innovations across consumer goods, home health, robotics, sustainability, and two dozen other categories.

Fervo Energy, a provider of geothermal power, was recognized the Green Energy category for its FervoFlex system. As Time explains, the system enables horizontal drilling into hot rock under the earth’s surface and pumping in water to generate hot water and steam. The geothermal energy that’s produced can be stored and released for future use by Fervo customers.

Jack Norbeck, Fervo’s co-founder and chief technology officer, predicts that by 2050, geothermal energy will become “the backbone of the decarbonized energy system.”

In September, Fervo secured a $100 million bridge loan for the first phase of its ongoing Cape Station project in Utah, which is being touted as the world’s largest geothermal energy plant. Slated for completion in June 2026, this initial phase is expected to generate 90 megawatts of renewable energy. Ultimately, the plant is supposed to supply 400 megawatts of clean energy by 2028 for customers in California.

Time also lauded NanoTech Materials among its Manufacturing and Materials honorees for its Insulative Ceramic Particle. This powder can be added to materials like drywall or shingles to improve fire resistance and decrease heat penetration, according to Time. NanoTech’s Wildfire Shield coating for buildings contains the powder. Wildfire Shield prevents damage to materials and harm from noxious smoke.

NanoTech’s other product, Cool Roof Coat, is painted on a building to decrease HVAC use. This year, NanoTech moved into a 43,000-square-foot space in Katy, Texas, and brought on new partners that expanded the company's reach in the Middle East and Singapore.

The third Houston company to be praised by Time is BiVACOR — named to its Experimental category of the list. This year, the company’s artificial heart has kept three U.S. patients alive long enough to wait for donor organs, according to Time, the first of these operations took place this summer in Houston.

Dr. William Cohn, chief medical officer of BiVACOR, previously told InnovationMap that while the Total Artificial Heart is being used currently as a "bridge-to-transplant" device, he believes it has the potential to be a permanent solution for the 200,000 patients who die of heart failure annually. Last year, only around 4,000 patients were able to receive heart transplants.

The full list of this year's top inventions is available online.

Houston researchers secure funding for superconductivity project

fresh funding

Researchers at the Department of Physics at the University of Houston and Texas Center for Superconductivity have received a second-year funding from global leader in business of invention Intellectual Ventures to continue their work on exploring superconductivity,

The project, which is led by Paul C. W. Chu, T.L.L. Temple Chair of Science, professor of physics and founding director of the TcSUH and assistant professor of physics and a new TcSUH principal investigator Liangzi Deng, has been awarded $767,000 to date.

“Working with IV gives us the freedom known for scientific pursuit and at the same time provides intellectual guidance and assistance in accord with the mission goal,” Chu says in a news release.

The researchers are working on making superconductivity easier to achieve. At room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure is where the researchers are looking to simplify superconductivity. One finding from Chu and Deng’s team is called pressure-quench protocol, or PQP.The PQP will help maintain key properties (like superconductivity) in certain materials after the high pressure needed to create them is removed.

“Intellectual Ventures funded this research because Paul Chu is one of the acknowledged thought leaders in the area of superconductivity with a multi-decade track record of scientific innovation and creativity,” Brian Holloway, vice president of IV’s Deep Science Fund and Enterprise Science Fund, adds. “The work led by Chu and Deng on pressure quenching could result in game-changing progress in the field. We are very excited about the preliminary results from the first year and we look forward to continuing this collaboration.”

The project showed early success the first year, as the research used a special system to synthesize materials under high temperatures and pressure. The second-year projects will include the investigation of pressure-induced/enhanced superconductivity in cuprates and hydrides.

“If successful, UH will once again break the record for the highest superconducting Tc at atmospheric pressure,” Deng says in the release. “Additionally, we will collaborate closely with theorists to uncover the mechanism of PQP. Our research has far-reaching implications, with the potential to extend beyond superconductors to other material systems.”

------

This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.