2 Houston suburbs roll onto top-15 spots on U-Haul’s list of growing cities

on the move

Folks are making a run to Missouri City. Photo Courtesy Missouri City

More movers hauled their belongings to Texas than any other state last year. And those headed to the Greater Houston area were mostly pointed toward Missouri City and Conroe, according to a new study.

In its recently released annual growth report, U-Haul ranks Missouri City and Conroe at No. 13 and No. 19, respectively among U.S. cities with the most inbound moves via U-Haul trucks in 2022. Richardson was the only other Texas cities to make the list coming in at No. 15.

Texas ranks No. 1 overall as the state with the most in-bound moves using U-Haul trucks. This is the second year in a row and the fifth year since 2016 that Texas has earned the distinction.

“The 2022 trends in migration followed very similar patterns to 2021 with Texas, Florida, the Carolinas and the Southwest continuing to see solid growth,” U-Haul international president John Taylor says in a news release. “We still have areas with strong demand for one-way rentals. While overall migration in 2021 was record-breaking, we continue to experience significant customer demand to move out of some geographic areas to destinations at the top of our growth list.”

U-Haul determines the top 25 cities by analyzing more than 2 million one-way U-Haul transactions over the calendar year. Then the company calculated the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks entering a specific area versus departing from that area. The top U-Haul growth states are determined the same way.

The studies note that U-Haul migration trends do not directly correlate to population or economic growth — but they are an “effective gauge” of how well cities and states are attracting and maintaining residents.

Missouri City is known for its convenient location only minutes from downtown Houston. The city’s proximity to major freeways, rail lines, the Port of Houston, and Bush and Hobby Airports links its businesses with customers “around the nation and the world,” per its website.

The No. 19-ranked city of Conroe is “the perfect blend of starry nights and city lights,” according to the Visit Conroe website. Conroe offers plenty of outdoor activities, as it is bordered by Lake Conroe, Sam Houston National Forest and W. Goodrich Jones State Forest. But it also has a busy downtown area with breweries, theaters, shopping and live music.

To view U-Haul’s full growth cities report, click here.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

The Woodlands is booming. Photo by Derrick Bryant Photography

Booming Houston suburb hauls in top spot among growing U.S. cities

making moves

The Houston metro area's population is poised to continue booming over the next decade, so it should be no surprise that U-Haul calculated one Houston suburb as one of the top U.S. cities for growth.

In its annual report, released January 7, the company details migration trends across the U.S. Analyzing data from 2019, the moving and rental company placed Spring-The Woodlands at No. 14 among the 2019 U-Haul Growth Cities.

To determine the country's top 25 growth cities, U-Haul analyzed more than 2 million rental transactions over the calendar year. It then calculated the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks entering an area versus those leaving an area.

Unlike U.S. Census Bureau or real estate data, the company says its U-Haul Growth Cities offers a snapshot of an area's retention rates versus strictly growth.

"While U-Haul migration trends do not correlate directly to population or economic growth, the company's growth data is an effective gauge of how well cities and states are attracting and maintaining residents," it explains in a release.

Three other Texas cities were perched on the list: the Austin suburb of Round Rock-Pflugerville (No. 5), the San Antonio suburb of New Braunfels (No. 11), and the Dallas suburb of McKinney (No. 17).

The top spot this year went to Raleigh-Durham, where arrivals accounted for nearly 51.4 percent of all one-way U-Haul traffic. In its explanation as to why the North Carolina hub is growing, the company points to the region's booming tech sector, which is says rivals that of Austin.

"We have tons of businesses coming here, bringing new residents in U-Haul trucks," said Kris Smith, U-Haul Company of Raleigh president, in a release. "Raleigh-Durham is rivaling Austin for attracting tech businesses and young professionals. We're seeing Silicon Valley talent and companies flock to the area. With a competitive cost of living, good wages, and job growth, Raleigh-Durham is experiencing a boom in population."

But when it came to the top growth state, neither Texas nor North Carolina got the No. 1 spot. That honor went to Florida, which took the crown from Texas, the winner in 2018. The Sunshine State claimed seven cities among the top 25, including five in the top 10.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston urban agricultural nonprofit gears up for opening of new farm in Second Ward

GROWING FOR GOOD

Small Places, a Houston-based urban agricultural nonprofit, is looking forward to putting down roots beyond the fresh vegetables they grow in the East End.

After securing a 40-year land agreement with Harris County, the organization, which provides produce to families facing food insecurity in the Second Ward, is expecting to open their new farm in February 2025. Small Places’ founders hope the 1.5 acres of land named Finca Tres Robles, located at 5715 Canal Street, will be the beginning of Houston’s urban farming movement.

Founded in 2014 by brothers Daniel, Mark, and Thomas Garcia-Prats, Small Places was born out of the latter brother’s desire to work on an organic farm in his hometown of Houston. After farming in Maine, Iowa, and Nicaragua, Thomas had hoped to manage an urban farm but was unable to find a place. He then roped his brothers, who had no agricultural background at the time, into creating one.

“I joke that my journey in agriculture started the day we started out there. We didn’t grow up gardening or farming or anything of the sort,” says Daniel, Small Places’ director of operations. “It was a big learning curve, but how we approached it to our benefit was through our diverse set of backgrounds.”

Small Places began their need-based produce distribution programs through a partnership with nearby pre-school, Ninfa Lorenzo Early Childhood Center, providing food insecure families with fresh produce and later cooking lessons in 2017. When COVID-19 hit Houston in 2020, Daniel says Small Places pivoted towards becoming a redistribution center for their farming contacts who needed to offload produce as restaurants shut down, selling their crops through the organization. Their neighborhood produce program was then born, providing free boxes of produce to nearly 200 families in the East End at the pandemic’s peak.

“We found ourselves in the middle of two communities who were in need, one being people in our community who were losing jobs and were in need of food as well as our farming connections who were losing restaurant accounts,” Daniel explains.

Small Places grows a variety of vegetables at their East End based farm, selling them at a weekly farm stand. (Photo courtesy Small Places)Small Places grows a variety of vegetables at their East End based farm, selling them at a weekly farm stand. (Photo courtesy Small Places)

Small Places currently assists 65 families living predominantly within two miles of their original location and they recently restarted their programming with Ninfa Lorenzo Early Childhood Center, and accepts Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP) at their farm stand. Daniel says once Finca Tres Robles opens, Small Places plans to bring back cooking classes and educational seminars on healthy eating for which his brother Mark, a former teacher, created the original curriculum. The farm will also have a grocery store stocked with Finca Tres Robles' produce and eventually food staples from local vendors.

“Being social and preparing a meal can be fun, interesting, and delicious. Being able to pull all of that into a program was really important for us,” Daniel explains.

Farming successfully in the middle of Houston for their subsidized programs and produce market requires Small Places’ team to be strategic in their operations. Using his background in engineering and manufacturing, Daniel says they’ve closely monitored trends in which crops perform the best in Houston’s varied, humid climate over the past decade.

They also follow Thomas’s philosophy of allowing nature to work for them, planting crops at times when specific pests are minimal or integrating natural predators into their environment. And lots of composting. Daniel says they accept compostable materials from community members, before burying the raw organic matter in the earth in between their plant beds, allowing it to mature, then later using it to nourish their crops. Daniel says he and his co-founders hope to see more community-focused, sustainable operations like theirs spring up across Houston.

“Small Places is about hopefully more than one farm and really trying to turn urban agriculture and a farm like ours from a novel thing into something that’s just a part of communities and the fabric of Houston for generations to come,” Daniel says.

Houston female-focused health tech accelerator names top companies at annual event

you go girls

A Houston organization that accelerates and supports female founders leading innovative health tech startups has concluded its 2024 program with the announcement of this year's top companies.

Ignite Health, an accelerator founded in 2017 by longtime Houston health care professional Ayse McCracken, named its 2024 winners at its annual Fire Pitch Competition in Houston last month. The companies pitched health tech solutions across lung health, renal therapy, breastfeeding tech, and more.

"This year’s competition was a culmination of passion, innovation, and hard work from the top startups in our 2024 Accelerator Program," reads a LinkedIn post from Ignite. "These trailblazing founders earned their spot on the stage by demonstrating exceptional leadership and the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry with their solutions and devices."

First place winner was Sarah Lee, CEO and co-founder of Relavo, a New York-based company that's making home dialysis more effective, safer, and more affordable. Lee accepted awards from Johnson & Johnson and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Therese Canares, CEO and founder of CurieDx, took second place and won its awards from SWPDC - Southwest National Pediatric Device Innovation Consortium and Wilson Sonsini. CurieDx, based in Baltimore, Maryland, is creating remote diagnostic tools using smartphone technology.

In third place is Andrea Ippolito, CEO and founder of SimpliFed, a company focused on democratizing access to baby feeding and breastfeeding services through virtual care that's covered by insurance. The startup won awards from Texas Children's Hospital and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Three other finalists won other awards, including:

  • Kadambari Beelwar, CEO and co-founder, Henderson, Nevada-based Truss Health, which created an AI-powered sensor fusion platform that's designed to detect early signs of infection, won an award presented by Memorial Hermann Health System and Golden Seeds
  • Mimi Gendreau Kigawa, CEO and co-founder of New York-based Zeph Technologies, an AI-lung care company with technology for clinicians to deliver pulmonary care to patients with chronic respiratory disease, won an award presented by CU Innovations and Houston Methodist
  • Ashley Yesayan, CEO and co-founder, New York-based OneVillage, a software platform meant to support patients and family members through trying health events, won an award presented by CU Innovations

The companies were evaluated by the 2024 judges, which included: Allison Rhines, head of JLABS Houston; Andrew Truscott, global health technology lead at Accenture; Angela Shippy, senior physician executive at Amazon Web Services; Kimberly Muller, executive director of CU Innovations at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus; Myra Davis, chief innovation and information officer at Texas Children's Hospital; and Winjie Tang Miao, senior executive vice president and COO of Texas Health Resources.

Houston expert: Balancing flexibility, accountability, and performance in a hybrid world

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Amazon, Salesforce, and Nike are just a few companies making headlines in 2024 for requiring employees to return to the office.

At the same time, technology is evolving, automation and efficiency gains are taking center stage, and employees continue to seek greater flexibility. This has fueled the debate around the future of where work gets done in 2025 and beyond.

Proponents of a remote or hybrid work model believe it leads to increased employee productivity, higher job satisfaction, and access to a larger talent pool. Detractors have a different viewpoint – suggesting employee isolation is greater, cyber security concerns are more complex to manage, and it’s hard to accurately evaluate employee performance.

So, what’s the answer?

The future of work lies in harnessing the power of the employer/employee relationship. This involves establishing clear guidelines for what working “looks like” inside and outside the company, measuring performance tied to company goals, and holding leaders and employees accountable for how these interactions occur.

A remote work policy helps establish clear guidelines. For example, should business cameras be on for all meetings? What is considered an acceptable business casual dress code? Can pets be on screen? Addressing the issues around a remote workspace, how to interact during a meeting, and what to wear helps to define company expectations and how you would like your business to be represented.

Formal performance management tools and processes have been in place for decades. While an annual event is important, encouraging managers and employees to have regular and structured performance conversations and share transparent feedback (regardless of where they work) helps you celebrate what’s exceptionally good, acknowledge what’s on track, and quickly course correct when needed.

Accountability in the remote work environment goes both ways, and leaders must model the behaviors they expect from employees. When the rule is cameras on, that means everyone, regardless of their title. When you’ve established working hours, be available to take the call or respond to the Teams chat within a reasonable timeframe. And when you need to be away from work, set expectations for when and how to reach you.

So, where is the best place to start when updating or establishing guidelines? First, review your key business objectives and work out what’s required to support the successful achievement of those goals. Design your remote and/or hybrid model around those objectives and place employees at the forefront of that design.

If you think about it, it’s no different than being in the office. You expect your employees and managers to show up, be fully present, and hold themselves accountable. That should be the expectation no matter where you “sit.”

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Michelle Mikesell is the chief people officer at Houston-based G&A Partners.

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