Reuters Business Traveller

Houston – Overview

The Houston skyline never stays still. Up the skyscrapers go, every year. The city could have invented the term “urban sprawl”: superhighways; subdivisions; industrial estates and huge shopping malls radiate from its centre, across the flat Gulf Coast plain.

The fourth largest city in the U.S., Houston is home to 2.3 million people, a figure that swells to nearly six million in the greater metro area. It is also the largest unzoned city in the country — real-estate development is only constrained by the will of the market.

The Texan capital is a big-business town chock-full of Fortune 500 giants (Houston is second only to New York City in that league). And it’s not just oil and gas: aerospace technology is here in a big way, as is construction and engineering, telecoms, and high-tech and biotech groups. Houston’s port is the busiest in the country in terms of foreign tonnage, second busiest for overall tonnage.

Fortunately, much of what you will need in the city is well within the highway 610 ‘loop’. Here, midcentury modern buildings have been saved and restored; former factories are now restaurants, shops and bars (not just sports bars, as one might imagine). Business travellers will find plenty of places to work and play in style.

A city’s art scene is usually a good representation of its vibrancy. Here there are quirky galleries, an excellent symphony orchestra and the second-largest theatre district in the U.S. There are some excellent history and art museums, too. NASA’s Johnson Space Center is a popular family attraction.

Visitors to hot-and-humid Houston are always surprised by how green it is. Hundreds of parks carpet the city. Get your bearings by jogging around Hermann Park and its spectacular Japanese gardens.

-Money: US Dollars (US$)

Hotels do not, as a rule, exchange currency and only a few major banks offer the service so it is advisable to arrive with dollars, or exchange foreign currency at the airport upon arrival. Try not to land yourself with $100 notes because taxi drivers won’t change them. Credit cards are widely used.