America’s Opportunity City 美国的机会之城 作者：Joel Kotkin, Tory Gattis @ 2014-夏

译者：尼克基得慢（@尼克基得慢）

校对：babyface_claire（@许你疯不许你傻）

来源：City Journal， http://city-journal.org/html/america%E2%80%99s-opportunity-city-13662.html Lots of new jobs and a low cost of living make Houston a middle-class magnet. 许多的新工作和低廉的生活成本使得休斯敦成为一个对中产阶级有着强大吸引力的城市。 David Wolff and David Hightower are driving down the partially completed Grand Parkway around Houston. The vast road, when completed, will add a third freeway loop around this booming, 600-square-mile Texas metropolis.

David Wolff和David Hightower正驱车行驶在部分完工的环休斯敦花园大道上。完工之后，这条宽阔道路会成为围绕这座蓬勃发展的600平方英里德州大城市的高速公路第三环。

Urban aesthetes on the ocean coasts tend to have a low opinion of the flat Texas landscape—and of Houston, in particular, which they see as a little slice of Hades: a hot, humid, and featureless expanse of flood-prone grassland, punctuated only by drab office towers and suburban tract houses.

住在海岸城市的唯美主义者通常不喜欢平坦的德州地貌——尤其是休斯敦的地貌，他们将之视为一小片地狱：一片炎热潮湿且毫无特点的广阔区域，有洪水泛滥的草地，点缀着单调的办公大楼和郊区风格的大片房屋。

But Wolff and Hightower, major land developers on Houston’s outskirts for four decades, have a different outlook. “We may not have all the scenery of a place like California,” notes the 73-year-old Wolff, who is also part owner of the San Francisco Giants. “But growth makes up for a lot of imperfections.”

但是作为从业四十年的休斯敦郊区主要土地开发商，Wolff和Hightower有着不同的观点。“我们或许没有像加州那样的全部景色，”同时也是旧金山巨人队的共有者的73岁的Wolff提到。“但是经济增长弥补了许多不完美之处。”

A host of newcomers—immigrants and transplants from around the United States—agree with that assessment. Its low cost of living and high rate of job growth have made Houston and its surrounding metro region attractive to young families. According to Pitney Bowes, Houston will enjoy the highest growth in new households of any major city between 2014 and 2017.

许多新来者——外国移民和美国本土移居者——都同意Wolff的评价。低生活成本和高职位增长率使休斯敦和周围城区对年轻家庭很有吸引力。据Pitney Bowes公司预测，2014年到2017年期间，休斯敦将会享有所有大城市中最高的新住户增长率。

A recent U.S. Council of Mayors study predicted that the American urban order will become increasingly Texan, with Houston and Dallas–Fort Worth both growing larger than Chicago by 2050.

最近一份美国市长委员会的研究预测，美国的城市秩序越来越德州化，休斯敦和达拉斯-沃思堡（Dallas–Fort Worth）的城市规模在2050年前都会超过芝加哥。

The Grand Parkway, Wolff points out, continues Houston’s pattern of outward development. The vast ExxonMobil campus being built in the far northern suburbs—and surrounded by its own master-planned community, Springwoods Village—will eventually be the nation’s second-largest office development, after Manhattan’s Freedom Tower. Houston is already home to numerous planned communities with bucolic-sounding names: Cinco Ranch, Bridgeland, Sienna Plantation, the Woodlands, and Sugar Land.

Wolff 指出，花园大道延续了休斯敦的外向型发展模式。位于北部远郊正在修建的巨大的埃克森美孚校园最终将会成为仅次于曼哈顿自由塔的美国第二大办公楼, 周围环绕着埃克森美孚自己总体规划的社区，Springwoods Village。休斯敦已经拥有众多名字听起来田园风格的规划社区：Cinco Ranch, Bridgeland, Sienna Plantation, the Woodlands, 和Sugar Land。

“Open space is the most precious amenity,” says Wolff, a primary developer of the Energy Corridor, a Houston neighborhood boasting 22 million square feet of office space and housing the headquarters of such key energy firms as BP America, ConocoPhillips, and CITGO. “What we are creating here is a place where business can grow and people can afford to live. This is the key to Houston.” Indeed, the Houston model of development might be described as “opportunity urbanism.”

“开放空间是最宝贵的生活设施”， 作为Energy Corridor——一个休斯敦社区，拥有2200万平方英尺办公空间并且容纳了诸多重要能源公司的总部，如BP美国、康菲和CITGO——主要开发商的Wolff 说道。“我们在这正在创造的是一个商业能发展、人们能有钱生活的地方。这是休斯敦的关键所在。”确实，休斯敦发展模式可以被描述为“都市化机会”。

Houston’s economic success over the past 20 years—and, more remarkably, since the Great Recession and the weak national recovery—rivals the performance of any large metropolitan region in the United States. For nearly a decade and a half, the city has been adding jobs at a furious pace—more than 600,000 since early 2000, and 263,000 since early 2008.

休斯敦过去20多年的经济成功——并且从大衰退和疲弱的全国性复苏以来越发明显——超过了美国任何其他大都市区的表现。在大约15年时间里，这座城市以极快的速度创造着工作机会——2000年初以来超过60万，2008年初以来为26.3万。

The greater New York City area, by contrast, has added just 103,000 jobs since 2008, and Los Angeles, Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Philadelphia remain well below their 2008 levels in total jobs. In fact, Los Angeles and Chicago, like Detroit, have fewer jobs today than they did at the turn of the millennium.

对比之下，规模更大的纽约都市区自2008年以来仅创造了10.3万份工作机会，而且洛杉矶、芝加哥、凤凰城、亚特兰大和费城的总工作机会远低于它们2008年的水平。事实上，正如底特律那样，洛杉矶和芝加哥现在拥有的工作机会已经少于世纪之交那时了。

And many of Houston’s jobs pay well. Using Praxis Strategy Group calculations that factor in the cost of living as well as salaries, Houston now has the highest standard of living of any large city in the U.S. and among the highest in the world. Indeed, the average cost-of-living-adjusted salary in Houston is about $75,000, compared with around $50,000 in New York and $46,000 in Los Angeles.

而且很多休斯敦的工作薪水颇高。根据实践战略集团（Praxis Strategy Group）的推算，同时考虑生活成本和薪资，休斯敦目前拥有全美所有大城市中最高的生活标准，而且也是全世界最高的城市之一。事实上，休斯敦按生活成本调整后的薪水是大约7.5万美元，相比之下纽约为约5万美元，洛杉矶为4.6万美元。

Personal household income has risen 20 percent since 2005 in Houston, compared with 14 percent in New York, 11 percent in Los Angeles, and less than 9 percent in Chicago. Former Federal Reserve economist Bill Gilmer notes that, except during the energy bust of the mid-1980s, Houston’s per-capita income growth has outpaced the nation’s since the late 1960s.

从2005年以来，休斯敦的个人家庭收入已经上涨20%，相比之下纽约为14%，洛杉矶为11%，芝加哥为不到9%。前美联储经济学家Bill Gilmer提到，自1960年代末以来，除1980年代中期能源业危机期间【 编注：原油价格在1979年第二次石油危机期间升至顶峰，1982年开始下跌，1986年暴跌至1973年第一次能源危机前的水平，此后直到2005年之前始终未能回到历史最高点。 】，休斯敦的人均收入增长已经超过了全美水平。

Not surprisingly, given Houston’s reputation as an oil town, much of the job growth in its metro region (known as Greater Houston) is tied to energy—particularly, to the technological revolution now reshaping that industry. Once widely derided as a “colony” of California- and New York–based companies, Houston has increasingly become the location of choice for American energy firms.

不出所料，考虑到休斯敦作为石油城的名声，这一都市区（被称为大休斯敦区）相当部分的工作机会增长跟能源有关——特别是跟正在重塑该行业的技术革命【 编注：即页岩革命 】有关。虽然曾被广泛嘲笑为总部设在加州和纽约的公司的“殖民地”，休斯敦已经越来越多的成为美国能源公司的总部所在地。

In 1960, for example, Houston was home to only one of the nation’s top energy firms; by 2013, it was home to 22 from the Fortune 500, more than all other cities combined—and that doesn’t include major non-headquarter locations for ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, and BP. This past spring, Occidental Petroleum, Los Angeles’s last major energy firm, announced plans to move to Houston’s Uptown district, near the famed Galleria.

例如在1960年，仅有一家美国顶级能源公司的总部设在休斯敦；截至2013年，22家世界五百强企业总部设在休斯敦，超过其他城市的总和——这还不包括作为埃克森美孚、壳牌、雪佛龙和BP的主要非总部所在地。今年春季，作为洛杉矶最后一个大能源公司，西方石油公司宣布了迁往休斯敦城郊区域的计划，靠近著名的Galleria商场。

Since 2001, the energy industry has been directly responsible for an increase of 67,000 jobs in Houston, and it now employs more than 240,000 people in the area. These jobs include many technical positions, one reason that the region now boasts the highest concentration of engineers outside Silicon Valley.

从2001年开始，休斯敦的能源产业已经直接产生了6.7万份工作的增长，现在该区域的能源行业已经雇佣了超过24万人。这些工作包含了许多技术岗位，一个原因就是这一区域的工程师密度现已成为硅谷之外最大的了。

Since 2001, Houston has seen a 24.1 percent growth in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) employment, compared with less than 5 percent growth in New York and San Francisco. The jobs should keep coming: Gilmer estimates that $25 billion to $40 billion in new petrochemical facilities is on its way to Greater Houston.

自从2001年以来，休斯敦在STEM（科学，技术，工程和数学）雇佣上经历了24.1%的增长，相比之下纽约和旧金山增长率不足5%。工作机会还会增长：Gilmer推测将有250亿到400亿美元的新建石化设施会在大休斯敦地区崛起。

“Oil and gas used to feel old, but that’s changing,” suggests Samina Farid, cofounder of Merrick Systems, a 25-year-old oil-services firm with 45 employees. “Younger people are coming into the business because they see opportunities to use new technologies that can really make a difference.” Farid’s firm is one of the thousands of smaller companies—including a group of new, tech-savvy start-ups—that serve the energy industry.

“石油和天然气以前给人感觉很老气，但是它们正在改变，” Merrick Systems的联合创始人Samina Farid提到，Merrick Systems是一家拥有45名员工和25年历史的石油服务公司。“年轻人正加入能源行业，因为他们看见了应用能真正带来改变的新技术的机会。”

Allison Lami Sawyer, the 29-year-old president of Rebellion Photonics, is part of a movement of younger professionals clustering in the area, many of them in the city’s inner ring. “I came here kicking and screaming,” said the British-educated Alabama native, whose nine-person company, mostly engineers and scientists, provides image-sensing equipment to firms such as Exxon. “But this was the place to be—it works well to be in the oil and gas capital of the world if that’s who you are selling to.”

Allison Lami Sawyer，29岁的Rebellion Photonics总裁，是往该区域聚集的年轻专家中的一员，大部分年轻专家住在城市内环。“我当初很不情愿地来到这里，”这位受英式教育的亚拉巴马州土著说道，他的九人公司主要由工程师和科学家构成，为埃克森之类的公司提供图像传感设备。“但这是休斯敦以前的情况——如果你想在石油天然气的资本世界中兜售产品，休顿斯是理想之地。”

Houston has embraced not only the energy industry’s white-collar professional jobs but also its well-paying blue-collar industrial positions. The city has seen a surge in mid-skills jobs (usually requiring a certificate or a two-year degree) in fields such as manufacturing, logistics, and construction, as well as energy.

休斯敦不仅拥有能源行业白领专家的工作机会，也拥有薪资不菲的蓝领产业工人职位。这座城市见证了诸如制造业、物流业、建筑业和能源业等领域内中等技能工作（通常要求一份执照或者两年的学位）的爆发性增长。

Many of these jobs pay more than $100,000 a year, and since 2007, according to calculations derived from the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Praxis Strategy Group’s Mark Schill, Houston led the 52 major metropolitan areas in creating them, at a rate of 6.6 percent annually. In contrast, these jobs have declined by more than 10 percent in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, which have not been friendly to such industries.

很多这类工作的年薪超过十万美元，而且根据实践战略集团（Praxis Strategy Group）的Mark Schill对劳工统计局数据的分析，休斯敦从2007年起就以每年6.6%的中等技能工作增长率领跑52个大都市区。相比之下，纽约、洛杉矶、芝加哥和旧金山的此类工作已经减少了超过10%，这几个地区一直对这些行业不友好。

Trade is robust. The Port of Houston, connected with the Gulf of Mexico by the 50-mile Houston Ship Channel, is now the nation’s Number One export hub, feeding off the energy revolution and expanding economic exchange with Latin America. Mexico and Brazil are by far the port’s largest trading partners.

贸易正如火如荼。休斯敦港通过50英里的休斯敦航道与墨西哥湾相连，得益于能源革命和与拉美经济交流的扩大，现已成为美国的头号出口中心。墨西哥和巴西是目前休斯顿港的最大贸易伙伴。

Houston’s port business has grown almost fourfold since 2000—far faster than either New York’s or Los Angeles’s. Port officials estimate that the trade sector contributes $500 billion in economic activity and more than 1 million jobs to the state of Texas annually.

休斯敦的港口生意自2000年以来几乎已经增长四倍——远快于纽约和洛杉矶的港口。港口官员认为，港口贸易部门为经济活动贡献了5000亿美元的产值，而且每年为德州增加100万工作机会。

Houston is also home to the Texas Medical Center, the largest concentration of hospitals and research institutions in the world and, by itself, the metro region’s third-largest source of jobs—employing 106,000 people, including 20,000 physicians, scientists, and other professionals.

休斯敦也是德州医学中心（TMC）——世界上最大的医院和研究机构综合体的所在地，此中心也是该都市区第三大工作来源——雇佣了包括2万名医生、科学家和其他专家在内的10.6万人。

Fifty-two separate medical institutions are located on the campus, equal in size to Chicago’s Loop. It currently has over 28.3 million square feet of office space, more than the downtowns of both Houston and Los Angeles. By the end of 2014, TMC top officials predict, the area will be the nation’s seventh-largest business district.

52个单独的医疗机构位于与芝加哥环区同等规模的园区内。它目前拥有超过2830万平方英尺的办公空间，比休斯敦和洛杉矶的商业区都大。TMC的高级官员预测，这一区域将在2014年末成为美国第七大商业区。

Houston is neither the libertarian paradise imagined by many conservatives nor the antigovernment Wild West town conjured by liberals. The city is better understood as relentlessly pragmatic and pro-growth.

休斯敦既不是许多保守派想象中的自由意志主义者的天堂，也不是自由派臆想的反政府狂野西部城镇。这座城市更应被理解为是冰冷的实用主义的和促进经济增长的。

Bob Lanier, the legendary three-time Democratic mayor who steered the city’s recovery from the 1980s oil bust, when the metro region bled more than 220,000 jobs in just five years, epitomized this can-do spirit.

Bob Lanier 是这种充满干劲精神的典型代表，当1980年代的休斯敦地区在短短五年内减少了超过22万份工作时，这位连任三届传奇般的民主党市长带领这座城市从石油业危机中恢复过来。

Lanier was more interested in building infrastructure and promoting growth than in regulation and redistribution. That focus remains strong today. “Houston is getting very comfortable with itself and what it is,” says retired Harris County judge Robert Eckels. “We are a place that has a big idea—supporting and growing through private industry, and that’s something everyone pretty much accepts.”

Lanier更喜欢修建基础设施、促进经济增长，而不是推动立法、实行再分配。这种偏向现在仍然很强烈。“休斯敦对于自身现状很满意，”退休的Harris县法官Robert Eckels说道。“我们是一个有远大理想的地方——通过支持私营企业来实现自身发展，这是这里每个人都深以为然的道理。”

Low taxes are part of that idea. Texas has no income tax, as Governor Rick Perry frequently points out to businesses in other states, and its average state and local tax burden is 11th-lowest in the nation. New York, New Jersey, and California, by contrast, impose the three highest state tax burdens in the nation.

低税也是这理念的一部分。正如德州州长Rick Perry经常给其他州的生意人所说的那样，德州没有所得税，而且它的平均州税和本地税负担是全美第11低的。相比之下，纽约、新泽西和加州是全美州税负担前三名。

The friendly tax environment is one reason that Houston ranked as the most affordable city to do business in a recent survey of global metropolitan areas by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Partnership for New York City. It means a lot more money in their employees’ pockets, too. A family of three making $150,000 moving from New York City to Houston would save upward of $8,000 in taxes, an analysis conducted by the District of Columbia found.

最近由普华永道（PricewaterhouseCoopers）和纽约合伙人（the Partnership for New York City）发起的全球都市区调查中，休斯敦被评为最容易做生意的城市，其中一个原因就是友好的税收环境。这也意味着更多的钱落进雇员的口袋里。一份由哥伦比亚特区主持的分析报告发现，一个从纽约搬到休斯敦的收入15万美元的三口之家可以省下高达八千美元的税费。

An even bigger component of Houston’s growth, however, may be its planning regime, which allows development to follow the market instead of top-down government directives. The city and its unincorporated areas have no formal zoning, so land use is flexible and can readily meet demand.

然而，休斯敦的经济增长可能更多来自它的规划制度，遵从市场规律而不是自上而下的政府指令来促进发展。休斯敦和周围未并入地区没有正式的边界，所以土地使用很灵活而且能很好地迎合需求。

Getting building permits is simple and quick, with no arbitrary approval boards making development an interminable process. Neighborhoods can protect themselves with voluntary, opt-in deed restrictions or minimum lot sizes. Architect and developer Tim Cisneros credits the flexible planning system for the city’s burgeoning apartment and town-home development.

获得建筑许可简单迅速，没有专横的审批委员会使得土地开发变成没完没了的恼人流程。社区可以通过自愿的可选的限制性契约或者最小批量方法来保护自己。建筑师兼开发商Tim Cisneros将这座城市迅速崛起的公寓和联排住宅的开发归功于灵活的规划系统。

“There are a lot of people who come here for jobs but don’t want to live, at least not yet, in the Woodlands,” he notes. “We can respond to this demand fast because there’s no zoning, and approvals don’t take forever. You could not do this so fast in virtually any city in America. The lack of zoning allows us not only to do neat things—but do them quickly and for less money.”

“有很多人为工作来到这里，但却不想住在伍德兰（Woodlands），至少现在还不想。”他提到。“我们可以迅速对这种要求做出回应，因为这里没有区域划分，审批也不会耗时太久。事实上，你在美国任何其他城市都不可能如此快速地获得审批。无区域划分让我们不仅做实事，而且做得迅速且省钱。”

The flexible planning regime is also partly responsible for keeping Houston’s housing prices low compared with those of other major cities. On a square-foot basis, according to Knight Frank, a London-based real-estate consultancy, the same amount of money buys you almost seven times as much space in Houston as it does in San Francisco and more than four times as much as in New York. (See “ Houston, New York Has a Problem ,” Summer 2008.) Houston has built a new kind of “self-organizing” urban model, notes architect and author Lars Lerup, one that he calls “a creature of the market.”

相比其他大城市，灵活的规划制度也在某种程度上使得休斯敦房价较低。据位于伦敦的不动产咨询公司Knight Frank统计，以每平方英尺计，你花同样的钱在休斯敦能买的空间几乎七倍于旧金山，四倍于纽约。（参阅“休斯敦，纽约有一个问题”，2008年夏。）建筑师兼作者Lars Lerup表示，休斯敦已经建立起了一种新型的“自组织”城市模式，他称之为“市场的产物”。

Some cities—such as Los Angeles—grow as a progression of larger communities around a relatively small core. Others—such as New York and Chicago—form dependent communities surrounding a dynamic central core. Houston is different: it revolves around a patchwork of centers, such as the aforementioned Woodlands, home to some 40,000 residences and more than 50,000 jobs.

一些城市——比如洛杉矶——发展成一系列围绕相对较小中心的较大社区。其它城市——比如纽约和芝加哥——则形成了依赖并围绕唯一动态核心的社区。休斯敦与两者都不同：它是围绕着一系列中心的拼图，比如说之前提到的拥有4万居民和超过5万份工作的伍德兰（Woodlands）。

Other centers exist within the city limits, but Houston also retains a strong core that never imploded, as did those of so many American cities. The city turns the whole debate that dominates urban thinking today—whether to grow the suburbs or downtown—on its head. Rather than advocate one kind of housing, Houston prides itself on providing choices.

城市边界内还有着其他中心，但是休斯顿也保留了一个从未衰退的强大核心区，正如许多美国城市那样。这座城市让左右今日城市思维的整个辩论——是发展郊区还是中心商业区——变得易如反掌。休斯敦自豪于提供各种住房选择，而不是大力推进任何一种住宅形式。

In fact, as the city’s outer suburban ring has grown—last year attracting roughly 80 percent of all new home buyers—the downtown has also boomed. The city’s vibrant inner ring, notes demographer Wendell Cox, grew 3 percent during the last decade—four times the average in the top 15 metropolitan areas and more than Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia.

事实上，随着城外的郊区不断发展——去年吸引了约80%的新房买家——城区也在繁荣向前。人口统计学家Wendell Cox提到，这座城市生机勃勃的内环在过去十年增长了3%【 编注：大概是指人口增长。 】——4倍于15个大都市区的平均水平，也高于芝加哥、洛杉矶、纽约和费城。

“Most cities would die for our in-fill,” says Jeff Taebel, director of Community and Environmental Planning at the Houston-Galveston Area Council (HGAC). No one would mistake downtown Houston for midtown Manhattan, true; but it represents 6 percent of the region’s jobs—a proportion 2.5 to 4.5 times greater than one finds, say, in downtown Los Angeles or Phoenix. Houston’s experience refutes the popular notion that urban density and central city development require heavy regulation.

“大部分城市都会渴望我们这种重建”休斯敦-加尔维斯顿地区议会（HGAC）中的社区与环境规划主任Jeff Taebel说到。没人会把休斯敦市中心误认为曼哈顿中心区，前者确实不如后者繁华；但是休斯敦市中心贡献了整个区域6%的工作机会——这一比例是洛杉矶或费城市区的2.5-4.5倍。休斯敦的经验驳斥了城区密度和中心城区发展需要严厉管制的流行观念。

Houston’s housing-market flexibility has also benefited some of the city’s historically neglected areas. The once-depopulating Fifth Ward has seen a surge of new housing—much of it for middle-income African-Americans, attracted by the area’s long-standing black cultural vibe and close access to downtown as well as the Texas Medical Center.

休斯敦房地产市场的灵活性也有益于部分历史上被忽略的地区。曾经人口负增长的第五区现在新房激增——很多新房都是为中等收入的非裔美国人所有，他们被该区长久的黑人文化氛围和靠近市区与德州医疗中心的位置所吸引。

Rather than worry about gentrification, many locals support the change in fortunes. “In Houston, we don’t like the idea of keeping an image of poverty for our neighborhood,” explained Rev. Harvey Clemons, chairman of the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation. “We welcome renewal.”

许多当地人都支持这种财富转变，而不是去担心衰败社区的中产化升级会排挤贫穷居民。“在休斯敦，我们不喜欢那种保持自己社区贫穷形象的想法，”第五区社区重建局的主席，牧师Harvey Clemons解释道， “我们欢迎事物更新。”

By allowing and encouraging development in the inner ring and on the fringe, the city increases its attractiveness to younger people, who want to live close to the urban core, while also providing affordable suburban housing. “Houston thrives because it has someplace for young people to stay inside the city but also offers an alternative when they get older. Just because you grow up doesn’t mean you have to leave the region,” notes Gilmer, now head of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston.

通过允许、鼓励内环和外围的发展，这座城市提高了对于那些想住在市中心附近的年轻人的吸引力，同时也为提供了其他人负担得起的郊区住房。“休斯敦之所以繁荣发展是因为它既提供了年轻人在城里生活的地方，也提供了当他们变老时的去处。你变老了并不意味着你必须要离开这城市，”休斯敦大学的区域预测学会会长Gilmer说到。

Houston’s explosive economic growth has engendered another kind of boom: a human one. Between 2000 and 2013, Greater Houston’s population expanded by 35 percent. In contrast, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago grew by 4 percent to 7 percent.

休斯敦经济的爆发式增长已经产生了另一种形式的迅速发展：人口的增长。2000年到2013年期间，大休斯敦地区的人口增加了35%。相比之下，纽约、洛杉矶、波士顿、费城和芝加哥仅增长了4-7%。

These figures reflect emerging migration patterns. Texas once sent large numbers of people to California and the East Coast, but now, considerable numbers of New Yorkers, San Franciscans, and Los Angelenos are picking up stakes and heading for Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio.

这些数字反映了正在浮现的移居模式。德州曾有很多人去往加州和东海岸，但是现在，相当数量的纽约人，旧金山人和洛杉矶人正带着财产向休斯敦、达拉斯、奥斯丁和圣安东尼奥进发。

As it grows, Houston’s ethnic demography is shifting. Two decades ago, Houston struggled to attract foreign-born immigrants, as did Texas generally. But since the 1990s, Texas’s immigration rates have surpassed the national average.

随着休斯敦的发展，它的少数种族人口也在转变。二十年前，休斯敦很难吸引到外国移民，整个德州也普遍如此。但是自从1990年代以来，德州的移民率已经超过全国平均值。

Over the past decade, Houston added 440,000 foreign-born residents, the second-most in the country, while New York, with more than three times the population, added 660,000. In a dramatic sign of changing trends, Houston attracted more than three times as many foreign-born immigrants as did Los Angeles, which is more than double its size.

在过去十年里，休斯敦增加了44万外国出生的居民，数量全国第二，而有着超过三倍人口的纽约增加了66万。这种变化趋势的重要信号就是，休斯敦吸引了超过洛杉矶三倍的外国移民，而洛杉矶的规模是休斯敦的两倍。

“This is the big deal for immigrants,” suggests HGAC’s Taebel. “We are a very attractive place for working-class people to settle.” The immigrant surge has turned what was once a conventional Southern city into a multiracial melting pot.

“这对移民来说是件大事，” HGAC的Taebel表示。“我们是一个非常吸引工薪阶层人们前来定居的地方。”激增的移民已经把一座曾经保守的南方城市转变为多种族熔炉。

Indeed, a 2012 Rice University study claimed that Greater Houston is now the most ethnically diverse metro region in America, as measured by the balance between four major groups: African-American, white, Asian, and Hispanic. Hispanics alone constitute nearly half the core city’s population, while the Asian population has surged almost fourfold; whites constitute barely a quarter of the total. The entire Greater Houston metro region—roughly 6.3 million people—is now 60 percent nonwhite, up from 42 percent in 1990.

事实上， 2012年莱斯大学的一份研究声称，通过衡量四个主要族群之间的平衡：非裔美国人、白人、亚裔和拉丁裔，大休斯敦区现已成为美国种族多样性程度最高的都市区。仅拉丁裔就贡献了核心城区人口的近一半，同时亚裔人口激增了几乎四倍；白人仅占总人口的四分之一。整个大休斯敦都市区——大约630万人——在1990年有42%是非白人种族，如今增长到了60%。

Houston’s new diversity is not confined to one neighborhood or district. Suburban Sugarland is over 35 percent Asian and home to one of the nation’s largest and most elaborate Hindu temples. “This place is as diverse as California,” notes David Yi, a Korean-American energy trader who moved to the city from Los Angeles in 2013 and lives in the suburb of Katy, west of the central core.

休斯敦如今的种族多样性并不局限在一个社区或者区域。郊区的糖城超过35%都是亚裔，还拥有美国最大最精美的印度寺庙之一。“这地方跟加州一样多元化，”韩裔美国能源交易商David Yi提到，他于2013年从洛杉矶搬到休斯敦并住在中心区西侧的凯蒂城（Katy）郊区。

“But it is affordable, with good schools. Our kids, who are learning Spanish, can afford to stay and have a house, which is not the case in California.” Pearland, located 17 miles south of downtown, has also become a draw for upwardly mobile minorities and immigrants.

“但是这边房子是能支付得起的，而且有着很好的学校。我们正学习西班牙语的孩子也有能力留在这里并买套房子，而加州情况就不一样了。”位于市中心以南17英里的梨城也成为了吸引向上流动的少数族裔和移民的地方。

“This is very different from Dallas, where I grew up, which was very segregated,” notes African-American entrepreneur Carla Lane, president of Lane Staffing, which works with energy, construction, and other local firms. “My daughter has a totally different experience—many of her friends are white, Hispanic, or Asian. Living out in Pearland, you can have that experience, and then you cross Highway 6 and you see people with big hats, boots, and straw in the mouth. That’s Houston to a tee.”

“这里与我从小长大的达拉斯很不同，达拉斯是各自独立的，”非裔美国企业家、Lane Staffing公司主席Carla Lane说到，Lane Staffing与能源、建筑和其他当地公司都有合作。“我女儿有着完全不同的经历——她的很多朋友是白人、拉丁裔或者亚裔。在梨城生活，你会有这样的体验，当你越过6号高速公路，你会看到戴着大帽子、穿着大靴子、嘴上还有稻草的人们。这恰恰就是休斯敦。”

Immigration is driving growth but also creating new challenges. Though skilled immigrants are beginning to flock to Houston, observes former state demographer Steven Murdock, Texas’s immigrants also include many lower-skilled workers, primarily because of the state’s proximity to Mexico.

移民促进了经济增长但是也带来了新的挑战。虽然如前联邦人口统计学家Steven Murdock观察的那样，技术移民正开始蜂拥向休斯敦，但是德州的移民里也包括很多低技能工作者，主要因为德州靠近墨西哥。

Leaders in the petrochemical and construction industries complain about looming shortages in the skilled trades. A dearth of plumbers and electricians is already affecting construction of new housing, offices, and industrial facilities, impinging on developers’ ability to expand, despite a thriving housing market.

石化和建筑行业的领导者抱怨即将到来的技术行业人才短缺。尽管房地产市场火爆，但管道工和电工的短缺已经影响了新房子、办公室和工业设施的建设，限制了开发商扩大生产的能力。

“We have all these jobs but not the people in the pipelines,” says Marshall Schott, associate vice chancellor at Lone Star community college. “Sure, we have need for more geologists and engineers; but by an order of magnitude, we need skilled workers such as welders and machinists. These jobs pay $80,000 a year, a lot better than being a barista at Starbucks.”

“我们有这些工作机会却没有可用之人，”孤星社区大学的助理副校长Marshall Schott说。“我们确实需要更多地质学家和工程师；但是我们更需要十倍数量的技术工人，如焊工和机械工。这些工作年薪8万美元，比在星巴克当一个咖啡师要好多了。”

To address these shortfalls, many companies have invested in workforce training programs, some in collaboration with local high schools as part of “cooperative education,” where students go to school part-time and work part-time. “This is a typically Houston solution—very pragmatic,” Mike Temple, director of the Gulf Coast Workforce Board, points out. “We are trying to tell kids that it’s not only what you know but also what you can do.”

为了解决这些短缺问题，许多公司已经投资了劳动力培训项目，一些与当地高校合作作为“共同教育”的一部分，这些项目的学生半工半读。“这是很典型的休斯敦式解决方法——很务实，”墨西哥湾沿岸劳动力委员会主管Mike Temple指出。“我们正尽力告诉孩子，你不仅要懂得知识，也要运用。”

Enrollment at Houston’s largest community college, Lone Star, has exploded 58 percent, to 78,000 students, in just the past five years, and the college expects it to reach 100,000 students by 2018.

休斯敦最大社区大学，孤星社区大学的注册人数在过去5年暴涨了58%，达到了7.8万名学生，而且它预期2018年会达到10万名学生。

Often attacked for under-investing in education, Houston has actually shown encouraging educational progress. Many of the schools in the outer rings, often predominantly white and Asian, perform well in state performance rankings. Houston Independent School District, the largest district in Texas and seventh-largest in the country, has won the Broad Prize for urban education twice.

虽然常被批评对教育缺乏投资，但休斯敦事实上已经显示出了在鼓励教育上的进展。外环的很多以白人和亚裔为主的学校在联邦成就排名中表现不错。作为德州最大、全国第七大的学区，休斯敦独立学区已经两次赢得城区教育大奖了。

Houston has also been called “the Silicon Valley of education reform,” with several highly successful charter school networks such as KIPP, Harmony, and YES Prep setting up shop in the city.

休斯敦也被称为“教育改革的硅谷”，有一些十分成功的特许学校网络在城里了设立办事处，如KIPP、 Harmony和 YES Prep。

These schools and others within the Houston Independent School District will have much to do with Houston’s future success, which, in Murdock’s view, will come down to “how well minorities are going to do.” Murdock is optimistic, in part, because Houston’s minorities share the city’s basic culture of faith in hard work as a means of upward mobility.

这些学校和其他休斯敦独立学区内的学校跟休斯敦未来的成功息息相关，在Murdock看来，这也会影响到“少数族裔未来的表现”。在某种程度上，Murdock对此持乐观态度，因为休斯敦的少数族裔继承了这座城市的基本文化，相信向上层流动的方法就是努力工作。

According to Rice University’s Houston Area Survey, 85 percent of Houstonians—including 79 percent of blacks and 89 percent of Hispanics—agreed with the statement “if you work hard in this city, eventually you will succeed.” Nationwide, this sentiment is shared by only 60 percent of those surveyed.

根据莱斯大学的休斯敦地区调查，85%的休斯敦人——包括79%的黑人和89%的拉丁裔——同意“如果你在这座城市努力工作，最终你会成功”的说法。而全国范围内，这种观点只有60%的被调查者认同。

Not everyone is impressed by Houston’s growth and prospects. Critics dismiss the city’s development model as a disaster for the environment, quality of life, and civic culture. For the most part, they regard Houston as a cultural desert—a throwback to the sprawling postwar model of many American cities. “When one asks to see the social center of Houston,” scoffs architect Andrés Duany, “one is taken to the mall.”

休斯敦的发展和前景并没有让所有人都印象深刻。批评者将这座城市的发展模型斥为一场环境、生活质量和城市文化的灾难。多数情况下，他们都将休斯敦视为文化沙漠——倒退回了许多美国城市战后那种无计划模型。“当有人想要看休斯敦的社会中心，”建筑师Andrés Duany嘲弄道，“他就会被带去商场。”

But such statements don’t reflect a city where opportunity urbanism is shaping an impressively vibrant cultural landscape. A 2012 survey by Economic Modeling Specialists International (EMSI) of the city’s creative economy found 146,000 jobs, generating an annual economic impact of $9.1 billion.

但是这些说法并不能反映这座城市的真实情况，注重机会的城市化正塑造一种其勃勃生机令人印象深刻的文化地貌。一份2012年由国际经济建模专家（EMSI）对城市创新经济的调查发现了14.6万份工作，每年产生了91亿美元的经济效益。

Houston is projected to have the largest gain in arts-related jobs by 2016 of any city in the study. Arts and culture expenditures totaled almost $1 billion per year in 2010, with total event attendance topping 16 million—numbers sure to grow, with almost 150,000 people per year moving into Greater Houston.

研究预测，到2016年休斯敦在艺术相关工作上的收益会超过所有被调研城市。2012年全年的艺术和文化支出总计约10亿美元，活动参与总人数以1600万高居榜首——随着每年大约15万人移居大休斯敦地区，这个数目肯定还会增加。

The city boasts permanent professional resident companies in all of the major performing arts, including opera, ballet, symphony, and theater, and its theater district has more seats than any rival in the country, except for New York’s. Houston’s 18 museums attract 8.7 million visitors a year. This is no cultural backwater.

这座城市在所有主要的表演艺术领域都涌现了大批常驻专业公司，包括歌剧、芭蕾、交响乐和戏剧，并且它的剧院区拥有的座位比除纽约外的任何城市都要多。休斯敦的18个博物馆每年吸引870万游客。这才不是文化的倒退。

With their higher real incomes and lower taxes, Houstonians dine out substantially more than residents of any other major American city—and they’ve got lots of options. “You used to go to New Orleans for food and music,” notes Chris Williams of Lucille’s, a cutting-edge Houston restaurant that serves sophisticated Southern food. “Now you go down the block.”

因为有更高的收入和更低的税费，休斯敦人外出用餐的次数明显多于其他任何美国城市的居民——而且他们有多样的选择。“你过去习惯去新奥尔良寻访美食和音乐，”Lucille’s餐厅的Chris Williams说到，Lucille’s是休斯敦一家提供精致南方食物的高端餐厅。

Taylor Francis, a 24-year-old advertising executive who moved recently from the Bay Area, points to restaurants like Underbelly, a popular Beard Prize–winning restaurant in the fashionable Montrose district. “My friends in the Bay Area rarely go out because it’s too expensive,” he said. “All their money goes to rent—but here, I can live in a roomy place and go out. There’s something attractive about that.”

Taylor Francis是一位24岁的广告经理，刚从湾区搬到休斯敦，他指着类似Underbelly（一家很受欢迎的位于时髦的蒙特罗斯区的餐厅，曾获Beard奖）的餐厅说，“现在你只需走过街区就能找到美食。”他说：“我在湾区的朋友很少外出娱乐，因为太贵了。所有的钱都用来付房租了——但是在这里，我可以住在宽敞的地方，也可以外出娱乐。这点很吸引人。”

Houston’s leaders hope to lure more young people like Francis away from coastal cities such as Portland, Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. The city is building one of the nation’s most extensive bike systems and constructing a $215 million park system along its long-disdained bayous.

休斯敦的领导人希望吸引更多的像Francis这样的年轻人远离像波特兰、波士顿、纽约和洛杉矶这样的沿海城市。这座城市正在打造全国最大规模之一的自行车系统，而且沿着长时间被鄙弃的长沼建设着价值2.15亿美元的停车系统。

Marcus Davis, who grew up in the hardscrabble Fifth Ward, says that growth is simply part of the Houstonian ethos. “This place is pure opportunity, including for African-Americans,” he said at his successful and usually crowded restaurant, the Breakfast Klub, just outside downtown.

在贫瘠的第五区长大的Marcus Davis说，追求增长已是休斯敦人精神特质的一部分。“这地方是真正的机会之城，即使对非裔美国人来说也是，”他在自己位于市中心外的餐厅Breakfast Klub里如是说，该餐厅很成功且常常人满为患。

Davis’s customer base includes young professionals and middle-class families. “This is a place where everyone wants to figure out how to do business. And since Houstonians like to do things over food, having a restaurant can be very lucrative.”

Davis的顾客组成中包括年轻专家和中产之家。“这是一个人人都想搞清如何做生意的地方。因为休斯敦人喜欢做跟食品相关的事情，所以开家餐厅是十分有利可图的。”

The growth-friendly attitude is what holds everything together in Houston, and it will be crucial whenever the next slowdown comes—when oil prices could drop, say, to below $100 a barrel. It remains to be seen whether a large influx of newcomers to Greater Houston from the ocean coasts will clamor, as they have elsewhere—notably, in Colorado—for a more controlled, high-regulation urban environment.

增长友好的态度将休斯敦的一切凝聚在一起，无论下次的增速减缓发生在何时，这态度至关重要——比如说，当油价降至低于100美元一桶时。从沿海城市移居到大休斯敦地区的大批新来者是否会像别的地方一样，特别是科罗拉多，引发对城市环境更多管控的呼吁？尚不得而知。

For now, though, most Houstonians see the city as a place that works—for minorities and immigrants, for suburbanites and city dwellers—and few want to fix what isn’t broken. “The key to Houston’s future is to keep thinking about how to be a greater city,” notes David Wolff as he passes a new set of towers off the Grand Parkway. “This road, it wouldn’t be built in many places. People might talk about these things, but in most places, they don’t get done. In Houston, we don’t just talk about the future—we’re building it.”

然而就现在而言，大多数休斯敦人都认为这城市运转正常——对于少数族裔和移民，对于郊区居民和城市居民来说都是如此——无人想去修复那未坏的东西。“休斯敦的未来关键在于要不断思考如何成为一座更伟大的城市，” 当David Wolff在花园大道上经过一幢幢新大楼时说道。“在许多地方，这条路根本不会建成。人们或许会谈论这些事情，但是大多数地方都不会真正实施。在休斯敦，我们不仅仅谈论未来——我们正在创造未来。” Joel Kotkin is a City Journal contributing editor and the R. C. Hobbs Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University. Tory Gattis writes the Houston Strategies blog, which covers topics including transit, economy, quality of life, city identity, and development and land-use regulations. Joel Kotkin是《城市杂志》的特约编辑，同时也是查普曼大学城市研究R. C. Hobbs研究员。Tory Gattis撰写了《休斯敦策略》博客，主题涵盖了运输、经济、生活质量、城市身份和发展与土地使用规则。

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