Houston fastest growing city in US: Forbes

Houston has topped the Forbes' annual list of America's fastest growing cities, posting the country's fastest year-on-year job growth rate at 4.5 per cent.
Houston regained its No 1 position after slipping to No 10 last year. Austin secured the second position this year followed by Dallas, Raleigh and Seattle.
"Thanks in large part to the boom in horizontal drilling, which has helped the Houston metro area add a whopping 667,800 new jobs since 2005, the energy city is an economic powerhouse: Its 4.5 per cent year-over-year job growth rate is the nation's fastest," the Forbes report said.
"Jobs at major corporations like ConocoPhillips and Halliburton help boost the median annual pay for college-educated workers to USD 71,900, fourth among America's 100 largest metro areas. Add to that an economy that grew at a 3.52-percent clip last year alone," the report said.

Denver secured sixth position followed by San Francisco and Fort Worth. Charlotte and San Antonio were at No 9 and 10 positions respectively.
Strong population growth and unemployment levels under 5 per cent are propelling the cities' expansions, the Forbes report said.

The Houston metro area is expected to create 63,000 jobs in 2015. Some 1,500 corporate relocations or expansions have come to Houston since 2009, leased 20,000 or more square feet of office space or invested USD 1 million or more in capital improvements, the report said.
"In the past four years, greater Houston grew by half a million people - half from moves, half from births," it said.

"Population growth means housing demand, and realtors sold more than 425,000 homes in the last five years, amounting to a home-closing rate of one every six minutes, according to the Greater Houston Partnership," it said.
"What's more, jobs boost construction, which is why last year Houston topped our list of "Building Boom Towns": Metro areas with the most new construction," it added.
Forbes attributes exports as the driving force, beside oil, behind the boom, noting between 2009 and 2013 the value of Houston's exports grew 74.5 per cent, making the metro area the nation's top exporter.
Even though the falling price of oil is expected to slow Houston's growth, the city's economy should "chug along" with the rest of the country, the report says.

"When oil prices are low, Houston's economy grows," Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership, tells Forbes. "When oil prices are high, Houston's economy booms."
Houston is joined by four other Texas cities to give the Lone Star State half the moving-and-shaking cities in the Top 10. Last year Houston slipped to No 10 position fron No. 2 in 2013.