THE DOGRUN

Business expert and "economic geographer", Jim Russell describes how the trend from a manufacturing-based economy to an information-based economy has allowed intelligent, resourceful (and typically young) demographics of people to migrate from the traditional "big cities" that served as industrial hubs during the 20th Century to smaller burgeoning cities, like San Antonio in the 21st.  Silicon Valley in California is a classic example, but while California and most of the rest of the country have been struggling in this economy, Texas, and San Antonio especially, have not. Russell interviewed Rackspace Chairman, Graham Weston, who has been famous for recruiting talent from other parts of the country (Rackspace hired about 800 employees in 2012)   In addition to importing talent from other cities, Weston goes on to explain, “We can’t recruit our way to greatness,” and believes that this places a greater pressure on the city's universities to attract and produce students to help fuel this new era of growth in the city.   While this presents a number of challenges, Weston is optimistic, “We can go from being a big, small town to being a great big city over the next 20 years and we have a great foundation to build on. Not many people get the opportunity to build a city, but that’s what’s going to happen here over the next 20 years.” This means that this is an exciting time to be a San Antonian.  Those of us in the Architecture, Design, and related Cultural Fields have an enormous opportunity to help shape this city into something very special and unique.  We certainly have a lot of history and culture to draw upon (San Antonio was founded nearly 300 years ago).  With this new piece of the puzzle however, San Antonio will undoubtedly join the pantheon of great American cities. To read the full article, click here: http://texasceomagazine.com/features/the-brain-gain-the-rise-of-san-anto... Photo credit: Juan Garcia