| The
Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown MSA consists of Austin,
Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris,
Liberty, Montgomery, San Jacinto, and Waller counties.
The redefinition that was introduced January 2005
includes the addition of Austin, Brazoria, Galveston,
and San Jacinto counties. A slow spread from centralized
Houston over the 1990s and a more recent rapid
growth that now reaches into adjacent counties
and beyond has lead to the incorporation of additional
counties into the MSA. The regional economy is
linked together by commuting patterns, with Harris
County at the core.
Although the area continues to be
highly affiliated with the oil and gas industry,
efforts have been made to diversify since the
economic oil bust of the 1980’s. The area
is industrialized with manufacturers of petrochemicals,
petroleum refineries, fabricated metal products,
food, paper, printing, publishing, computers and
food products. Leading private employers include
Continental Airlines, Dow Chemical, Exxon Mobil,
Hewlett-Packard, Kellogg Brown & Root. The
internationally acclaimed Texas Medical Center,
which boasts such institutions as Memorial-Hermann
Hospital, Methodist Hospital, the U.T.M.D. Anderson
Cancer Center, Ben Taub Hospital, the Texas Heart
Institute, and Baylor College of Medicine, provides
a significant number of jobs and is a leading
medical research center. The Johnson Space Center
is an important research and development center
for the space shuttle program. There are many
retail trade centers and malls throughout the
MSA. The MSA continues to expand as an international
trade center supported by two major and several
smaller airports, a large port system, numerous
banking centers, and offices of more than 50 foreign
governments. Institutions of higher education
in the area include Rice University, The University
of Houston, Prairie View A & M, South Texas
College of Law, Houston Baptist University, St.
Thomas University and numerous community colleges. |
