Is there something special in the water in Texas? After surviving the Great Recession in relatively good shape, the Lone Star State can claim that it has more jobs than it did two years ago, as well as the lowest unemployment rate of the 10 largest states at just 8.3 percent. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the state has created more jobs in the private sector – 724,300 in December of 2009 alone — than any other state in the last 10 years. Boasting the world’s 11th largest economy, Texas reported a gross state product (GSP) of roughly $1.25 trillion during 2009 as it expanded its presence in knowledge-based industries. Additionally, Texas leads the nation in export revenues for the last eight years, shipping $163 billion in product last year.
“Texas, so far, is the big winner,” said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. “Big Texas metros are doing well because they avoided a lot of the pitfalls of the housing boom and bust.” Frey specifically points to Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston as high-growth cities with expanding economies, particularly in energy, technology, government and education. Austin, Dallas and Houston are expected to experience a seven percent job growth rate over three years. San Antonio, which is close to four military bases, is expected to experience an 8.32 percent increase in employment over the next few years. What sustained Texas through the recession? Civic leaders think it was the diversified economy, low taxes, reasonable regulatory rules, government incentives and funding, as well as a skilled, highly educated workforce.
Austin, for example, has long been a magnet for entrepreneurial businesses that thrive in Texas’ capital. “There’s an old saying in Austin: If you come here and can’t find a job, start a new business,” notes Rebecca Melancon, executive director of the Austin Independent Business Alliance. Austin’s Small Business Development Program is extremely supportive of would-be entrepreneurs with databases to research demographics, free counseling and even classes on how to operate a business. Additionally, the “Keep Austin Weird” support for unique cultural events supports local businesses. “The biggest thing our city does to promote local business is not something that city hall does. It’s our culture. We don’t want to be Anywhere, U.S.A, and we work hard not to be,” Melancon said.
Despite the troubled economy, commercial building owners retain their commitment to making their properties more environmentally friendly. 
The opening of the new Modern Wing of the 
horizontal, a symmetrical glass and limestone box that sinks into the earth, Calatrava’s is an expressionist sculpture that ascends and twists into the lakefront air. The signature Calatrava move (similar to his El Alamillo Bridge in Seville) is the pair of beautifully articulated wings that frame the new building, called the Burke Brise Soleil. With a wingspan rivaling a Boeing 747 and weighing 90 tons, they open and close with the museum (and also with the ebb and flow of the wind load). But Calatrava’s greatness is that his wings aren’t merely wings — they are part of a vocabulary of organic shapes that converse with Lake Michigan, echoing waves and stingrays and even skeletal shapes. “The project responds to the culture of the lake: sailboats, the weather, culture, the sense of motion and change,” he said.
For all the splendor of the wings, the arrival on the inside may be the architect’s greatest reach — the Cathedral-like entry, the Windhover Hall, that recalls everything from Gothic to Antoni Gaudi’s unfinished Sagrada Familia in Barcelona — complete with flying buttresses, vaulted ceilings and a nave shaped like a prow that extends into Lake Michigan. Like Piano, Calatrava is reaching back to the scared origins of art and expression to create a building that cloaks its exhibits in silence and suggestions of ancient ritual.
than the home is worth.