Houston
Houston dredged its own Ship Channel in 1914, becoming America's energy liver—$906B annual impact, $180.9B exports. Now 12% renewable energy workforce, growing 3x faster than rivals.
Houston exists because it built the infrastructure to exist. When the Allen brothers founded the city in 1836 at the head of navigation on Buffalo Bayou, they were betting on a swampy waterway that could barely float a steamboat. The first vessel, the Laura, arrived in January 1837, but for decades Houston remained landlocked in spirit—fifty miles of winding, shallow bayou separated it from Galveston Bay and the open Gulf.
The transformation came through deliberate ecosystem engineering. In 1909, Mayor Horace Baldwin Rice led a delegation to Washington with an audacious proposal: Harris County would pay half the cost if the federal government would dredge Buffalo Bayou into a proper ship channel. Citizens approved $1.25 million in bonds. Jesse H. Jones arranged the financing. On November 10, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson fired a cannon by remote control from Washington to mark the opening of the Houston Ship Channel—25 feet deep, 150 feet wide, and suddenly capable of receiving ocean vessels. Houston had engineered its own niche into existence.
Oil arrived four years later when Sinclair built the first major refinery along the channel in 1918. By 1929, forty oil companies had Houston offices. The $15 billion petrochemical complex that now lines the Ship Channel is the largest in the country. Houston became America's metabolic liver—importing crude from around the world, processing it through its refineries, and exporting fuel, plastics, and chemicals. Today the Ship Channel contributes $906 billion annually to the US economy and supports 3.4 million jobs.
With a metro population of 7.8 million and a GDP of $697 billion (2023), Houston led the nation in exports in 2024—$180.9 billion in goods, more than New York and Los Angeles combined. Energy still accounts for 52% of trade value, and nearly 200,000 workers remain in the traditional energy sector. But renewable energy jobs now comprise 12% of Houston's energy workforce and are growing three times faster than any other US metro—3,967 new positions in 2024 alone. The city that built itself a channel to move oil is now building itself a path to move electrons. By 2026, whether Houston can replicate its 1914 feat—engineering entirely new infrastructure for an entirely new energy economy—will determine if it remains America's energy capital or becomes a monument to path dependence.