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On 11/4/2019 at 5:41 PM, TheSirDingle said:

Didn't think I would ever hear that the TMC is a stepping stone facility. I guess the only direction is up from here. 


To be fair, TMC’s -primary care hospitals- are some of the best in the country if not the world. 

 

The research institutions at TMC are a different story. Well, Not the best in the country, to put it mildly. But i agree,  TMC can only go up from here. 

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Something lost in the discussion is that outside of TMC (full on land managing 501(c)(3)), these other institutions generate good revenue and have large endowments boosting their financials, aka they have more money than they know what to do with. They've probably done 1000 studies about 1000 different things, and settled on this type of development. If it works, its amazing and their endowments grow and a sector in Houston that as @102IAHexpress accurately points out is just above average is going to get a huge boost. And the type of people they are trying to attract to potentially move to Houston probably won't have cars or really want to go to Katy or Clear Lake to do anything (hell, maybe not even Downtown). These researchers, as pointed out before, are generally focused on their job at hand and are used to college campuses where everything is relatively close and walkable. I think given all that, some of us can agree that one could see what they are trying to do. And someone asked if this was for regular Houstonians, and they said on the Looped in pod, yes, it is, to make TMC a more inviting place for those who live around it.

 

If the design sucks, or they don't get as much business as assumed, hey, nothing's better for these entities and their endowments to hold and take loans against than developed real estate, right? 

 

 

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Here's an article I found on the Boston-Cambridge biotech hub. The article was done by Wework so they have a business angle but it still gives a good overview. It seems like with TMC3, they are trying to create another Kendall Square with all the clustering effects:

 

The state benefits from what’s known in the biotech industry as clustering. There’s a high concentration of hospitals, leading universities and private companies in a relatively small area, which spurs collaboration and innovation. Clustering is particularly evident in Cambridge’s Kendall Square.

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/sponsored/massachusetts-biotech/

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1 minute ago, H-Town Man said:

Here's an article I found on the Boston-Cambridge biotech hub. The article was done by Wework so they have a business angle but it still gives a good overview. It seems like with TMC3, they are trying to create another Kendall Square with all the clustering effects:

 

The state benefits from what’s known in the biotech industry as clustering. There’s a high concentration of hospitals, leading universities and private companies in a relatively small area, which spurs collaboration and innovation. Clustering is particularly evident in Cambridge’s Kendall Square.

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/sponsored/massachusetts-biotech/

 

another term also utilized a lot is "cross-pollination"

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15 hours ago, 102IAHexpress said:


To be fair, TMC’s -primary care hospitals- are some of the best in the country if not the world. 

 

The research institutions at TMC are a different story. Well, Not the best in the country, to put it mildly. But i agree,  TMC can only go up from here. 

 

Were our primary care hospitals among the best in the world back when TMC1 was built in the 1940's? No, they were not.

Did those hospitals benefit from clustering effects? Yes, yes they did.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No, it was not.

Time for some of that can-do attitude, Houston! Let's go out and get ourselves a biotech industry! Yeaaarrrggghh!

 

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3 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

 

Were our primary care hospitals among the best in the world back when TMC1 was built in the 1940's? No, they were not.

Did those hospitals benefit from clustering effects? Yes, yes they did.

Was it over when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor? No, it was not.

Time for some of that can-do attitude, Houston! Let's go out and get ourselves a biotech industry! Yeaaarrrggghh!

 

 

FIFY

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Clustering has benefits for sure. But keep in mind Houston does not need to cluster like Boston and San Fran do. A lot of successful academic - bio-tech hubs are clustered across several counties and even states. See, NYC-NJ, DC-Maryland-Va, Research Triangle in NC, and Chicagoland, etc. Actually, Boston and San Fran are the only major hubs clustered so closely. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

Were our primary care hospitals among the best in the world back when TMC1 was built in the 1940's? No, they were not.

Did those hospitals benefit from clustering effects? Yes, yes they did.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No, it was not.

Time for some of that can-do attitude, Houston! Let's go out and get ourselves a biotech industry! Yeaaarrrggghh!

 

 

All fair points. It's also a fair point to mention that the research institutions at TMC have had almost as long to develop too. That the hospitals are so great yet the research institutions are so average and therefore has brought almost no bio tech investment is one of the greatest missed opportunities in the history of Houston. 

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22 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

Clustering has benefits for sure. But keep in mind Houston does not need to cluster like Boston and San Fran do. A lot of successful academic - bio-tech hubs are clustered across several counties and even states. See, NYC-NJ, DC-Maryland-Va, Research Triangle in NC, and Chicagoland, etc. Actually, Boston and San Fran are the only major hubs clustered so closely. 

 

 

Yes that's true but we already know clustering works. SF and Boston wouldn't be where they are, in regards to the amount of capital flowing, without clustering. Both Boston and SF have VC funding in the billions while the other "clusters" only have VC funding in the hundreds of millions. Why spread out the hub when we can consolidate like the two most successful biotech hubs.

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45 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

 

All fair points. It's also a fair point to mention that the research institutions at TMC have had almost as long to develop too. That the hospitals are so great yet the research institutions are so average and therefore has brought almost no bio tech investment is one of the greatest missed opportunities in the history of Houston. 

 

I remember back in the early 2000's they launched something called Southeast Texas Biotechnology Park. There was a rendering of a lowrise office park that they hoped to build somewhere south of Braes Bayou. The problem as they put it was that there was all this research at TMC, but it wasn't translating to the private sector. They mentioned the problem of venture capital. Then over time it changed its name to BioHouston and I think they dropped their plans to build something and instead focus on just nurturing companies. Not sure if it ever did any good.

 

I agree, past history doesn't give a ton of hope, although this project is much bigger in scale than that one was.

 

Looks like we have some momentum though:

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2019/03/26/here-s-how-houston-s-life-sciences-sector-ranks-on.html

 

Edited by H-Town Man
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5 hours ago, blackjacks100 said:

SF and Boston wouldn't be where they are, in regards to the amount of capital flowing, without clustering. 

 

Well, the Boston area has a little something called MIT and Harvard. SF area is less prestigious because it only has Stanford and UC Berkeley.  So yeah, that might play a little role too.

 

In fact there's no evidence that clustering is a major factor by itself. TMC3 could be "clustered" with TSU, HCC and San Jac, and the end result would by some pretty architecture. The biggest link between private bio tech investment and a municipality that has been evidenced to work, is whether that city is home to premier research institutions that were already "clustered" there to begin with. 

 

 

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9 hours ago, H-Town Man said:

 

It becomes more evident that you are trolling. Obviously there are bigger institutions involved in this than HCC and SanJac. No they're not as big as Harvard and MIT, but who said we were going to beat Boston? The goal is to become the third coast for biotech, not the first or second coast. If you look at other major biotech hubs in the country like Raleigh-Durham or Washington D.C. or Philadelphia, I do think that the research institutions involved in this (UT, A&M, Rice, UH) measure up to the research institutions in those places. And if the major university systems in Texas are focusing on biotech in Houston, that at least makes it more likely that if a hub does develop in Texas, it will develop here and not some other city.

 

 

 

Maybe its trolling, but really its just plain ole smug elitism combined with the natural human fallacy of "I've yet to see something specific happen in this instance and therefore in my laziness I'm going to side with the fact that it will never happen," or in other words, recency bias. I'm sure there were people who said exactly the same about MIT and Harvard when they start, "oh they will never be as good as Cambridge or Oxford. How foolish of them to try!" These people will always exist and have always existed.

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There's no need for you guys to get so defensive and upset. We're just having a conversation. In typical HAIF fashion,  @blackjacks100 made the wild claim about clustering without any evidence to support it. I refuted his wild claim. It was as simple as that.

 

But I must say this inferiority complex and defense mechanism Houston has, is really off putting. They way Chicagoans handle valid critiques of their city versus how Houstonians handle critiques, is night and day. Chicagoans don't get so defensive and upset at even the national and presidential onslaughts of criticisms that come their city's way (murder capital, corruption, taxes, etc). Yet, someone makes a valid critique of the TMC and the response, is "oh he must be trolling." lol.

 

Yeah, Houston is just not on the world stage level yet, I am sorry to say. 

 

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We are well aware of that. But if you don't try to develop a new industry or project or anything it won't happen at all.

They said you couldn't bring boats to a port in Houston 45 miles from the coast. We built the port.

They said baseball couldn't be played indoors.. So we built the astrodome.

They said man couldn't get to the moon and we built NASA.

We like challenges and maybe we'll never be Harvard, MIT, Stanford or Northwestern but we'll joe just fine.

Don't tell a Texan it cant be done. Sure it will take a while. Get over the double Helix design and the yoga mats and the trails. 

There are four institutions in Houston that have quite a bit of money and pride. 

I'm betting that in the long run this will become an important hub for bio research.

37 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

There's no need for you guys to get so defensive and upset. We're just having a conversation. In typical HAIF fashion,  @blackjacks100 made the wild claim about clustering without any evidence to support it. I refuted his wild claim. It was as simple as that.

 

But I must say this inferiority complex and defense mechanism Houston has, is really off putting. They way Chicagoans handle valid critiques of their city versus how Houstonians handle critiques, is night and day. Chicagoans don't get so defensive and upset at even the national and presidential onslaughts of criticisms that come their city's way (murder capital, corruption, taxes, etc). Yet, someone makes a valid critique of the TMC and the response, is "oh he must be trolling." lol.

 

Yeah, Houston is just not on the world stage level yet, I am sorry to say. 

 

 

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38 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

There's no need for you guys to get so defensive and upset. We're just having a conversation. In typical HAIF fashion,  @blackjacks100 made the wild claim about clustering without any evidence to support it. I refuted his wild claim. It was as simple as that.

 

But I must say this inferiority complex and defense mechanism Houston has, is really off putting. They way Chicagoans handle valid critiques of their city versus how Houstonians handle critiques, is night and day. Chicagoans don't get so defensive and upset at even the national and presidential onslaughts of criticisms that come their city's way (murder capital, corruption, taxes, etc). Yet, someone makes a valid critique of the TMC and the response, is "oh he must be trolling." lol.

 

Yeah, Houston is just not on the world stage level yet, I am sorry to say. 

 

 

It wasn't a valid critique, it was a couple of days of laughing at what everyone on here had to say because your wife used to work for Dr. Quaggin. Some people come on this forum with worthwhile insight that they don't mind sharing with others and some people overinflate their qualifications, exaggerate their knowledge, and expect to be worshipped. If you think you've made it to heaven because you're in Chicago, enjoy it. I've been there and done that and will throw my lot in with Houston, biotech hub or no biotech hub.

 

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Let's move on.  There is a $1B+ campus on the way, with a lot of private industry expressing serious interest to complement TMC3.   Developers are gearing up with sites acjacent to or near TMC3.  This is a clear net positive.  I trust the leadership involved and the amount of capital being invested shows that others do too..  No way to predict what will happen, so let the chips fall where they may. 

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Just because you don't like the critiques, does not make them invalid ones. 

 

Look, If Buzbee wins, I will be working in the mayors office. I want to make Houston a world class city. But I would be doing a disservice if I sugar coated my critiques to you, this forum or to a potential mayor Buzbee. 

 

Research is not world class at the TMC. Okay. fine. How can we improve it? How can we maybe one day land some outside bio tech investment? I gave a suggestion a few posts above. You, well, your worthwhile insight is .. Animal House. 

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29 minutes ago, 102IAHexpress said:

Just because you don't like the critiques, does not make them invalid ones. 

 

Look, If Buzbee wins, I will be working in the mayors office. I want to make Houston a world class city. But I would be doing a disservice if I sugar coated my critiques to you, this forum or to a potential mayor Buzbee. 

 

Research is not world class at the TMC. Okay. fine. How can we improve it? How can we maybe one day land some outside bio tech investment? I gave a suggestion a few posts above. You, well, your worthwhile insight is .. Animal House. 

 

You said they were clustering with HCC, TSU, and SanJac, ignoring the $30 billion cumulative endowment institutions that they actually are clustering with. That's not a valid critique. That's trolling.

 

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8 minutes ago, H-Town Man said:

 

You said they were clustering with HCC, TSU, and SanJac, ignoring the $30 billion cumulative endowment institutions that they actually are clustering with. That's not a valid critique. That's trolling.

 

 

Not to mention conflicts of interests which weren't previously disclosed in his comments. Essentially this person doesn't believe Houston will be anything unless they "help it" or are given power to "help it". So not only smug snob, and an over reliance on recency bias, but we can also add a Messiah complex as well haha. Its funny how people like this eventually reveal their true colors after only a few pokes. Don't you agree H-Town Man?

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That's not what I said. You are clearly misquoting me. I think you are the one who is trolling. Also the ad hominem attacks by @Luminare show his true colors, I am sorry to say.

 

TSU, HCC and SanJac is a hypothetical example I made. It is an extreme example, I know. That was the point. Because the "proof" that clustering "works" was also extreme, Harvard and MIT et al in Boston. Stanford, UC et al in SF. Clustering works there, so it must work in Houston too! I think you guys can come up with better counter arguments than that. Or maybe not. 

 

Any updates on the yoga lawns? 

Edited by 102IAHexpress
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