S.A.’S smart growth a model for economic development
For more than 300 years, San Antonio has stood at the crossroads of culture and commerce. The thirdlargest Texas region, the greater San Antonio area has more than 2.6 million residents who support a healthy, diversified economy. Within the decade, our population is expected to reach 3.2 million people, comparable to today’s San Diego, Calif., metro area.
Home to more than 400 headquarters, including USAA, H-E-B, Valero and Nustar, and regional hubs for global brands such as EY, Accenture, Toyota and Disney Streaming, we’re a proud majority-minority community with a 65.7% Latino population. San Antonio’s universities graduate more firstgeneration college students than many other U.S. cities.
We have made progress and momentum is on our side, but to seize the opportunities our residents deserve, we must focus on targeted action for the greater good of the region. At greater:satx, the region’s economic development organization, we are passionate about driving smart growth that will provide pathways to prosperity for San Antonians.
For the first 40 years of greater:satx’s (formerly the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation) existence, our organization was solely focused on business recruitment, which resulted in solid job growth but unfortunately had little effect on poverty and income inequality.
While San Antonio’s median household income rose 5.6% from 2021-2022, our region’s poverty rate was 14% in 2022, still among the highest for large U.S. metros.
Our regional economic development strategy seeks to evolve the mindset of incremental progress to one of ambition, abundance and transformation. We are committed to addressing our region’s greatest challenges to support a more vibrant and thriving economy. Focused on elements within our spheres of influence as business leaders, we identified priorities in support of holistic economic development.
The most pressing issues for global CEOS are workforce readiness and air connectivity. In response, our strategy calls for greater investment in both.
We implemented long-term workforce development demand planning, aligning industry leaders across five sectors to communicate their hiring needs — thus, ensuring San Antonians can get the education necessary to build careers-indemand roles with regional employers.
Educational attainment is our biggest challenge and greatest opportunity to impact generational change. We’re proud to see San Antonio add 51,380 bachelor’s and associate degrees from 2021-2022, but we have room for improvement.
We also successfully brought together the funding to invest in a private air service fund to attract more nonstop flights to San Antonio International Airport while supporting airline marketing and outreach, and the city of San Antonio’s new terminal development program. Recently, we joined the airport in announcing a new nonstop route to Germany, and we expect more announcements soon.
As we make these transformational investments, we will position the greater San Antonio region globally as a premier destination for business investment. More importantly, if we focus on strategies to drive economic mobility for San Antonians who demographically represent the future of America, we will be a model city for the rest of the world.
Our challenges are clear. By harnessing our energy, taking action and driving improvement, we will elevate the voices of our business community and our region.