Bragging Time for Mayor Annise Parker and Houston

As Hair Balls let you know last week, the New York City-based business and innovation magazine Fast Company picked Houston as its No. 1 City of the Year for 2011.

In case you can't find a copy, the interview with Annise Parker by Jeff Chu, articles editor for Fast Company, and my own reflections on Houston life can now be accessed.

Last Friday, at a luncheon sponsored by the Greater Houston Partnership, Chu said Parker had a lot to do with why Houston was selected. "If you look at her career, at her experience working in the energy business...and public service, that is the kind of interdisciplinary mix that we at Fast Company think is wonderful. It's representative of what we find in public-private partnerships."

Parker, for her part, celebrated this as a moment to brag and said she wants to reach the day when people "don't feel the need to justify why we love Houston...We just love Houston."

And, she said, "I don't want to be the mayor of the best-kept secret. I want to be the mayor of the city that everybody knows, that everybody wants to do business in. We are working to do just that."