How to create jobs

Atlantic:

If you want to understand how to create jobs -- not just a few at a time, but hundreds of thousands at once -- look to Texas and North Dakota.

Together, these two states account for a little more than 8 percent of the country's population -- about one in 12 people. But they're also responsible for 20 percent of net new jobs since the end of the recession. And, crucially, they account for "more than 100 percent of the increase in U.S. [oil] production since 2009," James Hamilton writes.

The Great Plains have been relatively great throughout the recovery for many reasons -- cheaper land, cheap wages, service sectors insulated from the housing-finance crisis that leveled parts of California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada -- but energy has helped a lot. It's "not entirely a coincidence," Hamilton wrote, that "the middle of the United States [has] been most successful in terms of connecting workers with jobs."

Is it possible that the Great Plains simply have better zoning laws, better governors, better entrepreneurial incentives, better schools, and better [other things that you typically associate with growth]? Yes, it is possible that the entire central time zone is magically gifted at matching people and jobs. It's also really, really unlikely. More likely is that the Great Plains have some of the positive aforementioned qualities -- Houston's zoning policies are exemplary, e.g. -- but most importantly, they did well because many of them shared something in common at the trans-state level: bountiful energy resources under their feet.
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Actually Houston is a dynamic city because it does not have any zoning laws.  Deed restrictions protect neighborhoods, but neighborhoods can turn over into commercial areas if the developer is willing to buy all the houses.  It happens.  The thrust of the story is that Texas and North Dakota are willing to exploit the resources in teh ground.  Blue states like California and New York are not as willing to do so and thus have had negative gob performance with millions of people leaving both states.  Texas also has a much more business friendly environment than the blue states that are losing jobs and population.