A Chinese entrepreneur who makes industrial parts is scouting sites in the southern United States for a warehouse and sales hub, and Texas quickly made his shortlist. What drew him was not only the Port of Houston and the warehouses of Dallas, but Texas’s reputation for having no state personal income tax and no traditional state corporate income tax. Yet once goods actually sit in a local warehouse, the franchise tax and information reports can still come calling. That kind of detail is exactly the entry point for understanding what living in Texas is really like: low taxes and a strong industrial base coexist, but the cost of living and the distribution of opportunity are far from even.
Texas sits in the south-central United States, bordering Mexico to the south and the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast. Its capital is Austin and its largest city is Houston. At about 696,000 square kilometers it is second in area only to Alaska, and as of July 2025 its population was roughly 31.71 million, making it the second-most populous state. Many people’s first image of it is cowboys, ranches and oil fields. That image is not unfounded, but it covers only a short stretch of the state’s history.
From oil wells to the refining belt
In the 19th century, the Texas economy ran mainly on cotton farming, livestock and land development. The turning point came in January 1901, when the Spindletop oil field near Beaumont blew in and oil gushed out; investors, workers and oil companies poured in after it. Refineries, pipelines and supporting industries grew up around the wells, and the oil business took root. Large oil fields were later discovered across West Texas, and Houston gradually became a major U.S. energy and petrochemical center. Today the Permian Basin, one of the country’s most important oil and gas regions, still stretches across West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, and a vast refining, chemicals and energy-equipment industry remains around Houston. For people who live in Houston, the energy business is not just the oil price in the news; it is part of jobs, commutes and the character of the city.
Several cities, several industrial roles
Texas’s economy has long since stopped relying on oil alone. From the second half of the 20th century, electronics, telecommunications, aerospace and computing developed in turn, and the major metro areas took on separate roles. Houston remains an energy and industrial center, concentrated in oil and gas, petrochemicals, industrial equipment manufacturing and international trade, with strong medical and aerospace sectors as well. Dallas–Fort Worth is a commercial and logistics hub, home to a large number of corporate headquarters, financial institutions, telecom companies and warehouse facilities, and an important freight distribution node for the southern United States. Austin has a stronger tech identity, with software, semiconductor and electronics manufacturing companies clustered there; Samsung’s investment in and around the city has made it an important base for the U.S. semiconductor industry. Further south, border cities such as Laredo carry a large share of overland freight between the United States and Mexico. This distribution is directly tied to geography: Gulf ports in the southeast, energy resources in the west, open land and a highway network in the north and center, and Mexico on the southern border. Choosing which city to live in is largely choosing which supply chain to join.
The other side of low taxes
Texas is often summed up as having “no state personal income tax and no traditional state corporate income tax levied on net profit,” which appeals to both workers and companies. But the state does levy a franchise tax, and even businesses below the payment threshold may need to file an information report every year. For Chinese companies planning to set up warehouses, that means “tax-free” does not mean “nothing to do”; compliance filings are part of the cost of landing. For ordinary residents, low state taxes do not mean a low overall burden. Property taxes, insurance and transportation costs vary markedly from city to city, and the actual experience depends on the specific county and school district.
From oil fields to chip plants, the Texas story is written jointly by resources, ports, the border and highways. The opportunities it offers newcomers are very concrete, and so are the thresholds: pick the right city and industry, and low taxes and low costs hold up; pick the wrong location, and commuting and compliance costs quickly cancel out the benefits on paper.
Source: Zhihu https://www.zhihu.com/question/29341177/answer/2100598448265369162?utm_medium=openapi_platform&utm_source=b38f6831b176
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