page_title: Clear Lake (region)
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Clear Lake (region) / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: An aerial view of the complete Johnson Space Center facility in Houston, Texas. A portion of Clear Lake can be seen at the top of the view.
context_page_description: Clear Lake, or the Clear Lake Area, is a region in parts of Harris and Galveston County in Texas, United States. It is part of the Galveston Bay Area, which itself is a section of the Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan area. The area is geographically characterized by the bodies of water in it and around it, including Clear Lake, Taylor Lake, Clear Creek, and Galveston Bay.
  Clear Lake is relatively affluent with a thriving business community. The area's most important business sectors are aerospace and tourism. It is home to the Johnson Space Center and numerous aerospace contracting firms. The lake itself is home to one of the largest concentrations of recreational boats and marinas in the nation.
context_section_description: The area's most important employment sectors are aerospace, high-tech (software, biotechnology, electronics, etc.), and tourism. Most other employment in the region is supported by these industries.
  NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) is an important pillar of the area economy. As of 2010 the center itself employs 3,000 civil servants and 12,000 engineering contractors. Businesses around this core include a broad range of high-tech development enterprises. JSC manages more than $4 billion annually in aerospace contracts, and together with numerous private companies involved in space programs and related ventures gives the area one of the highest concentrations of aerospace businesses and expertise in the nation.
  The tourism industry attracts millions of visitors each year with attractions ranging from Space Center Houston to the bay itself. Ecotourism, in particular, is a growing sector with destinations such as the Armand Bayou Nature Center, one of the largest urban wilderness preserves in the nation, and the Seabrook Trail System (part of the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail). Biotechnology, which already employs nearly 3000 workers in the area, is a smaller but growing industry in the area enabled in large part by JSC and the Texas Medical Center in Houston. Commercial fishing is one the older industries in the region and is still a significant economic sector.
caption: Johnson Space Center
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