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CNNMoney.com > Small Business > Best Places to Launch

Fastest small business growth
In these metro areas, the number of small businesses -- companies with fewer than 50 employees -- grew fast from 2004-2007.
Rank Metro area Small business growth rate # of small businesses
(1-49 employees)
1 Kingsport, TN 43.7% 6,087
2 St. George, UT 29.8% 4,224
3 Provo, UT 23.0% 10,525
4 Bend, OR 22.6% 6,554
5 Palm Coast, FL 22.4% 1,888
6 Boise City, ID 19.0% 17,586
7 Coeur d'Alene, ID 16.5% 4,645
8 Prescott, AZ 16.0% 6,472
9 Grand Junction, CO 15.8% 4,830
10 Phoenix, AZ 15.1% 87,951
11 Las Vegas, NV 14.8% 38,927
12 Gainesville, GA 14.5% 4,118
13 Greeley, CO 14.5% 5,107
14 Idaho Falls, ID 14.1% 3,705
15 Riverside, CA 14.0% 65,359
16 Yuma, AZ 14.0% 2,968
17 Ocala, FL 13.9% 7,139
18 Austin, TX 13.3% 37,296
19 Cape Coral, FL 13.3% 16,391
20 Logan, UT 13.3% 3,254
21 Myrtle Beach, SC 13.2% 8,600
22 Lake Havasu City, AZ 13.0% 4,323
23 McAllen, TX 13.0% 10,028
24 Wilmington, NC 12.8% 10,242
25 Hinesville, GA 12.5% 880
Source: U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns, 2004-2007.
Best Places Winners
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The factors that matter most to me are:
 Affordable wages  Few foreclosures
 Educated workers  Low housing costs
 Low crime  High local incomes
 A growing economy  Population growth
 Growing small business population

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How we picked the Best Places
This year we partnered with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to find the 50 most business-friendly communities in America.

With help from Robert Fairlie, an economist and leading scholar of entrepreneurship at the University of California, Santa Cruz, we developed a methodology and sifted through such data on factors such as per capita income, hourly wages, workforce quality, crime rates, taxes and foreclosures. More

Comments? E-mail the editors
Data partners

This package was produced in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Foreclosure data provided by RealtyTrac.

Housing price-to-income data provided by Moody's Economy.com.

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