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business statistics
Employer establishments with 1-49 employees
(2007)		 27,126.98
Small business growth rate
(2004-2007)		 % 5.92%
State business tax climate ranking
(out of 50 states)		 N/A
Percentage of population with bachelor's degree
(ages 25-34)		 % 33.48%
Violent crime
(rate per 100,000 inhabitants,2007)		 393.34
Property crime
(rate per 100,000 inhabitants,2007)		 3158.51
Population growth
(2003-2008)		 % 7.84%
Per-capita income
(2007)		 $ $36,545.24
Per-capita income growth
(2002-2007)		 % 27.66%
GDP
(2006)		 59,299.44
GDP growth
(2001-2007)		 % 38.97%
Average hourly wage
(2008)		 $18.35
Housing foreclosure rate
(first half of 2009)		 1,070.14
Median rent
(2009, for a 2-bedroom housing unit)		 $ $778.80
Housing price-to-income (HPI) ratio
(first quarter of 2009)		 % 1.70%
Long-term HPI ratio
(20-year average, 1984-2004)		 % 1.65%
HPI deviation from long-term average
 % 1.47%
All statistics are for the full Metropolitan Statistical Area. For a complete list of data sources, see "How we picked the Best Places."

From the November 2009 issue
Best Places Winners
MAPS
Are these great places to live, or what?
Video
Is your city great for entrepreneurs?
ireportTell us why: Low taxes? Talented workers? An active small business community? Send us your photos and videos, and you could be featured in our upcoming coverage of reader-picked Best Places to Launch. More
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.