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Killeen, TX
Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood
MSA: Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood, TX
Best places ranking: #7 among midsize metro areas
Population: 378,935
If your business involves efficient transport of goods, Temple may be just the place to launch. Located southeast of the Fort Hood military installation, Temple sits right on Interstate 35, one of the country's major north-to-south corridors that nearly reaches the Canadian border.

Not surprisingly, Temple is home to several large distribution businesses, including one of Wal-Mart's. Over the last three years, Gulf States Toyota and HEB Grocery, a regional supermarket chain, have set up distribution centers here. In addition to superb highway access, the city has a short-line railroad that's ideal for companies with warehouse traffic for transcontinental transport.

Like most of Texas, Temple, now in a growth pattern, is extremely business-friendly and has aggressively low taxes. The city's incentive package for new businesses includes tax rebates, a fast-track to obtaining permits associated with specific manufacturing needs, and even free land -- on a case-by-case basis -- on which to build your brick-and-mortar facility. -Coeli Carr

Launch Toolbox:
Resources for getting started in Killeen, TX

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Local smallbiz lenders

  • Compass Bancshares
  • JPMorgan Chase & Co.
  • Wells Fargo & Company
  • Central Bancorp
  • Community Bankers
See all local lenders

Killeen Business Statistics
Employer establishments with 1-49 employees
(2007)
5,574 11,214
Small business growth rate
(2004-2007)
8.4% 5.0%
State business tax climate ranking
(out of 50 states)
7 N/A
Percentage of population with bachelor's degree
(ages 25-34)
19.3% 26.9%
Violent crime
(rate per 100,000 inhabitants, 2007)
395.9 478.8
Property crime
(rate per 100,000 inhabitants, 2007)
3,676.5 3,562.2
Population growth
(2003-2008)
9.4% 5.73%
Per-capita income
(2007)
$33,913 $35,547
Per-capita income growth
(2002-2007)
40.4% 24.0%
GDP (in millions)
(2006)
$12,286 $18,559
GDP growth
(2001-2006)
54% 32%
Average hourly wage
(2008)
$16.31 $18.69
Housing foreclosure rate
(first half of 2009, 1 per every X housing units)
165 286
Median rent
(2009, for a 2-bedroom housing unit)
$774 $848
Housing price-to-income (HPI) ratio
(first quarter of 2009)
1.1% 1.9%
Long-term HPI ratio
(20-year average, 1984-2004)
1.4% 1.8%
HPI deviation from long-term average
-22.9% 0.0%

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
"It's very simple to do business here. Tax rates are low and -- maybe it's a Texas thing -- everyone is very willing to help you out." -Melvin Maddux
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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.