Well...how will the Chamber of Commerce explain this?
Category: Economy & Business... Local...
Posted Wednesday, January 12, 2005 at 11:23 AM [GMT-6]

American City Business Journals has published its list of best cities for small business. ACBJ used a four-category formula to rate local climates for small businesses, defined as companies with fewer than 100 employees. The cities are then ranked within three size categories, based on population (small, medium and large markets); all rankings are available for free in Excel spreadsheet format at the preceding link.

It's interesting to note that Odessa is the highest rated Texas city in the medium market (pop. 100-500K), coming in at number 24 (just ahead of Kahului-Wailuku, Hawaii...which in itself is surely fodder for another post!). Midland, the supposed entrepreneurial capital of the world, doesn't show up until #92, just ahead of Salina, California, and well behind other Texas SMAs such as College-Station-Bryan (#58), Laredo (#51) and Tyler (#47).

The ACBJ study ranked cities according to these factors:

  1. Number of small businesses per 100,000 residents
  2. Change in the number of small businesses from 2000 to 2002 (the latest year for which official figures are available)
  3. Change in private-sector employment from 2000 to 2002
  4. Change in private-sector payrolls from 2000 to 2002

Odessa benefitted greatly from the last factor, change in payrolls. There was no detail regarding how much of that increase in payroll went to massage therapists. (That's an inside joke, for you non-west Texas readers.)

The #1 city in the medium market category was Bend, Oregon.

Tip o'the green eyeshade to Deb Thompson over at Write Lightning.

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Comments

I never put to much stock in these surveys. Midland has a very large percentage of sucessfull small businesses of the oil and gas persuasion, but since these are not "typical" small businesses I would wager that they don't even show up on national surveys such as this.

Posted by: Wallace-Midland Texas at January 12, 2005 11:52 AM

Wallace, there's no doubt about it...this ranking system is full of holes and the results probably don't bear any resemblance to reality. But, still, it's exactly the kind of thing that COCs love to brag about (if it's good to their city) or dismiss as being flawed (if it's not).

I don't see how any kind of business climate rating can fail to consider effective tax rates and still be considered credible.

Posted by: Eric at January 12, 2005 12:21 PM
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