BizJournals has named Seattle as one of the top ten best cities for small-business vitality, based on a six-part formula analyzing the top 100 metropolitan areas. Seattle came in at number three on the list, behind two North Carolina cities, Raleigh and Charlotte. Rounding out the top five were Austin and, a growing hub of entrepreneurship in the Pacific Northwest, Boise, Idaho.
Raleigh was far-and-away the winner based on the scoring — with a top ten showing in four of the six categories (growth rates for small businesses and population, and one- and five-year increases in employment).
What can Seattle do to take top spot? In reality, that may be somewhat hard — growth rates in population and small businesses are a hard nut to crack when you already have fairly high numbers of small businesses and population in your denominators. In any case, where Seattle falls in the top ten is less important than the fact it falls in the top ten. It proves what most of us in the community know — Seattle remains a vibrant place for the entire entrepreneurial community.
The detailed list can be found here, and the excerpt of Seattle’s detail is listed below.
3. Seattle
Seattle enjoys a strong concentration of small businesses, 29.44 for every 1,000 residents. That’s 20 percent better than the average for America’s 100 largest markets (24.57 per 1,000), a nice cushion against tough times ahead.
Small-business stats
(ranks in parentheses)
Small-business vitality score: 39.40 points
Number of small businesses: 96,040 (13)
1-year change in small businesses: 2.18% (33)
Small businesses per 1,000 residents: 29.44 (7)Other stats
(ranks in parentheses)
Population: 3,309,347 (15)
5-year change in population: 5.90% (49)
Private-sector employment: 1,531,300 (15)
5-year change in employment: 15.11% (12)
Note: All statistics are the latest official figures available — small businesses from 2006, population from 2007, employment from the third quarter of 2008. Ranks are among the nation’s 100 largest metros. See the methodology for details.
