CNNMoney.com > Small Business > Best Places to Launch

Biggest GDP growth
Who profited the most from the boom? For the five-year period from 2001-2006, these metro areas had the fastest local GDP growth.
Rank Metro area GDP growth GDP (in millions) Population
1 Lake Charles, LA 119% $13,802 192,856
2 Casper, WY 85% $5,678 73,129
3 Palm Coast, FL 84% $1,422 91,247
4 St. George, UT 81% $3,305 137,589
5 Port St. Lucie, FL 76% $11,118 403,768
6 Farmington, NM 74% $6,538 122,500
7 Midland, TX 72% $8,700 129,494
8 Fort Walton Beach, FL 70% $9,357 179,693
9 Baton Rouge, LA 69% $36,848 774,327
10 Las Vegas, NV 67% $91,500 1,865,746
11 Prescott, AZ 64% $4,362 215,503
12 Bakersfield, CA 63% $25,067 800,458
13 Longview, TX 63% $8,238 204,746
14 Coeur d'Alene, ID 62% $3,857 137,475
15 Panama City, FL 61% $6,104 163,946
16 Lake Havasu City, AZ 60% $3,600 196,281
17 Ocala, FL 59% $7,341 329,628
18 Victoria, TX 59% $4,766 114,313
19 Fairbanks, AK 58% $4,612 97,970
20 Hanford, CA 58% $3,639 149,518
21 Bend, OR 57% $6,011 158,456
22 Clarksville, TN 57% $8,752 261,220
23 Hinesville, GA 57% $2,681 69,943
24 Houma, LA 57% $8,633 201,148
25 Odessa, TX 56% $4,776 131,941
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Gross Domestic Product by Metropolitan Area for 2006.
Best Places Winners
MAPS
Video
Find your launch spot
Do you prefer a place that is: Small Medium Large
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

Video
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
Market indexes are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer LIBOR Warning: Neither BBA Enterprises Limited, nor the BBA LIBOR Contributor Banks, nor Reuters, can be held liable for any irregularity or inaccuracy of BBA LIBOR. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2013 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer The Dow Jones IndexesSM are proprietary to and distributed by Dow Jones & Company, Inc. and have been licensed for use. All content of the Dow Jones IndexesSM © 2013 is proprietary to Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Chicago Mercantile Association. The market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2013. All rights reserved. Most stock quote data provided by BATS.
© 2013 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Privacy Policy. Ad choices .