Start Me Up:
Phoenix, Las Vegas Rated No. 1 Cities
Startups are costly, risky business. But Phoenix and Las Vegas are the U.S. locations most conducive to startups’ health, according to new research from Cambridge, Mass.-based Cognetics (www.cogonline.com) (headed by David Birch, considered “the granddaddy of gazelles”). Those two cities are the respective two top “entrepreneurial hotspots” in Cognetics’ rankings for “big” and “small” metros, with the Southwest and the Southeast dominating both top 10s (see charts).
“Major determinants” in startup success are access to universities, skilled labor and quality airports, plus more subjective factors like “a positive entrepreneurial climate,” Cognetics says. The big- and small-metro top 100s are online at www.inc.com.
No. 1 QOL Cities: Berne, Vienna, Vancouver and Zurich
Long the No. 1 business cost, labor — finding it, hiring it and keeping it — is overwhelmingly today’s No. 1 corporate concern, which has elevated quality-of-life (QOL) factors. Particularly for facility types like headquarters and R&D, QOL considerations may sway highly coveted key employees to sign up and stay on.
So what’s the world’s No. 1 QOL city, where your labor costs’ ever-upward spiral might abate? Actually, there are four, according to William M. Mercer Cos.’ (www.wmmercer.com) recently released survey of 200-plus cities: Two Swiss cities, Berne and Zurich, tied for No. 1 with Vancouver, Canada, and Vienna, Austria. Cities were ranked on 39 QOL criteria, including economic, education, environmental, health, political, safety and transportation factors.
The rankings are awash with ties: Five same-score groupings make up the entire top 20. One obvious big winner in the top 20 is Western Europe, which landed 12 of the top 20 slots, led by Switzerland, which grabbed three of the top five (including No. 5 Geneva). Other nations with more than one top 20 city were Australia, with three (No. 5 Sydney, No. 11 Melbourne and No. 15 Perth), plus two each for Canada (including No. 15 Toronto) and the USA (No. 11 Honolulu and No. 15 San Francisco).
U.S. scores were downgraded for “crime and personal security issues,” the survey said.
A ranking surprise: Usual QOL suspects Paris and London respectively ranked only 24th and 34th. The lowest-ranked QOL city? Brazzaville, Congo.
