NBC Chicago - Survey: Evanston Best Small Town for Startups

An article September 15 in INC.WELL, an NBC Chicago "how-to blog for Chicago business", again highlighted Evanston as a good place for a small business or startup.
"Survey: Evanston Best Small Town for Startups".
 
The INC.WELL article quotes an earlier report in the  March 29, 2009 issue of BusinessWeek: "Best Small Cities for Startups".  Although two years old,  the Businessweek article provides a unique perspective on Evanston's strengths as a foundry for new business.

 
 
According to BusinessWeek:  "We asked San Francisco-based GIS Planning, a geographic data provider that helps companies select optimal sites through its ZoomProspector Web site, to identify the best small city to start a business in every state across the country, examining cities with populations between 20,000 and 200,000. The choices took into account 11 factors that shape a city's entrepreneurial climate, from the education level of the workforce to the amount of venture-capital investment to the number of startups......We then asked entrepreneurs in each place to tell us about doing business there, to match an on-the-ground perspective to the data. Because we chose to highlight only one small city in each state, our list necessarily leaves off many great places for startups, particularly in populous states with many cities to choose from."
 
The BusinessWeek article was part of a larger article on "The Pros of Planting Startups in Smaller Cities "
 
Data for the study was collected by ZoomProspector an on-line site selection database for businesses looking to locate.  The site provides many recent stats about the small business startup environment in Evanston.
 
One of the weighted factors used in selecting Evanston in 2009 was the number of 25-35 year olds with bachelor's degrees or higher. 
 
Here is some explanation of that factor from ZoomProspector.
 
“The most mobile, flexible and talented workers are those people 25 to 34 years old that have a bachelor’s degree or higher according to Joseph Cortright of Impresa Consulting. The presence of these workers, who he calls the ‘Young & Restless,’ indicates the ability of an area to attract and retain the most talented and footloose workers that will aid the future productivity of the community. These people are often educated, talented, and are more affordable to hire than workers with more years of experience. While his research analyzed metropolitan areas, we use our analysis of all cities and counties possessing over 65,000 people for the 25 to 35 year old age group.”
(Data Source: American Community Survey 2006-2008)