Interactive Map - Source: WalletHub

When it comes to the best small cities in which to start a business, Superior, Wisconsin comes in as one of the best around the country. In a study conducted by WalletHub, the Wisconsin half of the Twin Ports comes in 16th of over 1,200 small cities around the country as one of the best places to start a new business.

WalletHub looked at factors like access to resources, business costs, and business environment to create a scoring system to rank each of the 1,261 cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000. Outside of the Twin Cities, some of the regional cities that were a part of this ranking include: Duluth, Superior, St. Cloud, Moorhead, West Fargo, Grand Forks, and Wausau.

  • Superior, WI rank: 16
  • West Fargo, ND rank: 40
  • Grand Forks, ND rank: 217
  • St. Cloud, MN rank: 313
  • Moorhead, MN rank: 419
  • Duluth, MN rank: 1,171 

Of the three factors used by WalletHub to measure cities in this study, Superior's strength was "Business Environment", which looks at the economic health of the city and factors like industry variety and average business growth. Superior ranked 32 in the entire country in this area. For the other two categories, Superior ranks 307 in business costs and 953 in access to resources. The totaled score, however, put Superior in the top 20 around the country.

One of the key things that came out of this study was a finding that the bigger the town, the more difficult it is to start a new business. Higher costs and greater competition are highlighted as the major reasons for this.

You can explore the interactive map at the top of this post to see how various cities rank. So, what are the best small cities in the country? Here are the top 20:

  1. Holland, MI
  2. Carbondale, IL
  3. Springville, UT
  4. East Chicago, IN
  5. Jefferson City, MO
  6. Wilson, NC
  7. Enid, OK
  8. Rio Rancho, NM
  9. Clearfield, UT
  10. Cheyenne, WY
  11. Irondequoit, NY
  12. Hobbs, NM
  13. La Vergne, TN
  14. Tonawanda, NY
  15. North Chicago, IL
  16. Superior, WI
  17. Deer Park, TX
  18. Big Spring, TX
  19. Maryland Heights, MO
  20. Grand Island, NE

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