Study: St. Louis, Springfield, KC earn high marks for cities to startup
May 2, 2017 | Meghan LeVota
Though still performing well on a national level, Kansas City, Mo., was recently rated as the third-best large city in Missouri for founders to start a business, according to a recent study.
Personal finance website WalletHub found that St. Louis and Springfield are the No. 7 and No. 11 best large cities to start a business in the U.S., respectively, surpassing Kansas City’s rank of No. 32.
WalletHub ranked 150 large cities by evaluating their performance across 18 differently-weighted metrics, ranging from business survival rate and office-space affordability to labor costs and access to resources. To learn more on the study’s methodology, click here.
St. Louis earned a high ranking thanks to its access to resources and low business costs, including low labor costs, office-space affordability, cost of living and corporate taxes. Springfield snagged a No. 1 national ranking for low business costs, which appears to have fueled its top-15 ranking.
Kansas City earned its ranking for relatively low business costs and business environment, which was calculated by startups per capita, five-year survival rate entrepreneurship index and more.
Kansas City’s dropped from its 2016 ranking in the study, in which it earned a No. 16 spot, while St. Louis ranked as the No. 5 city and Springfield earned No. 8.
Across the state line into Kansas, Wichita earned a No. 103 ranking and Overland Park nabbed a No. 122 rating.
Overall, Oklahoma City was ranked the top large city to start a business, followed by Salt Lake City and Charlotte. To see the complete ranking, click here.
Related Posts on Startland News
KCMO advancing its smart city action plan with focus on digital equity in urban tech
Kansas City is one step closer to being a fully connected hub for urban tech, as local decision makers craft a smart city action plan. “That document will be what guides all of our future investments in technology,” explained Chris Hernandez, KCMO communications director. The action plan comes a year after the city issued a…
KC suburb ranked among nation’s best cities for Hispanic entrepreneurs
Strong purchasing power for Hispanics in one Johnson County community helped land the suburb on a new ranking of the best cities for Hispanic entrepreneurs. Overland Park, Kansas, cracked the list’s overall top 25, according to WalletHub, a personal finance website that examined more than 180 cities across the United States. The survey pool included…
Looking for nation’s lowest-cost small cities for startups? No. 9’s in the KC metro
A Kansas City suburb finds itself among the top 10 lowest-cost small cities for starting a business, according to a new nationwide report. Raytown, Missouri, lands at No. 9 on the ranking by personal finance website WalletHub — just below Cape Girardeau, Missouri, at No. 8. The rest of the top 10 is filled by…
Startup stakeholders: Opportunity zones could prompt culture shift on redevelopment
Startup community stakeholders think opportunity zones in some of Kansas City’s poorest areas could work, but only with collaboration between the government and private sector. A number of low-income communities in Kansas City are eligible for designation as opportunity zones — areas in which investors may defer paying capital gains taxes over a certain period…