The Geography of Growth

Everyone wants to discover where the next hot city will be.

Now we know. Inc. and innovation policy company Startup Genome debut an index that measures the cities with the most economic momentum in the U.S. You’ll be surprised—and may discover just where you should start your next company.

“Where should I start my company?” “Where should we open our next office?” “Where should we be scouring for talent?”

Questions like these tug at every founder, and yet most ways to measure the merits of a city have been incomplete and largely subjective: its economic vibrancy; the tax incentives for small businesses; how many universities there are.

But at Inc., we’ve long believed there’s an alchemy that happens when fast-growing companies, innovative activity, and an entrepreneurial environment coalesce in a particular geographic space. So we paired up with innovation policy company Startup Genome to create the Surge Cities Index, the definitive guide of the geography of growth in the United States.

By applying hard data to seven key indicators— from early-stage funding metrics to rate of entrepreneurship—we’ve ranked the 50 top metropolitan statistical areas that are surging right now. For economists, that means identifying which pockets of the physical world are generating the most economic momentum. More important for you, that means finally answering those intriguing, daunting questions.

“When most people talk about economic growth in the U.S., they think about the big coastal cities and ignore everything else as ‘ flyover country,’ ” says Arnobio Morelix, director of research at Startup Genome and an Inc. contributing editor. “If you think this way, you are missing out on the cities driving the next phase of American growth.” Throughout the next 30 pages, discover what places are experiencing unexpected booms and which ones have clawed their way to a comeback, and allow yourself to imagine where you might go next.