Best, Worst Small Cities In LI, HV For Business Startups

Startups are always a risk, and choosing the city with the right fit can be the difference between success and failure. Big cities may seem like an obvious choice, but small cities have their own advantages. So, the personal finance website WalletHub used data-driven research to compile a list of the best, and worst, small cities in the United States to start a business, and 36 in the Hudson Valley and Long Island area are on the list. The four locations in the top 400 on the list are:

• Business environment: 299
• Access to resources: 300
• Business costs: 218

• Business environment: 385
• Access to resources: 1,097
• Business costs: 179

• Business environment: 216
• Access to resources: 89
• Business costs: 977

• Business environment: 24
• Access to resources: 1,261
• Business costs: 694

The other Hudson Valley and Long Island cities were ranked as follows:

• Middletown / 413
• Brentwood / 441
• Shirley / 490
• Bay Shore / 533
• New Rochelle / 534
• Huntington Station / 552
• Spring Valley / 561
• Franklin Square / 633
• Deer Park / 635
• Coram / 663
• East Meadow / 683
• Mount Vernon / 694
• Ossining / 697
• Commack / 706
• Elmont / 724
• West Babylon / 738
• Harrison / 751
• Smithtown / 754
• Holbrook / 776
• Freeport / 826
• Glen Cove / 836
• Hempstead / 843
• West Islip / 852
• Hicksville / 856
• Plainview / 869
• Long Beach / 870
• Port Chester / 878
• New City / 901
• Oceanside / 933
• Levittown / 950
• Lindenhurst / 969
• Valley Stream / 1078

The further north one goes in the Empire State the better the startup environment, according to WalletHub. The best location in the state for a startup business was Brighton at No. 28, followed by Irondequoit at No. 68 and West Seneca at No. 137. Niagara Falls and Albany made the list at Nos. 161 and 204, respectively

The business environment ranking reflects what it’s like to work in the city. WalletHub considered the average commute time, the length of the work week and growth in revenue to compile this ranking.

The access to resources category includes financing accessibility, working age population growth and job growth, while the business costs category takes into account tax rates, labor costs, office space affordability and more.

The study looked at more than 1,200 cities with between 25,000 and 100,000 residents. Holland, Michigan, took honors as the best small city for a startup due in no small part to its No. 1 ranking in “access to resources,” which is one of three key categories WalletHub used in its study.

Business environment and business costs are the other two major categories. In all, WalletHub used 18 metrics — including average growth in small businesses, access to investors and labor costs — to score America’s small cities’ startup friendliness.

Here are the top 10 small cities for startups:

1: Holland, Michigan
2: St. George, Utah
3: Fort Myers, Florida
4: Redmond, Oregon
5: Cheyenne, Wyoming (tie)
5: Huntsville, Texas (tie)
7: Bozeman, Montana
8: Aberdeen, South Dakota
9: Bend, Oregon
10: Wilson, North Carolina

Suisun City, California, ended up in last place on the list.

Patch national staffer Geoff Dempsey contributed to this report.