NCOE Examines Location of Country's Fastest-Growing Companies

While cities such as Boston and San Francisco, not surprisingly, are home to many high-growth companies, a recent report from the National Commission on Entrepreneurship (NCOE) reveals large concentrations of high-growth companies in less familiar areas such as Elkhart, IN, and Provo, UT.



High Growth Companies: Mapping America’s Entrepreneurial Landscape provides a detailed picture of the regions where businesses have shown rapid growth. The report was released July 11 as a starting point for understanding the economic development in the nation’s 394 Labor Market Areas (LMAs), as designated by the U.S. Departments of Labor and Agriculture.



The key findings of the report include:

• High-growth companies — those with 15 percent employment growth per year for 5 years, or a doubling in employment between 1992 and 1997 — are found in all regions of the U.S. and all industrial sectors.
• Fewer than 1 in 20 U.S. businesses achieved the designation as a high-growth rate company.
• Each of the 394 LMA regions in the country contains some high-growth companies, providing a base for future economic growth in the region.

The top five high-growth communities by population group:

• 150K – 300K: Provo, UT; St. George, UT; St. Cloud, MN; Cleveland, TN; Killeen, TX
• 300 – 500K: Elkhart, IN; Lafayette, LA; Savannah, GA; Green Bay, WI; Lansing, MI
• 500 – 750K: Baton Rouge, LA; Albuquerque, NM; Fort Wayne, IN; Little Rock, AR; Madison, WI
• 750K – 1 million: Austin, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Nashville, TN; Toledo, OH; Birmingham, AL
• 1-3 million: Phoenix, AZ; Salt Lake City, UT; Dallas, TX; Fort Worth, TX: Atlanta, GA
• 3 million or more: Boston, MA; Detroit, MI; Houston, TX; Washington/Baltimore/Northern VA; San Francisco, CA

High-Growth Companies discusses the NCOE findings as they relate to any given LMA in the U.S. Los Angeles, with over 14,000 high-growth companies, was cited as the largest LMA in the country and Amsterdam, NY, was among the smallest with 53 companies. The report also provides a framework for economic development officials to look at the success stories within their LMA to better understand of how to expand the possibilities of entrepreneurship within their region.



To obtain a copy of High-Growth Companies, contact NCOE at 202/434-8066. The report also can be found online at: http://www.ncoe.org/lma. The online report contains a color-coded U.S. map that compares high-growth companies by geographic region and growth rankings and statistics for each of the 394 designated LMA regions.



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