GIS Planning

25 cities named in article about the best small cities for working, living and business.

NEW YORK, NY – May 4, 2009 – Forbes, one of the world’s leading business media companies, today released its list of the best small cities to live, work and operate a business in an article entitled, "America's Top 25 Towns To Live Well.” Forbes turned to ZoomProspector.com to research and rank the cities on the list by a variety of demographic, business, cultural and geographic variables that make the small cities on the list great places to live and work.

Forbes searched cities across the United States with populations of less than 100,000 people to compile the list. “Characteristics like the number of museums, parks, bars and restaurants, and cultural institutions per capita were considered, as were factors indicative of a favorable business environment. These include patents, venture capital funding, sole-proprietorships, start-ups and small businesses per capita,” according to the article by Matt Woolsey. The article went on to say, “When you have museums and sunshine, mountains, nice restaurants and a local economy with new companies starting up, it makes an otherwise slow economy far easier to deal with.” The article also includes a slideshow highlighting each city on the list , as well as an interactive map powered by ZoomProspector .

GIS Planning & ZoomProspector Co-CEO and Co-Founder Anatalio Ubalde was quoted in the article, saying, "Many small and medium-sized cities have developed the business, demographic and lifestyle amenities of big cities. While smaller cities may not have the total number of quality employees and amenities of larger cities, on a per-capita basis, they are very competitive locations for businesses.”

With demographic and geographic data on every city in the United States, ZoomProspector is a growing source of data for businesses, individuals and the media. ZoomProspector.com allows companies to find the community that best matches its workforce needs, target customer base and infrastructure requirements, among other requirements. Much of ZoomProspector’s data is viewable on the site’s integrated and interactive online maps, and visitors can quickly do national, county and city searches through a few clicks of the mouse. ZoomProspector is a free to use service, and was recently named as one of the Top 10 Websites of 2009 by Planetizen.

GIS Planning Inc., creator of ZoomProspector.com , is on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S., with more than 180 economic development organization clients, and is an exclusive partner of the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), the main worldwide economic development membership organization. In addition to Forbes, GIS Planning & ZoomProspector.com have been covered in over 100 leading news publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Fortune Small Business, Inc., BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, The Los Angeles Times, CFO Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, CNET, The Boston Globe, and The Associated Press.