Amazon’s search for a new home has stirred up city officials and developers across the country, and 238 applicants across North America have expressed interest in housing the company’s next headquarters. Of course, the retail giant has a few requirements: the chosen metropolitan area should ideally house at least 1 million people, an international airport, and a “stable and business-friendly environment.” That seems fair for a juggernaut like Amazon, but what about smaller companies?

We enlisted the help of Yardi Matrix data, alongside other data providers and public sources, to find the best city in which to start up or to relocate your business. We compared U.S. cities with a population of over 100,000, and came up with a list of six major metrics to be taken into account when deciding to relocate. We then awarded each city a specific number of points, based on how that particular city fared for each metric, and also gave bonus points depending on population range (see ‘Methodology’). The overall score was calculated by adding up individual scores obtained for each of the six criteria we considered: the number of graduates with a higher-education degree; job growth in the area; average annual wage; average lease rate for office spaces; mean commute time; and average rent per square foot.

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