Jun 24, 2009

Columbia receives national recognition for entrepreneurial climateBy Danielle RodabaughColumbiaMissourian.com

Columbia, Missouri — Local business owners and professors know one reason why Columbia attracts so many new businesses: The city’s higher education system provides the business community with invaluable advantages.

Ceramic figures are among the gift items for sale at Peggy’s Gifts, owned by Peggy Hurst. The store opened Dec. 15.

And now savvy business minds across the nation are taking notice, too.

BusinessWeek magazine named Columbia the best small city in Missouri for business start-ups in its March 27 article, “The Pros of Planting Startups in Smaller Cities.”

Researchers analyzed cities across the nation with populations between 20,000 and 200,000 “to gauge an area’s entrepreneurial climate,” reporter John Tozzi wrote in the article.

Some of the 11 factors analyzed included the city’s universities, workers with at least a bachelor’s degree, the “young and educated” population and small businesses per capita.

Since January, 325 business owners were issued a new business license in Columbia, according to Janice Finley, the city’s business service administrator.

Columbia has an attractive labor pool of skilled workers for potential businesses because of MU and the city’s colleges, said John Bennett, an MU associate professor of marketing.

Businessinthedistrict.com references “34,000 students and nearly 13,000 faculty and staff within walking distance of our shops, restaurants and theaters” as one of the contributing factors that “make this the shopping, dining and entertainment center of the Mid-Missouri region and the best location in the state for starting a business.”

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