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Hazleton is the best local small city to start a business, according to a new ranking, but there’s scant reason to celebrate: It ranked 827th of 1,268 municipalities reviewed nationwide. Scranton couldn’t break the top 1,000 and Wilkes-Barre tanked at 1,157th.
It was an assessment Joseph Boylan of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry did not entirely dispute.
“There is no doubt our local business development system is flawed,” Boylan wrote in a statement responding to the rankings by the website wallethub.com.
“In fact, in a recent study conducted by our Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber Government Affairs Committee, local businesses rated the business climate in NEPA lower than the Commonwealth as a whole (2.76 out of 5 compared to 2.86 out of 5),” Boylan, the chamber’s vice-president of economic development, added.
WalletHub released the report “2016’s Best & Worst Small Cities to Start a Business” as a precursor to National Small Business Week, set for May 1-7.
Their study used 15 statistics grouped into three categories: Business environment, including things like average revenue per business and growth in number of small businesses; access to resources including financing and employees; and business costs such as office space affordability and cost of living.
The best small city for starting a small business: Holland, Mich., population about 33,000, which sells itself with the catch line “… where you don’t need a passport!” And yes, it has a Tulip Time flower festival — May 7-14 this year, if you want to make the trip, though be warned: Google maps pegs the driving distance from Wilkes-Barre at an ominous 666 miles.
Holland did only fair-to-good in the business environment rank, coming in 354th. North Chicago, Ill., got the top rank in that category; and no, it’s not the section of the Windy City closest to Canada. It’s a separate incorporated suburb of about 32,500 people.
But Holland scored particularly high in the other two categories: 35th in access to resources and 64th in business costs.
By comparison, Hazleton — with the best overall ranking in the area — scored 1,000th in business environment, 624th in resources and 530th in business costs.
Wilkes-Barre actually did better than Hazleton in business environment, ranking 844th, but did poorly in resources at 888th and business costs at 839th.
Rather than critique the ratings, Boylan used them to tout the Wednesday launch of Wilkes-Barre Connect, “A system that ensures businesses have access to the tools they need.”
The Chamber is acting as administrator of the program that offers services such as technical assistance, training, access to capital, networking opportunities and mentoring.