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MSA: Lafayette, LA
Best places ranking: #2 among midsize metro areas
Population: 259,073

Lafayette is the capital of French Louisiana and the heart of Cajun country. French Acadians — Cajuns — exiled from Nova Scotia settled here in the late 1700s.From crawfish boils to jambalaya cook-offs, this small town turned restaurant-heavy urban center always makes time to celebrate, enjoy family and eat. In recent years, Hurricane Katrina evacuees have expanded the local population — and that population has grown steadily wealthier. Lafayette’s average per-capita income rose more than 40% over the course of this decade.

Since the 1940s, the area has been dominated by the oil and gas industry, but the population boom has led to more demand in service industries, diversifying the area’s economy and creating something new in town: traffic.

Compared to other Southern metro areas, the cost of labor is cheap in Lafayette. The city is served by a regional airport, and Louisiana’s second largest university, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, brings to town a student population of more than 17,000. -Sara Pepitone

MSA: Huntsville, AL
Best places ranking: #1 among midsize metro areas
Population: 395,645

In the 1960s, Huntsville was often racked with earthquake-like rumblings as NASA’s engineers tested boosters for rockets that would carry astronauts to the moon.In the past 50 years, this small city in northern Alabama has morphed from cotton capital to rocket town to high-technology hub. The U.S. Army’s Aviation and Missile Command is housed in the nearby Redstone Arsenal, and the federal government employs more than 8% of the local workforce. But the city’s thriving engineering community and tradition of innovation have also made it a breeding ground for tech entrepreneurs.

Business owners benefit from Huntsville’s low cost of living and beautiful surroundings. Still, they have a few grumbles: Venture capitalists are scarce in this small city dominated by government contractors. Travel can be difficult too, with no direct flights from the small airport to New York City or L.A. -Malika Zouhali-Worrall

MSA: Baltimore-Towson, MD
Best places ranking: #10 among large metro areas
Population: 2,667,117

Sure, there’s the swanky Inner Harbor, crab feasts and Oriole Park, but Baltimore’s biggest selling point is location: a 30-minute train ride from Washington and just a couple of hours from New York. That puts businesses close to federal agencies with money to spend and to the country’s finance capital. Baltimore is near the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration — which sign off on new products and provide research grants — as well as Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Medical Center. That makes the region fertile ground for biotech startups.Baltimore is also home to the Emerging Tech Center, a business incubator directed toward tech startups. The Baltimore Development Corporation offers low-interest loans to small businesses, usually in the $50,000-$100,000 range. BDC also runs 10 «Main Street» programs through which it helps revitalize older commercial neighborhoods in the city, fixing street lights, replacing benches, updating infrastructure, sprucing up building facades and helping find tenants for vacant buildings.

Still, Baltimore has classic urban problems like a high crime rate and problematic schools. The flip side is a vibrant downtown, with quirky, distinct neighborhoods and a growing number of creative young professionals and entrepreneurs. -Eilene Zimmerman

MSA: New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
Best places ranking: #9 among large metro areas
Population: 19,006,798

The sprawling New York metropolitan area is anything but homogeneous. Millions of people need all kinds of jobs and services, providing significant opportunities for startups. Business owners can shop around for services, like telecommunications, that would be monopolies in smaller regions.Multiple state and local governments wrap the region in red tape. New York City, the only city in the U.S. that encompasses five separate counties, is notorious for rigid regulations, Byzantine tax laws, and vast bureaucracy. Fortunately, the public advocate’s office helps to translate between owner-speak and city-speak, and neighborhood business improvement districts let storefront business owners negotiate with the city en masse.

Rents, service fees, and wages are high, so NYC entrepreneurs on a budget look toward the edges of the five boroughs, where prices drop. New Yorkers often bargain-hunt, but they’re willing to pay top dollar for high quality goods and services, which keeps the money coming in even when times are hard.

The number-one reason people launch in New York, of course, is that it’s New York. The city has been a symbol for entrepreneurial opportunity for hundreds of years. Natives and transplants alike fall in love with New York and New Yorkers, and soon they can’t imagine themselves or their businesses anywhere else. -Rose Fox

MSA: Austin-Round Rock, TX
Best places ranking: #8 among large metro areas
Population: 1,652,602

Entrepreneurial ventures and small businesses have thrived in Austin, which has a number of angel investment groups that focus on startup businesses. The state capital, like the rest of Texas, is known for its business-friendly tax structure — no state personal income tax, no corporate income tax — and support for business development, particularly in the technology sector.The Austin metro area, which has doubled its population growth in the last 20 years, is often used as a test market by national companies because its large minority population reflects the nation’s future demographic mix. With University of Texas college students in residence, the area offers entrepreneurial opportunities for the youth market and skilled workers for local businesses. One-third of the area’s payroll is related to technology jobs, contributing to Austin’s reputation for having one of the most educated workforces in the nation.

Challenges cited by business owners center around transportation issues. The number of flights and routes serviced by airlines can be problematic compared with larger markets. Mass transit is not plentiful.

While the summers can be scorchers, residents enjoy outdoor activities year-round. Austin is home to a vibrant music, film, theater and arts community, and is known for its annual SXSW and Austin City Limits music festivals. -Dinah Eng

MSA: Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC
Best places ranking: #7 among large metro areas
Population: 1,701,799

Nestled in the Piedmont region of the Carolinas, Charlotte has all the amenities of a metro hub with the flavor of a small Southern town. The surrounding region was originally steeped in textile and furniture manufacturing, but as those industries declined, the workforce retrained and deployed into other areas. Today, the area has 1,900 manufacturers, representing industries that range from computer and electronic products to bio-medical facilities.Charlotte is the second-largest financial center in the country, with more than $2.3 trillion in bank assets, trailing only New York. Seven Fortune 500 companies are headquartered here, and incentives are plentiful for new businesses in town.

Charlotte’s population has grown steadily for the past 20 years, and unemployment is low. Business owners cite a high quality of life in a region that has four distinct seasons; mountains, rivers and lakes for recreation; and a growing arts community. Mass transit is scarce, however, and Charlotte is the largest city in the nation without a completed outer belt in its freeway system. -Dinah Eng

MSA: Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
Best places ranking: #6 among large metro areas
Population: 5,358,130

For anyone providing services to the government — anything from consulting to IT to construction — Washington is the place to be. Sure, you could set up across the border in Virginia or Maryland, but business owners say that nothing beats hopping in a cab and arriving on Capitol Hill in 10 minutes flat. And speaking of Capitol Hill, all those highly-educated, affluent politicos, lobbyists, and lawyers keep D.C.’s consumer scene going. Retailers find that the costs of being in D.C. are outweighed by the advantages of access to a lucrative consumer base.Rent and taxes are higher than in neighboring areas, and the District government has a reputation for red tape, though business owners agree that things have sped up in the past decade. Many businesses find they have to look outside Washington for qualified labor. Those employees face a traffic-filled commute — and it’s a common local perk for employers to foot part of the bill by paying for parking or public transit vouchers. But the prestige of being located in the nation’s capital outweighs all this, entrepreneurs say, especially for anyone who wants to get a bite of the Fed pie. -Rachel Kaufman

MSA: Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT
Best places ranking: #5 among large metro areas
Population: 1,190,512

Hartford, a two-hour drive from both Boston and New York City, is the capital of one the country’s wealthiest states, and a low-cost alternative to other major cities in the Northeast.The past few years have seen new life — hotels, restaurants, a convention center and a science center — sprouting in the historic city, where you’ll also find the country’s first public art museum and oldest public park. About half the jobs in Hartford require at least a bachelor’s degree (finance, insurance, medicine, professional management and government are the primary local paycheck-makers) but there’s also an abundance of lower-cost workers available for hire.

Specialty manufacturing and technology firms do well in Hartford — it’s one of the most-wired cities in the U.S. thanks to programs like «Wireless Hartford,» which brings free Wi-Fi to zones targeted for development. Also, manufacturers that relocate to or expand in Hartford may be eligible for a property tax abatements and corporate tax credits.

One of Hartford’s struggles is academic underachievement. This fall, the city introduced High School Inc., a four-year insurance and finance academy for high school students. Funded by the local business community, High School Inc. is designed to prepare students for college and give the businesses a chance to develop their next generation of workers. -Sara Pepitone

MSA: Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX
Best places ranking: #4 among large metro areas
Population: 5,728,143

Traditionally known for its lax zoning, low taxes, dominant oil industry and heavy traffic, Houston has evolved rapidly over the past decade. The city government has moved aggressively to curb pollution and diversify the economy. In 2003, the Metropolitan Transit Authority committed $1.46 billion for a public transportation system. The Texas Emerging Technology Fund, an early-stage venture fund created by the Texas legislature, allocated $180 million for research grants in the last two years, targeting the energy industry as well as the fast-growing aerospace, information technology, nanotechnology, biotech and medical sectors.Houston now boasts the world’s largest medical center and the nation’s top-rated cancer hospital. And this summer, Houston became the largest municipal purchaser of green power in the country, according to the EPA.

Houston has performed surprisingly well during the current recession, adding 500,000 new jobs during the past five years. The Greater Houston Partnership, an economic development group, forecasts that the metropolitan area will attract an additional 600,000 jobs and $60 billion in capital investment by the end of 2015.

One downside to launching a business in Houston: Mother Nature. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina inflicted $81.2 billion in damage on the Gulf Coast. Three years later, Ike devastated nearby Galveston. Some local businesses find hurricane insurance hard to come by. -Megan Erickson