The Best Cities For Female Entrepreneurs

We often see information about the best states or cities to start a business, but what about entrepreneurial women. Forbes has crunched the numbers and determined what they believe are the best cities for women in business.

With the numbers crunched, it wasn’t surprising to see who came out on top. New York and San Francisco–the Alley and the Valley–are the cities where not only are more women launching businesses, but thanks to SBA-backed loans, they have an easier time finding funding and resources which they are quicker to parlay into big-time profits.

But just a few steps down the list, real surprises emerge. Tampa, Fla., is known as a city of retirees and not entrepreneurism. But according to research by WomenAble and American Express OPEN, Florida brags the second fastest-growing state in terms of the number of new firms opened between 1997 and 2011. Women-led firms in the city received over $19 million in SBA-guaranteed loans in 2010. On the ground, a keyed in observer of the startup scene in Tampa, Liz Bollinger, the co-founder of Biz-E Chicks, a networking and development community for local women building startups, has seen her own explosive growth. Since 2006 the group’s mailing list has grown from 10 subscribers to well over 500 women entrepreneurs, most entrenched in creative services like copywriting, marketing and photography.

Bethesda, Md., and Washington D.C. both benefit from government contracts in the area, and women’s earnings there are among the highest in the country, so their place among the top cities seems well-deserved. Then there’s dark horse Columbus, Ohio.

Photo by Leo Newball, Jr.

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