Inc. List Tacoma As a Boomtown (18. May 2006, 07:40 by Derek Young) ~ Where Are The VCs Now?

We get such mixed signals around here. Is Tacoma a healthy place to start a business? Does it have the resources needed for companies to grow? A frequent contributor, and Maple Valley resident (Huh?), sent us news that Inc. Magazine named Tacoma as its 17th best mid-sized city to do business. It’s overall rank is 77th in the nation. Really?

To compile the rankings, Inc. measured current-year employment growth, as well as average annual job growth over the past three years and compared job growth in the first and second halves of the period comprising the past 10 years.

The actual listing for Tacoma talks about container traffic and the additional capacity in the port. So the job growth isn’t the downtown boom type of growth a lot of us are looking for, but it is an indicator of overall economic health. I still find it curious.

Link to Inc.com