Inc.com Rankings

Where the New Economy Has Relocated

The economies of most big cities are idling. The real entrepreneurial hotbeds are now on the periphery -- where low costs make it possible to thrive in a tough global economy. The new economy didn't disappear. It changed addresses. The dynamic, job-generating information-technology and service companies that characterized the boom of the 1990s are still around. But it's getting harder to find them in the usual high-tech clusters like Silicon Valley, Boston, and Austin. Instead, five years after the bubble burst and a year or so into an economic recovery, those same kinds of companies are thriving in places like Yuma, AZ, McAllen, TX, Naples, FL and Northwest Arkansas (Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers) -- cities that were once mere specks on the new-economy map.

Thanks to lower housing and labor costs, more favorable regulatory environments, and, in some cases, lower taxes, these smaller cities are proving ideal places for doing business -- especially in a globalized economy in which companies operate under relentless pressure to keep costs low and quality high. Here's Inc.com's list of top 2007 Boomtowns.