A recent report from Verizon has named South Jordan as the 4th best small city in the U.S. in which to start a business. In fact, it gets even better South Jordan was not the only Utah city to be named in the report. Also named were Logan 1st, Lehi 7th, and Taylorsville 8th, that’s a pretty impressive stat to have 4 out of the top 10 cities' in Utah.
When coming up with the list Verizon used the following criteria:
Population: This report is for small cities, where a small city is defined as having a population between 50,000 and 75,000 people.
Education: You can’t start a new business without employees, more specifically highly educated employees. In order to take this into account, Verizon looked at the percentage of people over 25 who have at least a bachelor's degree.
Travel Time to Work: The average time taken to get to work, obviously the shorter the better, no one wants to get stuck in traffic.
Income per Capita: Not as easy as it sounds. Verizon looked for a nice balance between people having a good income, while not being paid so much as to make it expensive to employee people.
Broadband Access: With more and more people working from home good access to high-speed internet is a very important factor.
Loans: You can’t start a new business without some kind of cash injection, so they looked at how easy it is for a small business to get a loan.
Tax: How business tax friendly the city is.
Non-farm Businesses: The number of non-farm businesses per capita. In its own right, this is a good indicator of how small businesses are performing.
Some time ago South Jordan decided to be more than just a bedroom community (a community where people live but not work), and this strategy seems to be working wonders. Differentiating itself from surrounding cities, South Jordan’s strategy of developing commercial space in addition to housing, while keeping a large amount of green space for recreation make it very attractive for both businesses and residents alike. A key component of this strategy is the Daybreak master-planned community, with its lake, trails, green space, shopping, and commercial development.
In addition to this South Jordan is also blessed with exceptional transport links, with I-15, Bangerter Highway, Mountain View Corridor, and TRAX light rail all running through or adjacent to the city.
For more information about the Verizon report and a list of the chosen cities please visit here.
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