While Philadelphia may be lagging behind in entrepreneurship, apparently it’s not such a bad environment to launch your startup.  CNN Money and (once again) the Kauffman foundation teamed up to “find the 50 most business-friendly communities in America” and Philadelphia made the cut.

It seems a few of the reasons were that there is an above average amount of young college graduates and an extremely large number of small businesses in the area (presumably to work with).  Taxes were factored in, and apparently overall, despite our business tax, we were still somewhere in the top 30 or so it seems.  There’s some more information also on how they came to their conclusions.

The Kauffman Foundation in their recent summary on entrepreneurship for 2008, highlighted both Pennsylvania and Philadelphia briefly, in a not so positive light.

The states with the lowest entrepreneurial activity rates were Pennsylvania, Missouri, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Iowa and Ohio.

Among the United States’ fifteen largest metropolitan statistical areas, Atlanta had the highest entrepreneurial rate (0.74 percent) in 2008. Philadelphia had the lowest rate (0.16 percent).

There has been a lot of speculation over reasons for this amongst various groups in the area.  Everything from the Philadelphia business tax situation to the historic industry of this area has been suggested as potential reasons for us lagging behind, but the report itself perhaps details some possible reasons.

U.S. entrepreneurship rates increased for the lowest-income-potential and middle-income-potential types of businesses from 2007 to 2008; it decreased for the highest-income-potential types of businesses.

Perhaps we’re just in the highest-income-potential category.  I know optimism and perseverance  in the area and on the street couldn’t be stronger.