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Des Moines is the highest-rated Midwestern market for small business vitality, ranking 22 out of 100 largest metropolitan areas nationwide, according to a American City Business Journals Inc. study released last week.

North Carolina had the two highest-ranked cities – Raleigh and Charlotte – based on a six-factor formula that includes population growth, job growth, small-business growth and small-business concentration. The cities that scored the highest in the study had prosperous economies, are expanding rapidly and are densely packed with small businesses (companies with 99 or fewer employees).

Of the 100 markets reviewed, the combined group as of mid-2007 encompassed 65 percent of the nation’s population and contained 4.9 million small businesses.

The South and West dominated the top of the rankings. Detroit ranked last.

See the full article at www.bizjournals.com/edit_special/75.html.