Corridor Business Journal: Iowa City ranked first and Bettendorf came in last among small Iowa cities in WalletHub’s 2019 Best Small Cities to Start a Business released last week. Iowa City came in 238th nationally, scoring high (25th place nationally) for “access to resources” and in the middle of the pack for “business environment” (530) and “business costs” (653). By contrast, Bettendorf ranked near the bottom of the national list, coming in 1,130th place and scoring particularly low numbers for “business environment” (1,183rd place). The WalletHub study compared more than 1,261 cities with fewer than 100,000 residents across 18 key metrics. The data set ranges from small business growth rates and accessibility of financing to investor access and labor costs.