Business Facilities - July 2008 - (Page 12)

COVER STORY By Jack Rogers and Bill Trüb Our annual look at the top-ranked localities reflects the fierce competition driving economic development across all regions. We have beefed up our criteria for selecting the best of the best to keep pace with the sophistication and diversity of these efforts. T his year’s annual Rankings Report is the culmination of a process that continues to evolve in tandem with the diverse and dynamic nature of economic development. Every year, we have made a special effort to expand and upgrade the data and criteria that are applied to our rankings. This year’s Report features several notable enhancements that we believe add value and credibility to the results. In recognition of the recent explosive growth in biotechnology initiatives across the United States, we have significantly expanded the criteria applied to our overall Biotechnology Strength ranking this year in order to give every state some measure of credit for its biotechnology efforts, and to make sure that demographics don’t outweigh meaningful accomplishments. In addition to established benchmarks like expansion of occupational employment, number of facilities, and overall state funding for biotechnology, we have examined a wide variety of indicators for overall strength, including availability of tarJULY 2008 geted tax credits, generation of biotechnology patents, university grant funding, and the number of bioscience higher education degrees in each state. RANKINGS GET GREENER We also have significantly expanded the criteria applied to our Greenest States ranking to reflect the growing importance of environmental considerations in site selection. To create this year’s ranking, we used the number of LEED-certified buildings as a starting point, but also factored in criteria including financial incentives for renewable energy, percentages of state populations that use public transportation, and pollution statistics as measured by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Our annual look at the top Global Business Environments has been reconfigured to make sure that all key regions are represented. For many of our U.S. rankings, we have supplemented our state rankings with several new categories that measure the ongoing competition between large cities and/or MSAs. As in past Reports, we have applied unique algorithms to our Business Climate, Quality of Life, and Education Climate rankings which yield reliable benchmarks that are true indicators of state leadership in these important categories. While we have dramatically expanded our data sources for all categories in this year’s report, we want to give a special tip of the hat to C Q Press, which publishes a multitude of statistics on states and cities annually, and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), which in tandem with Battelle each year produces the most comprehensive data set for state biotech initiatives. Some of this year’s results may surprise you, and, of course, a few of the rankings may spark debate. The competition in several categories was extremely close and there were more than a few photo finishes. We congratulate all of this year’s top-ranked locations, and, as always, we invite your suggestions for new categories that may be included in next year’s rankings. We encourage you to send us your thoughts via email at feedback@groupc.com. 12

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Business Facilities - July 2008

Business Facilities - July 2008 Contents First Word Snapshots Corporate Moves: New York The 2008 Business Facilities Rankings Report 2008 Rankings: Biotech Blasts Off 2008 Rankings: Green with Envy 2008 Rankings: Warm Climate for Business Nanotech Looms Large in Pennsylvania Metro Spotlight: Inland Empire, CA Food Processing Sites: Providing Sustenance as Well as Nutrition Sale-Leasebacks: Easing the Credit Crunch Corporate Moves: Georgia Metro Spotlight: Albuquerque, NM Advertiser Index Inside LiveXchange

Business Facilities - July 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.