GIS Planning , a geographic data company that bills itself as "the world leader in online solutions for economic development," has an online tool designed to help entrpreneurs find the best place to locate new companies. At ZoomProspector.com , you enter the criteria that is most important to you about a location, and you get regional data designed to help you make your decision. BusinessWeek recently used ZoomProspector to find the best small city in each state to start a company. And the first thing you learn in John Tozzi 's article is that bigger cities do not necessarily make better places to start a business. In high-growth and more conventional businesses, many entrepreneurs find that bigger isn't always better when it comes to selecting a place to start a company. "People are being drawn by lower cost of living and better quality of life," says Jack Schultz, founder and CEO of industrial developer Agracel of Effingham, Ill., and author of Boomtown USA: The 7½ Keys to Big Success in Small Towns. He also says states and cities are beginning to recognize entrepreneurs as a "third leg" of economic development, as important as retaining existing jobs and attracting large corporations. While startup meccas like the Bay Area offer concentrations of talent and investors, new companies there face plenty of competition for those resources, and the cost of doing business is high. In smaller cities, new businesses enjoy lower costs and a higher profile to attract workers, and may be able to get government incentives to create jobs. The below heat map from ZoomProspector shows startups per capita across the country. (The darker the red, the more startups per capita). Read the full BusinessWeek article here . And look at a slide show of each state's best small startup city here .