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Seventeen Florida Cities Ranked in the 2014 Forbes Top 200 Best Places For Business West Palm Beach Ranked As Top Florida Community For Business August 6, 2014 The Forbes 16th annual ranking of the Best Places for Business and Careers analyzed the 200 largest metropolitan statistical areas and divisions in the U.S. Areas were ranked using twelve metrics related to the cost of doing business, job growth, and education: • Job growth (1-year, 5-year and projected 3-year) • Costs (business and living) • Income growth over the past five years • Educational attainment (college and high school) • Projected economic growth through 2016 • Net migration patterns over the past five years • Cultural and recreational opportunities • Number of highly ranked colleges in an area per our annual college rankings Raleigh was ranked the #1 place for business, ranked 29th for cost of business, 25th for job growth, and 12th for education. Rounding out the top 10 metropolitan areas were Des Moines, Provo, Denver, Ft Collins (CO), Lincoln( NE), Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Nashville. Seventeen Florida communities were ranked in the top 200. West Palm Beach (54) was the top ranked Florida place for business, ranked 142nd for cost of business, 105th for job growth, and 55th for education. Rounding out the top five Florida communities were Orlando (67), North Port (69), Tampa-St. Petersburg (72), and Jacksonville (75). Four South Florida communities were ranked in the top 200: West Palm Beach, Ft Lauderdale (102), Pt. St. Lucie (109), and Miami (113). The full report is available at http://www.forbes.com/best-places-for-business/ About InternetCoast InternetCoast was founded in 1999 as a non-partisan, not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization. Its mission is to be a proactive forum and catalyst to stimulate collaboration between leaders in business, government, communities, academia, and research to position South Florida as one of the world's top innovation regions. Download The News Release Here>>> ###