Best U.S. Cities for Business

Seattle, above, is the best city for business in the country, according to Fortune magazine’s fourth-annual ranking of 60 metropolitan areas. The magazine noted that Seattle is home of America’s biggest exporter, Boeing, and is one of the nation’s largest seaports. Fortune compiled its list by asking Moran Stahl & Boyer, a consulting firm, to survey more than 900 executives on subjects ranging from taxes and social conflict to the quality of the labor force. The responses were used to calculate indexes designed to measure a city’s quality of life and its competitiveness in a global economy. The top 10 cities are:

1: Seattle

2: Houston

3: San Francisco

4: Atlanta

5: New York

6: Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

7: Denver

8: Chicago

9: Boston

10: Orlando, Fla.