Despite the Cold Weather, the Pittsburgh Region is One of the 50 Hottest for Business Locations

Some good news to take your mind off of the bad weather: Expansion Management magazine today released its 2007 list of "America's 50 Hottest Cities" for expanding or relocating a business, and the Pittsburgh Region is one of them. The list is based on the opinions of 80 prominent site selection consultants as to the best places for expanding and relocating companies based on such factors as business environment, work force quality, operating costs, incentive programs, work force training programs, and the ease of working with the local political and economic development community.

Although 50 regions is a pretty long list, there are 312 other metros that didn't make it, and that includes a number of other major regions -- Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC. The fact that major site selection consultants would put Pittsburgh on a short list ahead of those other regions is good news for our region's efforts to attract and retain firms.

It's important to note that it's the strengths of the entire 10-county region that enabled us to make the list, not just the City of Pittsburgh or even Allegheny County. In fact, the article describing the list singles out Parametric Technology Corporation, a Boston-based company which is locating its on-shore product development solutions center in Uniontown (Fayette County), creating 125 engineering jobs there. (See this post from almost a year ago for more detail.)