No. 27
Columbus, OH
Transformation takes time,
and venture capitalist Rich
Langdale began to change the
course of Columbus’s startup
scene 20 years ago when he
created what is now the Center
for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Ohio State University. Decades later, it’s attracted
Silicon Valley transplants like
Chris Olsen and Mark Kvamme,
former partners at Sequoia
Capital who now run the biggest VC firm in town. Meanwhile, local corporations,
including Nationwide Mutual
Insurance and Grange Insurance, have started funds to
invest in startups. Now Columbus is betting on its 2016 win of
the U.S. Department of Transportation’s $40 million Smart
City Challenge. The city is rolling out nine projects from their
Smart Columbus plan that are
all about electric vehicles, self-driving vehicles, and smart
sensors. —K.R.
No. 28
Sacramento-Roseville-Arden-Arcade, CA
Eighty miles northeast of San
Francisco, California’s sleepy
capital has long angled for
some of the Bay Area’s economic dynamism. Now that’s
starting to happen, thanks to a
housing-and-affordability crisis
driving startups out of the Bay
Area. Sacramento has ameni-ties tech companies seek, like
a top-tier university (University
of California, Davis) and plenty
of outdoor activities. Housing is
so cheap that startups can pay
their engineers half as much
and they still have more disposable income. The city is partnering with UC, Davis on a new
innovation campus to attract
more startups like SupportPay,
a platform for child-support
arrangements, which took
advantage of a $100,000
subsidy to relocate from
Santa Clara in 2016. —J.B.
No. 29
Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI
At the center of this city’s
building boom is the Milwaukee
Bucks’ new arena, Fiserv
Forum. Half a mile away sits the
Pabst Brewery complex, which
includes N; Studios, a new
40,000-square-foot artistic
co-working hub with tenants
