A new survey from Thumbtack.com and the Kauffman Foundation shows Atlanta ranked number 5 overall when it comes to the friendliest city for small businesses.  The city’s small business owners were also the nation’s fifth-most optimistic about their economic prospects for 2012. The only areas where the city struggled were its environmental and zoning regulations.

According to Thumbtack co-found Sander Daniels, the survey draw data from an extensive, nationwide pool of job creators and entrepreneurs in order to investigate the best places in the country to do business. More than 6,000 small businesses across the country – from wedding planners to auto mechanics – took part in the survey.

“For small businesses looking for a place to hang a shingle, they can’t do much better than Atlanta,” Daniels said.

Some of the key findings for Atlanta include:

  • Atlanta earned an A+ for its networking programs.
  • Small businesses rated Metro Atlanta as having the state’s second-healthiest economy for small businesses, but the region also had the least-friendly health and safety and licensing regulations.
  • Women-owned small businesses in Georgia were significantly more optimistic about their financial future than their male counterparts. Female entrepreneurs were 16 percent more likely than male entrepreneurs to rate their companies’ financial situation as likely to improve over the coming year.

To see all of the Atlanta results visit thumbtack.com/ga/Atlanta.

Collin Kelley

Collin Kelley has been the editor of Atlanta Intown for two decades and has been a journalist and freelance writer for 35 years. He’s also an award-winning poet and novelist.