Inc. has a posting, listing of “These Are the 50 Best Places in America for Starting a Business”. In that list
Chicago is number 36, after other Midwestern cities Minneapolis, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Milwaukee. Most of these are behind the obvious cities on both coasts.
https://www.inc.com/surge-cities/best-places-start-business.html?cid=landermore
Now is this a true unbiased look, or is it coastal centric like so many other studies?
From the Midwest standpoint, this sounds reasonable, Chicago does have its plusses, but it does have its minuses as well. The financial uncertainty of both Chicago and Illinois being very large minuses to all businesses located herein.
The snippet harps on 1871 and then mentioned a few start-ups that are rapidly becoming large brands.
Elk Grove Village and some of the surrounding suburbs have their own business accelerator with Next Level Northwest, to assist smaller business get to the next level.
https://www.nextlevelnorthwest.org/
Just think where we could be if our politicians got their acts together and fixed our infrastructure and cost costs to get the financial situation fixed. There would be nothing to stop Chicago and Illinois top all charts.