Lafayette: 2nd Best Place To Launch A Business

CNNMoney.com ranked the top places to start a business and Lafayette, LA came in 2nd in the Mid-Sized Market category. They said:

...In recent years, Hurricane Katrina evacuees have expanded the local population -- and that population has grown steadily wealthier. Lafayette's average per-capita income rose more than 40% over the course of this decade. Since the 1940s, the area has been dominated by the oil and gas industry, but the population boom has led to more demand in service industries, diversifying the area’s economy and creating something new in town: traffic. Compared to other Southern metro areas, the cost of labor is cheap in Lafayette. The city is served by a regional airport, and Louisiana’s second largest university, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, brings to town a student population of more than 17,000.

The full story and complete rankings can be found here at money.cnn.com