The Best Places For Business And Careers...

Kurt Badenhausen, Forbes Staff

Jon Bruner, Forbes Staff

The U.S. economy continues to sputter along with frustratingly high unemployment and sluggish GDP growth, but there are pockets of the country that are booming with 4% unemployment and 8% economic growth. Companies looking to squeeze costs and maximize productivity are increasingly turning to these locales to relocate operations and open new offices.

You won’t find many of these areas on the two coasts. Cities in California and New England are saddled with high business costs and heavy regulatory burdens. States in the heartland, like Utah, Texas, Nebraska and Colorado, have the best business climates right now. 

 Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma and Utah have the friendliest business environments in the United States, according to a survey from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and services directoryThumbtack. All four of those states won “A+” grades overall for low taxes, regulatory environments that are easy for small businesses to navigate and ease of hiring employees.

Topping our 14^th annual list of The Best Places for Business and Careers is Provo, Utah. The $16 billion economy is thriving largely on the back of Brigham Young University. The school provides a stabilizing presence as the third-largest private college by enrollment in the U.S. The school is also generating new jobs. During 2010 it ranked third in the numbers of start-ups produced through university research—13 in total—behind only the nearby University of Utah (18) and MIT (17).

Job growth was a robust 3% in the Provo metro in 2011, third best in the U.S. It enjoys—by far—the lowest violent crime rate in the U.S. and ranks tenth lowest overall for crime, including property crime. The metro population has doubled over the past two decades to 542,700.