East Arizona News

A report from Arizona State University ranked cities in North America on how easy it is to start a business. 

The report, which looked at 12,000 points of data, was released on Oct. 5, according to a press release from Arizona State University. 

Nine undergraduate students, led by senior research fellow Stephen Slivinkski, compared 130 cities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada for “Doing Business North America 2020."

“Policymakers are interested in this in order to make sure they have a healthy economy and a base of people to fill their cities,” Slivinski said in the press release. 

The report ranks Raleigh, North Carolina, as the easiest city of doing businesses in, scored at 82.42 of 100. Arizona's cities that were included in the report are Phoenix, ranked at 59, Mesa, ranked at 58 and Tucson, ranked at 69. Compared to last year's report, all of these cities went down on the list, but 15 cities were also added to the list this year. 

“One thing would probably have to do with employees’ ability to work remotely,” Slivinski said in the press release. “There are tax provisions and licenses that go into that and we may be able to measure those types of things. We hope to add a handful of cities every year and have enough of a time frame to see a good, strong pattern emerge over the course of multiple years."