Achieving first place in the coveted CNBC America’s Top States for Business ranking is no easy feat. A state must perform above average to excellent across ten broad categories ranging from the cost of living to workforce and education. Each year, the weight of the various categories is adjusted to reflect the latest issues and trends in business, and for 2024, infrastructure was the most heavily weighted category, at 17% of the overall score.
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While notching the top spot is a bragging point, once you’ve hit it three times in the last five years, perhaps it’s now somewhat expected. The unsurprising winner of the 2024 edition was none other than Virginia. On infrastructure alone, Virginia recorded an A grade and an A+ in education. The cost of doing business, economy, technology and innovation, business friendliness, and access to capital all fell in the B- to B+ range, and the only average scores (C+) were cost of living, quality of life, and workforce.
Virginia barely squeaked out North Carolina by an impossibly slim margin of just 3 points. Rounding out the top 5 were Texas, Georgia, and Florida. Infrastructure had long been a weak point for Virginia, dating back to 2016. The Commonwealth ranked below average at 32nd eight years ago but steadily improved to finally crack the top 10 in 2022. Yet, the leap from 10th in infrastructure in 2023 to 3rd in 2024 was most impressive.
Infrastructure matters more than ever in economies across the globe, still living with the effects of pandemic supply chain hiccups. Virginia invested heavily through its Virginia Business Ready Sites Program and similar initiatives to improve the state’s highways and bridges, the availability of office and industrial space, the reliability of its electrical grid, the availability of renewable energy, and the sustainability of the state’s overall infrastructure. CNBC employs metrics such as the volume and value of goods shipped by air, road, rail, and water, the availability of air travel, commute time, broadband service, and the risk of wildfires, flooding, and extreme weather, among others.
Business friendliness is the other area that stands out for current and potential Virginia employers. The state ranked 5th in the nation in this popular category that measures overall bureaucracy, trade and labor regulatory regimes, hospitality, emerging industries, and lawsuit and liability climates. State land use regulations were a new measurement in 2024, as were the state requirements that guide AI industry development.
Northern Virginia is recognized as the data center capital of the world with the lowest commercial electricity rate in the mid-Atlantic region and attractive tax incentives for data center providers.
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