Entrepreneurship has been attracting attention as a

model for rural economic development following

several influential studies showing that new-business

formation is strongly correlated with regional

growth and job creation.1 Some observers see a

focus on rural entrepreneurship as inherently more

cost-effective than traditional business-attraction

efforts and more closely aligned with other development

goals, such as reducing the dependency of

rural communities on a few dominant employers.

Nevertheless, rural areas face challenges

that must be understood before an effective

entrepreneurial climate can be developed.

To gain an understanding of the situation

in rural New England, we can look at the

U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistics of U.S.

Businesses (SUSB) and review recent trends

in new-business creation. The SUSB reports

on the number of independent—that

is, nonsubsidiary—business start-ups by

county and industry for each year between

1998 and 2006. (It excludes nonemployer businesses, private households, certain types of agricultural production, and most government entities.)