The Atlantic’s Cities section decided to rank the country’s cities by the number of Fortune 500 headquarters within each – a measure that used to mean more than it does today, globalization and all.
It’s no surprise that with 18, New York comes in first place, followed by Houston, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. But when the size of each city becomes a part of the equation, Milwaukee (with five Fortune 500 headquarters) comes out on top.
One Atlantic reporter (and statistician?) found that the two factors that affected where a corporation anchored itself was based on the size of the metro area – based on population or economic output – and access to talent, as in number of college graduates.
