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Urban League: DC Is Best City for Black Firms

With the national black unemployment rate hovering at 16 percent, it has been tempting for some job seekers to consider hanging up their own shingle. Believe it or not, some small black business owners are thriving in this precarious economy, and it's all about location, location, location.

This week the National Urban League Policy Institute released a study ranking the top metro areas that are conducive to black-owned businesses and recommends ways to replicate successes. The top ranking goes to the D.C. metropolitan area, second to Los Angeles and its surrounding areas, while the Chicago metropolitan area tied for third place with the Detroit metropolitan area (go here for complete list).

"We found that cities with strong diversity supplier policies and which allow easy access to business-to-business and government contracts were the best environments for black-owned businesses," Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said in a prepared statement. "Not surprisingly, we also found that of the top areas for black-owned businesses, five included cities where the National Urban League operates Entrepreneurship Centers.