By Dave Gatton
May 21, 2007

The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, Inc. Magazine, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors announced the 2007 fastest growing 100 companies in America’s inner cities at a major economic summit held in Boston (MA) on May 3. The companies averaged an astounding annual growth rate of 49 percent, and a five-year average of 535 percent.

The Inner City 100 is a program sponsored by the organizations to rank and publicize the fastest growing inner city businesses nationwide. This year’s list was selected from more than 4,500 nominations, originating from 150 cities.

San Antonio-based TerraHealth took top honors with recorded revenues of $15 million in 2005 with a five-year standard growth rate of 7,448 percent. The company employs 358 people and helps healthcare delivery systems get the services of contract medical professionals in 32 states.

Collectively, the top 100 inner city businesses have employed nearly 19,000 people and created 12,000 new jobs over the past five years. Both of these figures are the highest in the programs’s history and sho signs of continued growth. Seventy'six percent of companies expect steady growth, 15 percent expect their revenues to double, five percent expect their revenues to triple, and two percent expect revenues to decline in 2007. Individually, the average Inner City 100 company’s revenues were $39 million—the largest average revenues in the history of the Inner City 100 program.

Thirty-one percent of Inner City 100 company employees live in inner city neighborhoods. The average hourly wage paid by the winning companies is $15.22, and the average annual salary is $48,126. Ninety-nine of the 100 companies provide employee health plans for employees. Forty percent of the Inner City 100 companies are minority-owned.

At a major luncheon during the Inner City 100 event, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin received the ICIC Mayoral Inner City Leadership Award presented by Michael Porter, Harvard Business School Professor and Chairman and Founder of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City. Porter described Franklin as a “shining example” of sustainable change in the areas of inner city economic development, business growth, improvement of social services and preservation of green space throughout Atlanta.

“Mayor Franklin has announced the creation of the BeltLine Partnership to increase greenspace, improve transit, connect inner city neighborhoods and foster livable communities in Atlanta,” said Porter. The mayor was acknowledged for her work on Atlanta’s Renewal Community’s Commercial Revitalization Credit Program that has provided funding for the renovation of warehouse buildings, restaurants and retail centers in South Atlanta neighborhoods.

In accepting the award, Franklin congratulated the winners of the year’s Inner City 100 businesses and encouraged them to continue their growth and contributions to inner city neighborhoods. “This program is about you and your success,” she told the CEOs. “Congratulations for making this year’s Inner City 100 list, and thank you for demonstrating that cities are the new place to do business in America,” she said.

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino was acknowledged for his city’s strong showing of companies in the Inner City 100. Again, Boston was among the top five cities with companies on the Inner City list. Menino has been a strong supporter of the Inner City 100. His “Back Streets” program is a national model for growing and retaining small businesses in inner cities. He is a former recipient of the Mayoral Inner City Leadership Award.

Also at the luncheon, 33 young (under 21) CEOs were honored as inner city entrepreneurs as part of the Growing Up CEO program, sponsored by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City and Merrill Lynch. The young CEOs were selected for their creativity and innovation in the started-up of their new businesses.