America's Fastest Growing Urban Businesses
For the past seven years, Inc. and the Initiative for a Competive Inner City (ICIC) have teamed up to recognize America's fastest growing urban businesses through the annual Inner City 100 list.
This year, despite their challenging work environments, the members of the 2005 Inner City 100 list have thrived. Between 1999 and 2003, the companies on this year's list created more than 9,500 new jobs. And they've experienced an average growth of 827% over five years.
Here, you can discover more interesting facts and statistics about the companies on the 2005 list, related stories from the June 2005 issue, and read all 100 profiles of the companies honored on this year's list.
More Tales of the Inner City
A remarkable group of entrepreneurs deserves credit for transforming America's toughest neighborhoods this year, writes Michael E. Porter. But there is still much that cities can and must do to support these crucial growth companies.The Reformer
Michael Connelly, the CEO of Mosaica Education, a for-profit educational service company based in New York, and this year's number one company, says that part of its business's mission is to demonstrate that "private enterprise can operate public education." After the company enters into a management contract with a community's school board, it becomes responsible for everything under the roof, from operations to budgeting to hiring and firing. Mosaica also is responsible for the school's curriculum, which Connelly attests, is its central selling point.
Read the entire profile on this year's number one company.
The Inner City 100 2005 List
Here is a complete list of this year's honorees, with links to profiles on each of the companies.
Web-Only Exclusives
- Are Things Happening in Detroit?
- Kwame Kilpatrick, the optimistic mayor of Detroit and winner of this year's ICIC Mayoral Leadership Award, believes the Motor City is becoming a hotbed of entrepreneurship, despite what others say.
- 2005 Inner City Almanac
- Why do companies locate in the inner city? What was the average valuation of companies on the 2005 list? And what contributed most to their growth over the past five years? Discover answers to these questions and more in this collection of interesting facts and statistics about the companies that made the 2005 Inner City 100 list.
- 2005 Inner City 100 Hall of Fame
- Three companies will appear on the Inner City 100 for the fifth time out of the seven years that the list has been in existence. Here are this year's inductees into the Inner City Hall of Fame .
- 2005 Inner City 100 Countdown
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Inc.com counted down to this year's list by profiling several Inner City honorees in the Fresh Inc. weblog.
