How Entrepreneurial is Asheville?

Entrepreneurialism is a characteristic often associated with independence, risk-taking and innovation. Many economists view entrepreneurs as the critical players behind an economy’s dynamism, resilience and economic potential. Precisely calculating entrepreneurialism is difficult, but Federal Agencies provide several independent measures that can be used to gauge the relative levels of entrepreneurial activity in a local economy.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis counts the number of sole proprietors, or self-employed persons in each U.S. metro area. The agency separates out farmers to avoid biasing those areas with agriculturally dominated economies. According to the 2014 data, Asheville had …  READ MORE