Fotheringham said Utah Valley needs to promote awareness of its human resources to bring businesses in, but also work on growing locally.

"For the future, we need to look at developing from within instead of from without," he said. "Let's set up some business accelerators, let's try to gather together some funds for companies who want to prove their concepts and start up businesses that create the large numbers of high-paying jobs."

He said encouraging local entrepreneurs was essential in light of the low number of incentives offered to businesses by the county and state.

"We are notoriously skinny on incentives as far as the state is concerned," he said. "We know of potential businesses we've lost because we didn't offer the incentives that other places did."

Fotheringham said the number of technology companies and the high concentration of people with second language capabilities in Utah Valley are also attractive qualities for businesses, as many are becoming more global in scope.

In the Gold Guide ratings, which are part of the just-published "America's Best Cities & States: The Annual Gold Guide to Leading Rankings," all states were included in the national rankings. About 50 cities were listed in each city category.

Categories included:

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• Overall — Utah sixth, Salt Lake 26th in the city rankings.

• Business climate — Utah 22nd.

• Economic dynamism — Utah 17th, Salt Lake 21st.

• Entrepreneurship and small business — Utah seventh, Salt Lake eighth.

• Environment — Utah 36th, Salt Lake 23rd.

• Government — Utah 24th, Salt Lake 49th.

• Health and welfare — Utah fifth, Provo 33rd and Salt Lake 39th.

• Infrastructure — Utah 14th, Salt Lake fifth.

• Public safety — Utah 16th, Orem 28th.

• Quality of life — Utah eighth.

• Technology — Utah fifth.

• Education — Utah 10th.

Details are available at www.nprcouncil.com/ggmedia.

The Gold Guide is published by NPRC Press, a division of the National Policy Research Council, a Washington-based think tank offering nonpartisan research, analysis and information to state and local policymakers.

The rankings were developed by NPRC researchers.

The third study was by the Pacific Research Institute, which ranked Utah fifth among U.S. states according to how friendly or unfriendly their governments are toward free enterprise.

Details of the study, titled "The U.S. Economic Freedom Index: 2004 Report," will be available later this summer. It is being produced by PRI in association with Forbes magazine.