BusinessWeek has named Ann Arbor the state’s best city to launch a start up company.

The city’s proximity to the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University weighed heavily in its No. 1 ranking for Michigan. Across the country, universities “provided the resources of talent and infrastructure that helped them compete with metropolitan centers” and also nurture startup companies or programs to commercialize academic research. 

Entrepreneur John Behrman said the universities have created a desirable work force for entrepreneurs.

“There’s a plethora of talent that walks out of that school and [some] of that talent doesn’t want to move away. You’re able to get inexpensive labor that has high-end potential and you don’t have to match what they’d make at a big company because they don’t want to move.”

BusinessWeek used the university criterion and 10 others, including workplace quality, the number of patents issued and the amount of venture capital invested. A city’s quality of life is also a major draw for talent.

Ann Arbor has 2.3 start ups per 1,000 people and 55 small business per 1,000 people. The city’s total population is 113,485.

Justin Miller is a political journalist based in Wayne County who has worked for Real Clear Politics, blogged for The Atlantic and covered the 2008 elections in Ohio for The New York Observer’s Politicker.com network of state politics news sites.