Magazine ranks Tennessee 4th best state for business, again

For the second straight year, Chief Executive magazine named Tennessee the fourth best state for business.

For all eight years the magazine has produced the list, the first and last place states — Texas and California respectively — have remained unchanged. Other states in the top five were Florida, North Carolina and Indiana.

The list [1] was based on the responses of 650 CEOs, who graded states in which they do business based on tax and regulation, quality of workforce and living environment.

“Recently moved from New York state to Tennessee,” an unnamed CEO is quoted as saying. “Differences in ambience/climate/cost of living/attitude of government towards business are outstanding!”

In a recent interview with The City Paper [2], Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said that he has heard businesses looking to relocate to Tennessee express concern about controversial social legislation proposed at the state level but that it didn’t ultimately keep them from making the move.