From Detroit to New Orleans: Companies to Watch

From Detroit to New Orleans: Companies to Watch

The Inner City 100 is a ranking of the fastest-growing inner-city companies in the country. The list is compiled by the Boston not-for-profit Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, founded in 1994 by Harvard Business School's Michael E. Porter. The ICIC's aim is to foster economic growth in inner cities, and identifying high-growth inner-city companies is one way it showcases the competitiveness of these areas. For the 12th annual list, companies were ranked on their compound annual growth rate from 2004 to 2008, with the help of accounting firm Rucci, Bardaro & Barrett, ICIC's pro bono partner. To qualify for this year's list, a company must be located in an inner city and must have had at least $200,000 in revenue in 2004, at least $1 million in revenue in 2008, and employ at least 10 people full-time.

Profiles of the top 25 companies follow. Our interactive table shows the ranking of all 100. Business descriptions are excerpted from ICIC profiles.