- Start with life fit (housing, schools/childcare, safety, walkability, culture) — then validate the ecosystem.
- Look for activity you can touch: meetups, coworking, connectors, customers. Beware paper-thin landing pages.
- Taxes and incentives are tie-breakers, not deciders. Density, community and consistent investment matter more.
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Ryan Touhill talks a lot about walking.
Maybe that’s funny for a guy with an economic development job. But in just about every conversation I’ve ever had with Arlington, Virginia’s director of economic development, he’s brought up walkability.
Sure, Touhill talks taxes, incentives and office vacancies. He administers a $1M grant program for startup founders, and he’s part of the team supporting the big and shiny, if controversial, Amazon HQ2. When Technical.ly reported the number of software developers was growing faster in tiny Arlington than any other county in the DC region, Touhill said attracting new residents is best done by making things better for people who already live there.
To any current or aspiring entrepreneurs who are considering where to bring their company, Touhill counsels, don’t just go shopping for the sweetest perks.
“Founders want to build companies where they actually want to live. That’s walkable neighborhoods. That’s vibrant communities … It’s a safe place to live,” Touhill told me. “And then also … hopefully it’s a business-friendly environment to start and expand your business.”
To be sure, different people choose different places to live for different reasons. But in many places, there’s been a shift from traditional economic development tactics — pitching accounting teams of major corporations, for example — to an entrepreneur-led approach. From B2B to B2C, as it were.
Entrepreneurs don’t choose places to start companies. Entrepreneurs choose places to live, and then start companies where they live.
Of the 25 million Americans who move each year, 85% of them relocate for one of three reasons: housing, family or job. The fastest growing reason, though, is a cheaper place to live, and so entrepreneurs need housing more than tax breaks.
That presents a challenge for Touhill and his peers across any high-cost part of the country.
Whether an entrepreneur is relocating with a spouse or because of an investor or for industry concentration, there’s room for preference. Touhill is as serious about regionalism as any economic development leader I’ve chatted up: Across DC, Maryland and Virginia, Touhill wants economic growth by maximizing connections within the region and giving more people more choice about where to live there.
“I’m never sending my business development team out to go poach another startup from a community next to us,” Touhill said. “We’re all in this together.”
It might sound overly optimistic in a region known for sharp-elbowed Type A personalities spanning multiple jurisdictions — and battles with the federal government over home rule.
But Touhill means it, and has a rubric for entrepreneurs looking for home, wherever that might be.
A simple, three-step rubric for founders
1) Life fit first
Touhill suggests you first list your non-negotiables: commute time you’ll tolerate; school/childcare access; proximity to family; budget for housing; walkability and transit; safety; access to parks/culture. If a place can’t clear your life bar, stop there.
Remember that within any given region, there’s range. Within the DMV for example, choose between tony Georgetown, DC, urbane Arlington, Virginia, educated Howard County, Maryland or rural West Virginia.
2) Ecosystem signals you can see
Increasingly tourism and tech and startup events are chances to window-shop a place, Touhill notes. Visit for 48 hours and stress-test:
- Can you find meetups, events and partners on the calendar this week?
- Are there coworking spaces and do they feel lived-in?
- Can you meet two paying customers or channel partners while you’re there?
- Are there connectors (ecosystem staff, university programs, founder groups) who return cold emails?
“Here’s one thing that hasn’t changed: the need for community and connectivity. Everybody still wants that,” Touhill said.
3) Then check the business basics
Look into talent availability, customer proximity, cost of space, regulatory friction, and yes, taxes/incentives. Use these as tie-breakers — not the starting gun. Economic development orgs specialize in this, so their websites can be helpful, but misleading.
“If you go [to a place] and there’s no meetups, there’s no events, there’s no partners, [it’s] probably not a great environment for you to start your business,” Touhill said. But if you see that activity … and consistent investment — not just a landing page — that’s when you know: this is the place.”
Why tourism, talent and startups now blur together
Arlington put its visitor bureau inside economic development and even promoted a shared brand. The point: people rarely move somewhere cold. They visit, return, build relationships and then relocate.
- Attend two meetups and one industry event.
- Work one full day from a local coworking space; talk to three people.
- Book three customer/partner meetings in-market.
- Test your real commute (drive, transit, and bike if that matters).
- Meet the ecosystem team (econ dev, SBDC, university program) and ask what they fund every year.
Arlington also launched an international soft-landing program that didn’t just teach rules — it walked founders through neighborhoods, restaurants and streets to feel the place. That’s smart. Entrepreneurship-led economic development works best when it stitches human connections, not just announces clusters.
“We’re not forming the companies; the entrepreneurs are,” Touhill said. “So we’re just trying to set an environment where they can make those connections.”
If the ecosystem is lucky, there will even be an independent news resource to find the people making that community thrive. Walking helps too.
