"From Chicago’s city of big shoulders to the new businesses bolstering Detroit’s renaissance; in Cleveland and Cincinnati and Kansas City and St. Louis, startup economies are flourishing across the Midwest," writes Jonathan Shieber in TechCrunch.

"The proof is in events like Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest tour, a whistle-stop paean to entrepreneurship whose first leg wrapped up over the summer. Case just finished his second turn through the Midwest this month, writing $100,000 checks to winners of pitch competitions in cities like Madison, Wis., Minneapolis, Des Moines, St. Louis and Kansas City."

Read the full story here.