Downtown Huntsville

Downtown Huntsville. (AL.com file photo)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Huntsville was the only city in Alabama to make Techie.com's new Most Promising Tech Hubs of 2014 list.

Other U.S. cities featured on the list, which was released Monday, were Atlanta; Burlington, Vt.; Fort Collins, Colo.; Champaign/Urbana, Ill.; Detroit; Kansas City, Mo.; Orlando, Fla.; Minneapolis/St. Paul; and Sioux Falls, S.D.

"One of the most important factors in naming our most amazing tech hubs is the presence, or at least the emergence, of a tech and startup culture," said Dan Blacharski, Techie.com editor-in-chief. "Without the culture, the meetups, and the fun places to go in the city, tech startups just won't want to come."

Techie.com editors also considered other factors, including the presence of incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces, city and community support and available infrastructure, such as high-speed Internet.

A Techie.com article highlighting the top 10 cities lauded Huntsville's Cumming Research Park, aerospace and military technology companies, and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.

"But it's not all government and academia; Huntsville is rapidly emerging as one of the best places in the South for small, emerging tech businesses," Blacharski said.

The piece also features quotes from BizTech Chief Executive Officer Gary Tauss and Huntsville entrepreneur and Small Business Meetup Group creator Brandon Kruse.

"For a great place to launch a startup, entrepreneurs need look no further than Huntsville," Blacharski said. "The entrepreneurial scene, and vibrant incubators like Biztech – along with good old fashioned southern hospitality – has made Huntsville one of the greatest laboratories for tech startups in the country."

Among some of Huntsville/Madison County's other recent honors: the third best U.S. city for Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) graduates by NerdWallet; a top high-tech U.S. hotspot by the Progressive Policy Institute; one of the top U.S. cities on the rise by NerdWallet; a high-ranking U.S. city for economic growth potential by Business Facilities Magazine; one of the best cities for high-tech startups by Entrepreneur Magazine; and a great city for computer programmers by ValuePenguin.

Send Lucy Berry an email at lberry@al.com.