Image via Barbara Haddock Taylor, Baltimore Sun

Here's a little anecdote to get the day started. Some dudes in Balitmore with a parking app and a panda for their mascot totally left that town and headed to the Big Apple when they landed a spot in the innagural ER Accelerator.

For anyone who's been paying attention, New York is throwing a sort of start-up summer camp this year, with half a dozen accelerators and incubators putting young start-ups through the paces. The L.A. Times, which doesn't even mention ER by name, seems blown away by the idea of a company getting $25,000 and a spot in Times Square.

"Baltimore might have had its own private accelerator in place this summer — Miller and Zilberbaum applied for it — but organizers couldn't pull together the necessary funding," that article intones.

In the last year three accelerator programs, Entrepreneurs Roundtable, DreamIt and Techstars, which was ranked as the #1 program in the nation by the Kauffman foundation, have all launched in NYC. HackNY, Big Apps and Founder Labs are also in the mix. The result is a critical mass where start-ups are drawn to the city even when they fail to win a coveted spot, knowing that a new opportunity might open up soon.

Feeling confused? Not to worry, Betabeat has created a handy guide to picking the right accelerator for your start-up.

Of course, Panda Parking might be equally interested in New York's other natural resource, tons and tons of cars, very limited space and alternate side rules that can only be deciphered by a smartphone.