Albuquerque's No. 1: This time it's a great ranking!

Albuquerque tops, for the first time ever, Forbes magazine's just released 2006 list of Best Places for Business and Careers.
The ranking, which was revealed in a news release on Thursday, judged New Mexico's largest city on categories ranging from the cost of doing business, income growth, cost of living, crime rate, and culture and leisure to its educational attainment. The magazine will publish the list of the nation's top cities for business and careers on May 22.
Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez says the city has "worked on [becoming No. 1] for decades."
The Duke City, which just celebrated its 300th anniversary last month, ranked fifth overall in last year's Forbes' poll. Chavez says the 2006 ranking is the best birthday present the city could ever receive.
For the cost of doing business, it ranked first among about 200 of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, including Phoenix, Houston and Indianapolis. Forbes especially noted the selection of the city by Tempur-Pedic (NYSE: TPX) and Eclipse Aviation for new manufacturing or start-up operations.
Albuquerque has held onto the top rank for its cost of doing business for the past two years. Where Albuquerque also glowed was in the category of income growth. It helped propel upward the city's ranking from 109th in 2005 to No. 30 in 2006. As well, the city's crime rate ranking improved, falling from 129th in 2005 to 173rd in 2006.
Chavez noted that the city's lower ranking among the big cities for its crime rate will bode well for economic development.
The city's rank for job growth, however, dropped from 38th in 2005 to 60th in 2006. In the category of cost of living, Albuquerque fell from No. 50 in 2005 to 80th in 2006. It also tripped up in educational attainment, having placed 39th in 2005 compared to No. 54 this year, yet still achieving the top quarter percentile among the cities in the rankings.
Despite the latter numbers, the authors of the Forbes study say Albuquerque, as an entire package, is the best place among the nation's largest cities for doing business.
Chavez says the ranking will attract more investments as businesses look for opportunities here to expand or start a business.