6 Colorado metros in top 30 of Forbes Best Places for Business and Careers rankings

If you’re in the market for a job or to expand your career, then mid-America – including any of Colorado biggest metros – is the place to live, according to Forbes’ 12th annual ranking of the Best Places for Business and Careers.

Boulder landed 14th on the ranking of the 200 largest metro areas in the nation, but it didn’t have the highest showing of Colorado cities: Fort Collins (with which Loveland is grouped) landed in the fourth slot, while Denver ranked sixth. Colorado Springs came in two places ahead of Boulder, while Greeley (includes all of Weld County) was 29th. Pueblo was the only Colorado metro that didn’t make the list.

To come up with the Best Places for Business and Careers, Forbes looks at the 200 largest metro areas ranging in population from 245,000 to 11.7 million, It ranked areas on 12 metrics including costs (business and living), job growth (past and projected), income growth, educational attainment and projected economic growth. Forbes also factored in quality of life issues such as crime, cultural and recreational opportunities as well as net migration patterns. The magazine also considered the percentage of subprime mortgages handed out over a three-year period and the number of highly ranked four-year colleges in the area.

The recession took its toll on nearly every big city across the nation last year, with home prices dropping in 182 of the metros ranked, according to Forbes. Household incomes also fell in 94 percent of these areas. Of the 200 metro areas, just four of them recorded positive job growth but with only 4,300 positions created between all of them. The other 196 metros together lost 3.5 million jobs in 2009.

Here’s a look at how Colorado’s metro areas faired in Forbes’ Best Places for Business and Careers: