Businesses Thrive in Mountain, Midwest States

Given the close link between job creation and housing demand, it can't hurt builders in these 10 markets that Forbes magazine's Web site ranks their towns as the best places for business and careers.

Surprisingly, mountain and Midwest markets such as Boise, Idaho, and Madison, Wis., ranked ahead of perennial centers of commerce such as Chicago and Los Angeles.

Forbes.com turned to analysts at Economy.com, a West Chester, Pa.-based economic and financial research firm, to come up with this list. "We still kept a careful eye on income and job growth," the editors of forbes.com write. "But we also gave special attention to the cost of doing business, which includes the prices of labor, energy, taxes and office space.

"For the first time our rankings also characterized the attractiveness of a region by figuring in crime rates, housing costs and net migration."