Whenever people ask why they should move a business to Howard County, Dick Story, perhaps the area's biggest booster, pulls out "the list."

It's a collection of the county's rankings on best-of lists, and it offers plenty of reasons why someone might want to work or live in the largely suburban enclave between Baltimore and Washington — great schools, great parks, great libraries, highly educated work force and so on. And the most recent coup: The Columbia- Ellicott City area landing No. 2 on Money magazine's list of the "Best Places to Live in America."

"We have a list of superlatives," said Story, who heads the county's Economic Development Authority.

But Howard County isn't basking in the glory alone in Maryland.

The Baltimore- Towson metropolitan area ranked as fifth-best for working moms by Forbes magazine in July. Baltimore also landed among "eight hip cities for urban lifestyles," featured in the spring issue of Where to Retire magazine, aimed at readers looking to relocate in their golden years. And in May, the websites Apartments.com and CareerRookie.com listed Baltimore as the ninth-best place to live for recent college grads.

Call it keeping up with the Joneses writ large. These "best-of" lists and rankings seem to have proliferated and grown in popularity. Compiled by publications, associations and nonprofits, they shine a light on traits as broad as business climates and housing prices, and as specific as Main Streets and locally brewed beer.

Opinions vary as to how much of an economic — and reputation — boost the rankings provide to the cities, states and neighborhoods that celebrate them. A single mention on one list might not mean much. But places that appear consistently in an array of surveys can benefit by selling a total image and stirring interest from potential new businesses and residents.

The nods to Howard County provide independent validation of its attributes and are often used in promotions, said Story, whose agency works to lure companies to the area.

"When everything else is equal, these are the kinds of things that improve the quality of life," Story said. "An executive who makes a decision has to go home and tell the family, 'Guess where we're moving.' It becomes a matter of personal preference."

To be sure, many places fighting crime and grime want to do all they can to accentuate the positive. Baltimore is no exception, having long battled its "Bodymore, Murderland" reputation and sometimes finding itself ranked unfavorably in surveys.

The city was ranked No. 4 (and Washington No. 3) among the "most irritation-prone" cities, according to a survey sponsored by Edge Shaving Gel that measured humidity, traffic, underemployment and comedy clubs per capita.

Local government, tourism and economic development officials and real estate agents say they watch the various rankings closely, even plotting ways to improve their scores on surveys.

"It's good to be mentioned favorably in as many of these things as you can, because it reinforces a favorable image, not that any of them will be the overwhelming factor for someone to locate here or move here," said Joseph T. "Jody" Landers III, executive vice president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors.

And if cities or towns slide in the rankings from previous years? Officials say that's nothing to obsess over.

"It reminds me of the Oscar Wilde quote: 'There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about,' " Landers said.

Tom Noonan's favorite accolade for Baltimore came this year from Sherman's Travel and Lonely Planet.com, both of which placed Baltimore among the Top 10 Underrated Cities.

"The city has changed so much, and our product is so much better than our reputation," said Noonan, president of Visit Baltimore, the city's tourism and convention bureau. "People still have a dated, rust-belt perception."

Noonan says he and his staff pick and choose among the rankings when it comes to promoting the city to visitors and convention groups, depending on who's coming to town. For instance, the bureau directs prospective health convention planners to the U.S. News & World Report ranking of Johns Hopkins as the best hospital in the nation — for 20 years in a row.

The varied designations all add up to branding power, Noonan said, including a nod as the 10th-best large city for art in the U.S., as selected by American Style Magazine readers in May; a ranking in the 30th spot in a Top 100 Fun Cities list by Portfolio.com; and Travel + Leisure's nod to the American Visionary Art Museum as one of the 10 places to see before you're 10.

"The more exciting the city is, the better the brand and the more people want to come here," Noonan said.

Donald C. Fry, president and chief executive of the Greater Baltimore Committee, said lists can offer promotional benefits, but he warns against drawing conclusions, good or bad, about a place without digging deeper into the rankings' methodology.

"Rankings are something the general public is fascinated by, and they do make news, but there's more to the rankings than meets the eye," he said.

As part of a presentation this summer to the Maryland Economic Development Association on the state's competitiveness, Fry analyzed the state's rankings on 10 widely circulated business climate surveys conducted in the past year and a half. Whether Maryland is hospitable to business is hotly debated.

The surveys showed Maryland ranking from third to 45th.

In a "best states for business" category across several rankings, the state was ranked 12th by Forbes, 27th by Chief Executive magazine and 42nd by Directorship.com, he found. Meanwhile, Maryland took the No. 3 spot in the Kaufman Foundation's ranking of "new economy," which measured information and technology resources, but it placed 45th in a Tax Foundation list ranking overall business tax climate.

Fry found that surveys tend to use different criteria and vary in their points of emphasis and even how they define the same categories. Nonetheless, he believes surveys can help identify weaknesses. For instance, surveys tend to show Maryland struggling in the "cost of doing business" category but excelling in categories of education, quality of life and emerging businesses.

Rather than trying to influence the surveys, Fry says, the state should home in on what kind of a business climate it wants to have, then pursue policies to get there.

"We need to decide what sort of a city we want to be, set that strategy and implement it," he said. "In all likelihood, the surveys will take care of themselves."

This year, Oakland, in Garrett County near Deep Creek Lake, was named one of America's top summer lake towns by Budget Travel Magazine, while Patterson Park was chosen as one of Southern Living magazine's best Southern comeback neighborhoods.

But it was the Columbia-Ellicott City area's ranking behind Eden Prairie, Minn., as the best places to live in America that caused the most stir recently. Community members and officials celebrated at a gathering last month in Centennial Park, handing out No. 2 pencils and unveiling a list of slogans to sum up the new designation, such as "Woo-Hoo ... We're #2," and "Money Talks — and it says We're #2."

It was not Columbia-Ellicott city's first time on the list; the area moved up from No. 8 two years ago.

"We certainly don't expect half of the Fortune 500 companies to pick up and move tomorrow, but we do expect it to further establish Howard County and Columbia and Ellicott City in people's minds as a great place to live," County Executive Ken Ulman said.

A particular ranking "enters into the conversation," Ulman said. "It's another factor. If you just got relocated to Maryland and were looking at where to move, you would probably Google best places to live in Maryland."

Creig Northrop, president of the Creig Northrop Team of Long & Foster Real Estate in Howard County, who grew up in Ellicott City, said the buzz over the Money magazine ranking is so strong that prospective buyers have been asking specifically to see homes in Columbia or Ellicott City, especially if they're new to the state. He expects a lingering, measurable effect in the form of increased property values.

"Certainly, the ranking puts Columbia and Ellicott City on the map," Northrop said. "A lot of people don't know where it is or what it is. Each year, we've gotten better, which is a real compliment to the area. This is the list to be on because of the huge circulation of the magazine."

And perhaps as importantly, the ranking "puts our challenges in perspective," according to Ulman.

"We're not immune to the worldwide economic downturn," he said. "But when you look around the country, and it's been said that we're one of the best places in America to live, it puts the challenges in perspective."

lorraine.mirabella@baltsun.com