According to announcements Monday morning by Site Selection magazine and the state of North Carolina, Lexington-Thomasville was the magazine's top-ranked micropolitan area in economic development success nationally in 2007.

And the adjoining Greensboro-High Point metropolitan area, which consists of Guilford, Randolph and Rockingham counties, for the second consecutive year was the top-ranked metro with a population between 200,000 and 1 million.

"The latest Site Selection ranking proves that it is not just the large cities that benefit from North Carolina's investments in education, workforce development and the state's top-ranked business climate," Gov. Mike Easley said. "As industries recognize they can find the 21st-century training programs and qualified workers they need in all communities across the entire state, we gain jobs and effectively compete to lead in the global economy."

Officials in Davidson County and the Piedmont Triad hailed the twin No. 1 rankings as a coup for the region and predicted the recognition will attract the attention of corporations and consultants looking for new locations for business over the next year.

"It's very, very exciting for our region to have two winners," said Don Kirkman, president and chief executive officer of the Piedmont Triad Partnership. "Certainly this will help increase awareness of the attractiveness of the Triad and get us on the radar of companies and ... site location consultants." PTP will probably use the rankings in its marketing efforts, he said.

Greensboro-based PTP is a regional economic development organization representing 12 Triad counties, including Davidson.

Site Selection is a 54-year-old Atlanta-based publication about corporate real estate and economic development and the official publication of the Industrial Asset Management Council. The magazine has awarded an annual Governor's Cup for the U.S. state announcing the most new and expanded corporate facilities since 1978 and has ranked metropolitan areas along the same lines since at least 1990.

"North Carolina's metropolitan and 'micropolitan' communities throughout the state are well-represented in our rankings this year," said Mark Arend, editor in chief of Site Selection. "This tells me that North Carolina is successfully transitioning its economic base from one that was dependent on a couple of industries in the past to one that is attracting investment from a wide variety of industries today."

The magazine, calling the first- and second-place micropolitan wins "highly unusual," said those rankings speak to the broader region's attractiveness to expanding companies and the state's efforts to keep its business climate competitive.

The publication established a "small town" category for 2001 and changed it to "micropolitan area" for 2004, after the Census Bureau and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget created the new designation for urban areas based around a core city or town with a population of 10,000 to 49,999. There are 674 micropolitan areas in the United States.

This is the first year that a No. 1 metro and the No. 1 micropolitan area or small town have been located so close together.

Lexington-Thomasville ranked eighth for 2004 and fourth for 2005 but was unranked for 2006. Lexington-Thomasville unseats Statesville-Mooresville, which had held the No. 1 ranking for three consecutive years.

Steve Googe, who became executive director of the Davidson County Economic Development Commission in late 2002, said he set his sights on trying to approach the job-creating success of Statesville-Mooresville but never expected to match or surpass the Iredell County area.

"I feel like Eli Manning," Googe said, referring to the football quarterback who led the New York Giants to an upset of the New England Patriots in this year's Super Bowl. "I just beat a dynasty."

Site Selection magazine ranks micropolitan areas based on the number of new and expanded corporate facility projects they carry out that include at least $1 million in capital investment, 20,000 square feet of new floor space or 50 new jobs.

Lexington-Thomasville had 30 projects meeting the criteria in 2007, compared with 21 for second-place Statesville-Mooresville, 17 for third-place Wooster, Ohio, and 14 each for Tupelo, Miss., and Daphne-Fairhope, Ala., which tied for fourth.

Greensboro-High Point also had 30 projects meeting criteria during the year, compared with 29 each for Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb./Iowa and Akron, Ohio, which tied for second, and 27 each for Wichita, Kan., and Dayton, Ohio, which tied for fourth. Raleigh-Cary, N.C., tied for sixth with Syracuse, N.Y., with 25 projects.

Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Ill./Ind./Wis., with 236 projects, was the top-ranked metro with a population over 1 million. Sioux City, Iowa/Neb./S.D., with 23 projects, was the top-ranked metro with a population between 50,000 and 200,000. Rocky Mount, N.C., with nine projects, tied for sixth in that last category.

North Carolina, which had 291 projects overall, dropped from third in the rankings for 2006 to fourth for 2007. Ohio, which had 399 projects, won the magazine's Governor's Cup Award for the top-ranking state for the second year in a row, followed by Illinois with 362 projects and Tennessee with 293 projects.