Towns called 'best places to get rich'

The road to riches travels right through Boston's western suburbs.

So says Forbes.com, which recently named Waltham and Wellesley as two of the 10 ''best places to get rich."

Waltham ranked third -- behind Menlo Park/Palo Alto, Calif., and San Francisco, and ahead of other key contenders such as Boston/Cambridge and New York City. Wellesley rounded out the list at number 10.

Put simply, Betsy Schiffman, the article's author, wrote in an e-mail, these are the best places to be if you have a business idea.

The rankings were based on several factors, including local venture capital activity, the education level of the workforce, proximity to a major university, and, ''in the belief that like follows like, the number of local billionaires in the area," Schiffman wrote in the article.

Although he had not seen the list, Mark Rice, dean of the graduate school at Babson College in Wellesley, said he was not surprised that Waltham and Boston/Cambridge outranked New York. Greater Boston, he said, has long been a center for venture capital activity.

In the e-mail, Schiffman said that, unlike the list of best places to run a business, which Forbes also compiles, the list of best places to get rich focuses mainly on access to capital, not quality-of-life factors such as cost of living.

So while the opportunities to make money in these communities are abundant, they are not likely to come cheap.

''The cost of starting up in these cutthroat environments where lots of talented people are chasing the same dollars is high," the story states.

Still, John Edwards, vice president of commercial development at Compound Therapeutics, a Waltham biotechnology firm, said communities like Waltham are attractive because space is more available than in cities like Cambridge, and the commute can be easier for suburban employees.

His company has benefited from venture capital investments, and he said he has seen a lot of new business growth in both Waltham and Lexington, which came in at number 7 on the Forbes.com list.

''It's amazing the amount of start-up activity that exists," Edwards said.

EMILY SHARTIN