Despite the regular barrage of criticism from his Democratic opponents, Mayor Bloomberg was named one of Time magazine’s best big-city mayors.

In an issue scheduled to go on sale today, the magazine lists Mr. Bloomberg, who ran in 2001 on an anti-politician platform, as one of the most effective leaders in a city with a population over a half million people. The others mayors on the list are Chicago’s Richard Daley, Atlanta’s Shirley Franklin, Denver’s John Hickenlooper, and Baltimore’s Martin O’Malley.

The recognition, political analysts said, is a coup for New York’s Republican mayor, which will undoubtedly be used on campaign brochures and in letters to potential voters.

“It’s always good to get outside recognition from journalists who don’t have any particular political ax to grind,” a political science professor at Columbia University, Steven Cohen, said yesterday.

Time chose Mr. Bloomberg out of 29 mayors. The magazine said only that it consulted urban experts to come to its decision.

“It’s tempting to judge our mayors for the little things that make life livable … but the best mayors have also been those who act on a grand scale,” the magazine’s Nancy Gibbs wrote.

Mr. Bloomberg issued a statement from Berlin where he was campaigning in support of the city’s bid for the 2012 Olympics at a gathering of sports federations.

“Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the thousands of city employees that I am privileged to lead, Time magazine has recognized that the city is going in the right direction and we are grateful for this honor,” it said.

A former City Council member from Brooklyn, Kenneth Fisher, called the recognition a “forest-and-trees perspective” which looks at macroeconomic issues such as the economy but probably doesn’t capture residents’ daily frustrations. The recognition, the Democrat said, will give Mr. Bloomberg one more endorsement to point to as he campaigns for a second term.

“For a third-party validator to come along and say he really is a good mayor is very important for Bloomberg,” Mr. Fisher said.

A spokesman for the speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, one of the four Democratic candidates looking to replace Mr. Bloomberg, said the magazine did not reflect residents’ concerns.

“While a magazine may feel this way, it’s clear that New Yorkers believe that this mayor has made the wrong choices time and time again on the issues that matter to their lives,” the spokesman, Steve Sigmund, told The New York Sun yesterday.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll, Mr. Bloomberg had a 46% approval rating at the end of March, a slight slip from his rating over the previous few months. Time said the nation’s three worst mayors were San Diego’s Dick Murphy, Philadelphia’s John Street, and Detroit’s Kwame Kilpatrick.