The region ranked 25th last year in the seventh annual poll ofmetropolitan areas, according to D&B's Entrepreneur magazine.The other top five slots go to the southeastern cities of West PalmBeach/Boca Raton, FL., Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC, Atlanta, andCharlotte/Gastonia/Rock Hill, NC-SC.

Dallas is ranked sixth and Austin-San Marcos comes in at 10while San Antonio has copped the 14th slot. "The dominance ofsouthern and southwestern cities ... is driven by the percentage ofnew bsiness starts among the entire business population in each ofthese cities," says Iris Geisler, D&B's economic analyst whoconducted the study.

The costs for rent, labor and other support needs in many of thetop-ranking cities are somewhat higher than the US average, butthey are offset by an skilled available labor force and anincreasing number of larger businesses.